Jennifer Cueto

Jennifer Cueto Naredo was born in Gijón, Asturias (1992). She has completed her undergraduate (2014) and master (2016) studies in Chemical Engineering (University of Oviedo). In January 2020, she obtained the Ph. D. degree in the same institution with international mention and Cum Laude distinction in the doctoral program of Chemical, Environmental and Bio-Food Engineering (Extraordinary PhD Degree Prize). After that, she worked in Arcelor Mittal R&D Centre as a project Engineer through Innvel 2 Consulting and in the Chemical Engineering Department of Oviedo University as a scientific researcher. Currently, she is working as postdoctoral researcher at IMDEA Energy Institute (Móstoles, Madrid). Regarding her research activity, it has been carried out mainly at the University of Oviedo, as well as at RWTH University of Aachen (Germany) in the context of a pre-doctoral stay. This research activity is focused mainly on obtaining second generation biofuels using residual biomass as raw material. Being this field very extensive, research studies have been divided into four parts: - Aldol condensation of high added value platform molecules such as levulinic acid or furfural using different solvents (water or ethanol) and heterogeneous catalysts. Through this chemical reaction it is possible to increase the number of carbons present in the chain of the final products, obtaining a higher quality of the final biofuel. As a result of these works, five scientific articles have been published in high impact journals. Furthermore, she has co-directed an end-of-degree project. - Hydrogenation of the compounds obtained in the previous reaction to obtain compounds of higher added value, being able to be used as chemical precursors or biofuels. A scientific article has been published. - Development of stable catalyst to transform ethanol into heavier alcohols such as octanol or decanol. - Biomass pyrolysis to obtain not only valuable biofuels but also high-added chemical compounds using different basic and acid materials such as mixed oxides. Besides, twelve communications have been presented to international and national congresses, both poster (7) and oral (5) formats. In addition, she has participated in different research projects and she has obtained three different competitive research grants. Also, she has attended several training courses and has collaborated in the organization SECAT´17 congress. As to the teaching activity, it has consisted of the collaboration in laboratory classes for different undergraduate studies (Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology).