Nicole Catli from the Philippines is the DC12 Doctoral Candidate (Molecular Scale) in UPCYCLE MSCA Doctoral Network.
With a background in Chemical Engineering and Sustainable Biomass and Bioproducts Engineering, Nicole is pursuing a PhD at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Materials, and Environment at Sapienza Università di Roma under the supervision of Prof. Benedetta de Caprariis and Dr. Martina Damizia.
Her research focuses on elucidating the reaction mechanisms involved in the thermochemical conversion of hard-to-recycle biogenic wastes, with particular attention to sewage sludge and contaminated wood waste as representative real-world feedstocks. Through laboratory-scale experiments encompassing dry and wet thermochemical processes (pyrolysis, gasification, hydrothermal carbonization/liquefaction), she will explore how inorganic contaminants influence reaction pathways and product distribution and quality, generate kinetic datasets to support model development and process optimization, and track contaminant fate to guide process design and enable efficient resource recovery.
As part of the UPCYCLE training programme, Nicole will collaborate with international partners through secondments at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Fernando Martínez Castillejo, where she will work on pre-treatment strategies to improve efficiency of hydrothermal conversion processes, and at CarboREM under the supervision of Dr. Michela Lucian, gaining insight into the industrial implementation and scale-up of thermochemical conversion technologies.
Her work contributes to advancing sustainable waste management and the circular bioeconomy, supporting the development of cleaner, safer, and more resource-efficient waste-to-resource solutions.
We’re excited to follow Nicole’s research journey and look forward to the insights her work will bring. 🚀