His work focuses on the development of sustainable technologies, including hydrogen production and storage for fuel cell applications, natural gas purification, carbon capture, and improving air quality within vehicle interiors. His technical expertise spans advanced adsorbents and catalysts, syngas technologies, metal hydrides and complexes, and the covalent surface functionalization of materials.

Throughout his career, Alvaro has built and maintained a strong network of academic and industrial collaborators across the United States and Europe, securing more than €3 million in research funding as both project coordinator and leader. He has supervised three PhD students and one master’s student and has played a key role in the development and demonstration (TRL 5–7) of sustainable technologies in partnership with major industrial companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, TotalEnergies, and ArcelorMittal.

Process Decarbonization Challenges:

For over 200 years, Johnson Matthey has leveraged advanced metal chemistry to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges, establishing itself as a global leader in sustainable technologies. The company has set an ambitious target to reach net zero emissions by 2040 and, in April 2021, joined the United Nations Global Compact’s Business Ambition for 1.5°C.

This commitment requires strong focus on R&D to identify and deploy the most advanced technologies aligned with its strategy including chemical looping. The transition will require new materials designed to be integrated into critical components of processes that are continuously evolving to become more efficient and sustainable. The energy required—and its efficient use—will demand increasing electrification, replacing natural gas and coal with new technologies and materials compatible with alternative heat sources. Process flowsheets will be redesigned, giving rise to new technology licenses in the market. Many fossil fuels will be replaced by biomass or waste feedstocks, introducing new stoichiometries, impurities, and operational challenges. Traditional processes will also require carbon capture and utilization solutions to remain viable in a decarbonized economy. Chemical looping is emerging as a highly disruptive pathway for process decarbonization in hard-to-abate industries, as it inherently enables CO₂ separation while maintaining high efficiency and reducing the energy penalties of conventional capture technologies. By rethinking how oxygen and heat are delivered, it opens new routes for low-carbon hydrogen, syngas, and heat-intensive processes. However, its deployment depends on advances in materials, reactor design, and system integration, making it a complex, multidisciplinary challenge.

For an industrial leader such as Johnson Matthey, unlocking this opportunity requires close collaboration with academia to accelerate materials innovation, with engineering experts to translate concepts into scalable processes, and with heavy emitters and end users to validate real-world applications and ensure commercial relevance within evolving industrial ecosystems.