Past Research
Dr. Montero has been involved in multiple research projects throughout his career education, participating on diverse areas of materials science: organic chemistry, heterogenous catalysis, porous materials such as MOF and HSAC, graphene dispersion, and most recently with metal hydrides for hydrogen storage applications.
During his BSc studies, he developed a synthesis procedure to obtain and characterize a new organic molecule, derivate of terephthalic acid, to be used as the organic linker in the MOF-5, with the objective to combine the enantiomeric properties of the L-proline (an amino acid) and the heterogenous catalytic properties of the MOF-5. The organic reaction was carried out in three steps, each including purification of the products by column chromatography, and characterized (elucidating the molecular structure) using diverse spectroscopic techniques such as NMR, FTIR, GC-MS, and elemental analysis. The incorporation of the new molecule into the MOF-5 was carried out using only 10% of the compound (L-proline coupled to terephthalic acid). Material characterization included TGA and XRD techniques. The final material was then used as a catalyst in an aldolic reaction to estimate the enantiomeric excess using HPLC.
For his MSc thesis project, he studied the synthesis of grahene by sonication and the dispersion of graphene sheets in aqueous solutions using a variety of surfactants (ionic and non ionic). These studies allowed a better understanding of the stabilization behavior of the different functional groups in the surfactant and their interaction with the 2-D graphene sheets. The physical properties of the produced graphene were then characterized by microscopy techniques (AFM, SEM).
During his PhD, he studied the hydrogenation properties in high-entropy alloys, one of the newest paradigms in metallic materials. He developed a series of high-entropy alloys based on transition metals (Ti, V, Zr, Nb, Hf, Ta) and introducing other lightweight elements such as Mg and Al, to study the changes in the hydrogen absorption/desorption properties as compared to an initial quaternary base composition TiVZrNb. The structural and thermodynamic properties of the materials were evaluated using a variety of techniques such as (SR)XRD , neutron diffraction, SEM-EDS, DSC, TGA, TDS, and volumetric techniques (Sieverts' instruments) to evaluate the hydrogen capacity and PCI curves of the materials..