Fitxa persona

Antoni Vicent Orchillés Balbastre was born in Gandia (Valencia) in 1955. He studied Chemistry, specialising in Industrial Chemistry, at the University of Valencia (1973-1978). He obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the same university in 1984 under the supervision of Drs. Avelino Corma and Juan Bta Montón, receiving the Extraordinary Doctorate Award.
He has published more than 50 research papers in various fields of Chemical Engineering, mainly in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis, separation operations and phase equilibrium, and has presented numerous papers at conferences.
His line of research dedicated to heterogeneous catalysis began in 1981 when he started working with Dr Avelino Corma at the ITQ, a joint centre of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the CSIC. During this period, his line of work focused on the search for and optimisation of zeolite-based catalytic cracking catalysts, working with both pure compounds (paraffins, naphthenes, aromatics) and industrial mixtures such as diesel. He has also studied the deactivation of catalysts and their poisoning by nitrogen compounds, seeking conditions to minimise these negative aspects. In 2004, he joined the group specialising in the Thermodynamics of Electrolyte Solutions, which had been created in the Chemical Engineering Department in the 1990s. The group's objective has been to use electrolytes as entrainers for the separation by extractive distillation of azeotropic mixtures or mixtures that are difficult to separate. Initially, inorganic salts were used as extractive agents, but since 2006, inorganic salts have been replaced by ionic liquids, making it one of the first groups in the world to use ionic liquids as entrainers in the extractive distillation of mixtures. 
This line of research is complemented by the experimental determination of the thermodynamic and transport properties of mixtures formed by solvents and inorganic salts or ionic liquids. He has participated in more than 15 competitive research projects, acting as a researcher. He has six recognised periods of research activity (six-year periods), four of them as a university lecturer and two as a university professor.