Alexandre Ferreira graduated in Chemical Engineering at University of Coimbra in 1997. From 1998 to 2000 he was research assistant at Imperial College, London. In 2000 he moved to University of Amsterdam, where he joined as PhD student, under the supervision of Prof. J. Moulijn and Prof. A. Bliek. In 2007 he was awarded the PhD degree at TU Delft. Previous to his PhD defence, in 2005, he joined the Catalysis Engineering group, under the supervision of Prof. F. Kapteijn, at TUDelft to work under the framework of the European NoE INSIDEPOReS. He was a core leader of the ‘Young Scientist’ group of the network. In 2006, he organized together with Prof. F Kapteijn the special NIOK course Adv. Cat. Eng. In 2008 he was granted post-doc fellowship by FCT at LSRE-FEUP, University of Porto. Upon obtaining a FCT Ciencia 2008 Researcher position in the same group, he became in charge of the daily supervision of many of the LSRE activities in the Cyclic Separation Processes area. In the period of 2009/13, together with Prof. A. Rodrigues, he was coordinating the LSRE scientific activities of the FP7 EU Project MACADEMIA. In 2013, he was awarded a competitive research grant funded by FCT: Air-2-Water producing drinking water from thin air. Since 2009 he supervised a successful PhD, 2 MsC, 3 post-doc fellows, and 3 project researchers. He collaborated with the visiting professor Masaki Okada. Currently, he is supervising 2 post-doc fellows, and 3 PhD students. He participated /is participating as team-member in 2 research projects funded by FCT. He was/is active in several industrial collaborations (Sud-Chemie AG, TOTAL, ExxonMobil, DSM). In total, he has published 40 papers, 9 as first author, with more than 580 citations, h-index of 15.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Cyclic Adsorption Processes (PSA, SMB)
Material Sciences (MOFs, zeolites, carbons)
Processes Intensification (PSAR, SMBR)
Heat Integration (Adsorption Heat Pumps/Chillers)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

M.A. Moreira, A.M. Ribeiro, A.F.P. Ferreira, A.E. Rodrigues. Cryogenic pressure temperature swing adsorption process for natural gas upgrade. Separation and Purification Technology, 173, 339-356, 2017 V.F.D. Martins, A.M. Ribeiro, J.C. Santos, J.M. Loureiro, K. Gleichmann, A.Ferreira, A.E.Rodrigues. Development of gas-phase SMB technology for light olefin/paraffin separations. AIChE Jounal, 62, 2490-2500, 2016 A.F.P. Ferreira, A.M. Ribeiro, J.C. Santos, M.C. Campo, A.E. Rodrigues. Modeling adsorptive separations using metal-organic frameworks. In Metal-Organic Frameworks: Materials Modeling towards Potential Engineering Applications, Ch. 10, pp. 419-449, J. Jiang (Ed), Pan Stanford Publishing Pte. Ltd., 2015 A.F.P. Ferreira, A.M. Ribeiro, S. Kulaç, A.E. Rodrigues. Methane purification by adsorptive processes on MIL-53(Al). Chemical Engineering Science, 124, 79-95, 2015 M.G. Plaza, A.M. Ribeiro, A. Ferreira, J.C. Santos, Y.K. Hwang, Y.K. Seo, U.H. Lee, J.S. Chang, J.M. Loureiro, A.E. Rodrigues. Separation of C3/C4 hydrocarbon mixtures by adsorption using a mesoporous iron MOF: MIL-100(Fe). Microporous and Mesoporous Materials, 153, 178-190, 2012 M.A. Moreira, J.C. Santos, A.F.P. Ferreira, J.M. Loureiro, F. Ragon, P. Horcajada, K.-E. Shim, Y.-K. Hwang, U.H. Lee, J.-S. Chang, C. Serre, A.E. Rodrigues. Reverse Shape Selectivity in the Liquid-Phase Adsorption of Xylene Isomers in Zirconium Terephthalate MOF UiO-66. Langmuir, 28, 5715-5723, 2012 A.F.P. Ferreira, J.C. Santos, M.G. Plaza, N. Lamia, J.M. Loureiro, A.E. Rodrigues. Suitability of Cu-BTC extrudates for propane-propylene separation by adsorption processes. Chemical Engineering Journal, 167, 1-12, 2011 A.F.P. Ferreira, M.C. Mittelmeijer-Hazeleger, A. Bliek. Can alkane isomers be separated? Adsorption equilibrium and kinetic data for hexane isomers and their binary mixtures on MFI. Adsorption, 13, 105-114, 2007

SELECTED PROJECTS

ECO-H2O - Air-to-Water: producing driking water from thin air. Reference: EXPL/AAG-TEC/2205/2013. Funded by: FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Starting Date: 2014/02/28. Duration: 18 months. Role: Coordinator CO2 separation from natural gas at low temperature. Reference: Total FR00006986. Funded by: Total SA, France Starting Date: 2014/02/01. Duration: 17 months. Role: Researcher New adsorption-based cyclic reaction-separation processes. Reference: EXCL/QEQ-PRS/0308/2012. Funded by: FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, EXCL - Linhas de Investigação de Excelência. Starting Date: 2012/12/31. Duration: 36 months. Role: Researcher Eco-efficient Separation of Propane/Propylene by Gas Phase Simulated Moving Bed. Reference: PTDC/EQU-EQU/103756/2008. Funded by: FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, FCT Project. Starting Date: 2010/02/28. Duration: 36 months. Role: Researcher MACADEMIA - MOFs as catalysts and adsorbents: Discovery and engineering of materials for industrial applications. Reference: FP7 228862. Funded by: European Comission, FP7 Project. Starting Date: 2009/06/30. Duration: 48 months. Role: Researcher
Alexandre Ferreira
Professor Auxiliar
aferreir@fe.up.pt