Ana Caetano

University of Aveiro | UA · CICECO - Centre for Research in Ceramics and Composite Materials

The demand for products derived from the pulp and paper industry has been increasing over the past years and is projected to further increase over the coming decades. Although being one of Portugal’s most relevant industrial activities, contributing to nearly 2.3% of the GDP, this sector is known to generate a variety of wastes including fly ashes,...

Environmentally conscious biomorphic ceramics (Ecoceramics) are a new class of material manufactured from renewable resources and wastes. Sustainable cork wastes were pyrolysed, and this activated carbon template infiltrated with a sol-gel precursor (from aqueous green-chemistry) to form TiO2 on heating in air, with the honeycomb microstructure of...

In this work, alkali-activated fly ash-derived foams were produced at room temperature by direct foaming using aluminum powder. The 1 cm3 foams (cubes) were then evaluated as adsorbents to extract heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The foams’ selectivity towards lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper ions was evaluated in single, binary, and multicompon...

Ordinary Portland Cement is the most widely used binder in the construction sector; however, a very high carbon footprint is associated with its production process. Consequently, more sustainable alternative construction materials are being investigated, namely, one-part alkali activated materials (AAMs). In this work, waste-based one-part AAMs bin...

Solar thermochemical conversion of H2O and captured CO2 is considered for the production of high-value solar fuels and CO2 valorization, using non-stoichiometric oxygen-exchange redox materials. This work aims to compare the thermochemical cycle performance of different ceria structures, including biomimetic cork-templated ceria (CTCe), ceria foam...

Water splitting by solar energy-driven two-step thermochemical cycles is a promising approach for large-scale production of renewable fuels (e.g. hydrogen). The key challenge is developing materials capable of withstanding the harsh environmental conditions and to ensure high reliability in use, particularly in terms of redox kinetics and better ac...

FREE TO DOWNLOAD FOR 50 DAYS AT: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1ZkEC3O1E1GMLC In this investigation, and for the first time, pyrolysed sustainable cork was used to produce waste-based geopolymer-cork composites with enhanced electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding properties. The influence of the pyrolysed cork amount and the geopolymer poro...

This review explores the advances in the synthesis of ceria materials with specific morphologies or porous macro- and microstructures for the solar-driven production of carbon monoxide (CO) from carbon dioxide (CO2). As the demand for renewable energy and fuels continues to grow, there is a great deal of interest in solar thermochemical fuel produc...

Titanium dioxide is by far the most used semiconductor material for photocatalytic applications. Still, it is transparent to visible-light. Recently, it has been proved that a type-II band alignment for the rutile − anatase mixture would improve visible-light absorption. In this research paper we thoroughly characterised the real crystalline and am...

div>Titanium dioxide is by far the most utilised semiconductor material for photocatalytic applications. Still, it is transparent to visible-light. Recently, it has been proved that a type-II band alignment for the rutile−anatase mixture would improve its visible-light absorption. In this research paper we thoroughly characterised the real crystal...

The soluble amount of Si and Al in biomass fly ash (BFA) and metakaolin (MK) was determined by using a spectrophotometric (colorimetric) method. This low-cost technique is simple to operate, and shows high selectivity and suitable sensitivity. Molybdenum blue and eriochrome cyanine R (ECR) methods were used to quantify, respectively, the SiO2 and A...

Synthetic dyes, essentially due to their toxic nature, are considered one of the most serious wastewater pollutants and, once deposited in the water lines, become a problem to be removed. 1,2 Adsorption is considered the most effective and simple method for water decontamination. Activated carbons present singular properties, such as their high spe...

This work addresses the solar-driven thermochemical production of CO and O2 from two-step CO2-splitting cycles, using both ceria granules prepared from cork templates (CG) and ceria foams from polyurethane templates (CF). These materials were cycled in a high-temperature indirectly-irradiated solar tubular reactor using a temperature-swing process....

For the first time the feasibility of using an alkaline wastewater coming from the pulp and paper industry as an activator, partially (50 vol.%) replacing commercial sodium hydroxide, in the production of cork-based activated carbons was evaluated. The activated carbons showed the highest value of specific surface area ever reported for cork-based...

Metallic corrosion is an unsolved problem that has been minimized through the application of specialized coatings containing corrosion inhibitors, such as 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT). Recently, engineered nanomaterials (ENM), such as layered double hydroxides (LDH), were used to immobilize or encapsulate those compounds promoting their controlled...

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of suberin (a naturally occurring aromatic–aliphatic polyester ubiquitous to the vegetable realm) as a renewable source of chemicals and, in particular, to assess their physical properties. A comparison between cork and birch suberin fragments obtained by conventional depolymerisation...

Zinc-aluminium layered double hydroxides with nitrate intercalated (Zn(n)Al-NO3, n = Zn/Al) is an intermediate material for the intercalation of different functional molecules used in a wide range of industrial applications. The synthesis of Zn(2)Al-NO3 was investigated considering the time and temperature of hydrothermal treatment. By examining th...

In this work, nanocontainers based on layered double hydroxide (LDH) loaded with two different corrosion inhibitors, namely 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT) and cerium (III) nitrate, were prepared. MBT was intercalated into LDH galleries in anionic form by anion-exchange, while Ce3+ was fixed between polyelectrolyte layers on the surface of LDH-MBT na...