Cátia Graça (CG) won a very competitive PhD research grant financed by the European Commission under the framework of the Europe-Brazil Mundus mobility program, that gave her the opportunity to become a PhD fellow at the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, until May 2017. During her PhD research, CG obtained substantial background in the development and implementation of advanced water treatment technologies. After the PhD completion, CG was Postdoctoral researcher (2014-18) at AdOx (USP, Brazil), visiting researcher at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil, 2017-18), and Postdoctoral researcher LSRE-LCM between 2018 and December 2020. In September 2021, she was contracted as Doctoral researcher for the Smartoxidation project (FEUP, LSRE-LCM) and at the end of 2022 she was awarded with a 6-year contract by the 5th Scientific Employment Stimulus, financed by FCT - the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology.

CG has been participating in several research projects as team member, both in Portugal and Brazil. Moreover, CG participated in the Early Career Research committee of the 4th and 5th editions of the Iberoamerican Conference on Advanced Oxidation Technologies – CIPOA (2019 in Brazil, 2022 in Peru) and was the guest-editor of a special issue of Water mdpi (ISSN 2073-444) “Research on Micropollutants in Urban Water”.

CG co-authored more than 20 publications in international peer reviewed ISI indexed journals, totalizing over 280 citations (h-index 10, Scopus). These research results were also disseminated over 20 conference proceedings, both as oral and poster presentations.

CG has co-supervised 14 students, among undergraduate and master students both from Brazil and Portugal and participated in 5 academic degree juries.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Environmental technologies
Advanced Oxidation processes
Toxicity assays
Catalytic Ozonation
Carbon Catalysts

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Ribeirinho-Soares S., Moreira N.F.F., Graça C., Pereira M.F.R., Silva A.M.T., Nunes O.C.. Overgrowth control of potentially hazardous bacteria during storage of ozone treated wastewater through natural competition. Water Research, 209, 117932, 2022 C.A.L. Graça, S. Ribeirinho-Soares, J. Abreu-Silva, I.I. Ramos, I.I., A.R. Ribeiro, S. Castro-Silva, M.A. Segundo, C.M. Manaia, O.C. Nunes, A.M.T. Silva. A Pilot Study Combining Ultrafiltration with Ozonation for the Treatment of Secondary Urban Wastewater: Organic Micropollutants, Microbial Load and Biological Effects. Water, 12, 3458, 2020 C.A.L. Graça, R.B. Lima, M.F.R. Pereira, A.M.T. Silva, A. Ferreira. Intensification of the ozone-water mass transfer in an oscillatory flow reactor with innovative design of periodic constrictions: Optimization and application in ozonation water treatment. Chemical Engineering Journal, 389, 124412, 2020

SELECTED PROJECTS

SmartOxidation - Membranas funcionais para oxidação de poluentes emergentes em águas residuais. Reference: NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-069836. Funded by: ANI – Agência Nacional de Investigação, P2020|COMPETE - Projetos em Copromoção. Starting Date: 2021/01/01. Duration: 30 months. DEPCAT - Demonstration of new equipment involving integrated CATalytic processes for treatment of organic pollutants and disinfection of water. Reference: NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-033330. Funded by: ANI – Agência Nacional de Investigação, P2020|COMPETE - Projetos em Copromoção. Starting Date: 2018/10/01. Duration: 18 months.
Cátia Graça
Investigador Doutorado
catiaalgraca@fe.up.pt