Start of the new season of “De Copas con Ciencia”
Thursday 23rd November sees the start of the seventh season of the successful popular science project “De copas con ciencia” (Drinks with Science). An initiative that aims to satisfy the scientific curiosity of the population in a relaxed, entertaining and fun way in leisure time by bringing it to the bars. The activity is aimed at the whole population with scientific curiosity without the need for specific training in science and aims to be a meeting point for science lovers in order to facilitate the creation of scientific debates between experts and the general public.
The activity is organised by the research institutes, ISQCH (Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis) and INMA (Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon), both joint centres CSIC – University of Zaragoza, and will be repeated periodically on the fourth Thursday of each month. During these sessions, topics related to chemistry, nanotechnology and materials science will be discussed.
The first session of the season, with free admission, will take place on 23 November at 20:00 at El Sótano Mágico, Calle San Pablo 43, Zaragoza (http://elsotanomagico.com/) and will feature leading researchers and scientific disseminators, Andrés Campo and Fernando Lahoz:
“Hydrogen: present and future in the energy sector” – Andrés Campos Galera (Instituto de Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón, INMA (CSIC-UNIZAR)).
During the talk, we will delve into the challenges currently facing the energy sector in terms of generation, transport and consumption. The role of hydrogen in improving the efficiency and sustainability of the energy cycle will be analysed and an overview will be given of the current state of hydrogen technologies, their generation, transport, storage and consumption, and the near future of these hydrogen technologies will be shown.
Andrés Campos holds a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Seville and a master’s degree in materials science from the Carlos III University of Madrid. He has worked in the materials characterisation department of the Advanced Centre for Aerospace Technology (CATEC) in Seville and in the “Composites and Polymers” group at the Carlos III University. In 2022 he started working as a PhD student in the PROCACEF group at INMA. His work focuses on the development of a solid oxide electrolyser for hydrogen generation on an industrial scale.
“Crystals and Chemistry” – Fernando Lahoz Díaz. nstituto de Síntesis Química y Catálisis Homogénea, ISQCH (CSIC-UNIZAR).
During the talk we will travel through the world of crystals and crystallography. We will see how the careful observation of the behaviour of crystals has led crystallographers to provide vitally important clues to understand and modify the properties of chemicals and materials, starting from their molecular organisation at the atomic level to establish the most important paradigm of modern science, “the powerful relationship between structure and property”.
Fernando J. Lahoz is a chemist by training who soon became fascinated by the extraordinary potential of X-ray diffraction experiments to uniquely determine molecular structures. After various post-doctoral stages in Madrid, Parma (Italy) and Cambridge (UK), he joined the CSIC as a researcher, first at the ICMA and later at the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Homogeneous Catalysis (CSIC – UNIZAR), where he was director for 10 years. His scientific interest focuses on understanding the reactivity and/or catalytic activity of new metal complexes from the study of their crystal structures.
In addition, during the session there will be a face-to-face Hi Score Science competition aimed at the general public that will reward the scientific knowledge acquired by those attending the session.
Hi Score Science is a game of questions and answers about science, in Spanish and English, for mobile devices, iOS and Android that is developed between the two research institutes, the ISQCH and the INMA, which allows to include explanations of the scientific reality that lies behind each of the answers. The game can be downloaded free of charge and without advertising at Apple Store https://goo.gl/q1NjKy and Play Store: https://goo.gl/GgWq6N and for Windows, iOS and Linux at www.HiScoreScience.org. The app also allows users to participate in the project by sending us their own question.
20-11-2023
