David Ruiz-Alejos Rodríguez is one of this year's winners of the COGITIAR Chair's awards for the best Final Degree Projects (TFG). In his case, the award was for ‘Best TFG in Chemical Engineering’. A student at the University of Zaragoza, he is a member of the Catalysis and Reactor Engineering Research Group (CREG) with a TFM grant from the Aragon Institute for Engineering Research (I3A).
He focused his dissertation on the search for the most favourable conditions for CO₂ methanation by means of the so-called Sabatier reaction, in order to achieve maximum efficiency. This project not only pursues economic viability, but also real climate change mitigation by offering environmentally responsible solutions. ‘I believe that this balance between profitability and sustainability has been key to this recognition,’ says David Ruiz-Alejos.
He received this award at the ‘Ceremony for the awarding of badges for the 2024-2025 academic year and the COGITIAR Chair Awards for the best TFG in the 2023-2024 academic year’, which took place on 6 May at the School of Engineering and Architecture (EINA), organised together with the Official College of Graduates in Engineering and Industrial Technical Engineers of Aragon (COGITIAR), through its chair.
‘Receiving this award has meant for me a recognition of the effort dedicated to this project and, at the same time, an impulse to face new challenges’, says this young engineer, who also thanks the CREG research group and his TFG directors, Javier Herguido and Víctor Mercader, ‘who have made this achievement possible’.
David Ruiz-Alejos has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Zaragoza. ‘I have always been fascinated by the field of science and when the time came to choose a career, it was my father, who studied chemistry, who suggested this career to me because of its combination of theory and practical application’.
The proposal arose when, when she was looking for a director and a topic for her TFG, she turned to one of her degree lecturers, Javier Herguido, ‘his subject was of great interest to me, and it was precisely him, who would later become my director, who came up with the basic idea for the project’.
Currently, he is part of the I3A with a TFM grant, ‘I am taking advantage of the opportunity to collaborate with a multidisciplinary team and continue to grow as a researcher’. Of his time at the Institute, he stresses that it has been "very positive, the working environment, the collaboration of the team and the resources available have allowed me to develop enormously. It was precisely this experience that led me to continue with this group to do my Master's thesis".
COGITIAR Chair Awards: https://www.cogitiar.es/entrega-de-insignias-y-premios-catedra-cogitiar-a-los-mejores-tfg-de-la-rama-industrial/
