R. Soto holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering (2011, old plan: 340 ECTS), a MSc in Environmental Engineering (2012), a master's degree in University Teaching for Novel Professors (2017) and a PhD in Engineering & Advanced Technologies (2017), all from the University of Barcelona (UB). From 2017 to 2020, he was postdoctoral researcher at the University of Limerick (UL, Ireland), being later promoted to Research Fellow until 2021. Since then up to date, he is an assistant professor (lecturer) at the Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry department of the UB. He undertook a pre-doctoral stay at Gazy University (Turkey) in 2015 and a brief post-doctoral stay at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron (Oxford, UK) in 2019.
His main research interests cope with the application of heterogeneous catalysis and reactor engineering to produce environmentally cleaner fuels and biomaterials, especially the field of catalysis by ion-exchange resins to obtain green biofuels and platform chemicals from biomass. Etherification of alcohols/olefins, esterification of carboxylic acids with alcohols/olefins, alcohols dehydration, alkylation, hydrogenation, and light olefins oligomerization and isomerization are focused reactions. Optimizing conditions to minimize by-products formation, the relations of activity and morphological properties of catalysts, reactions thermodynamics/kinetics, and the application of advanced characterization techniques (e.g. FTIR, Raman, PXRD, TGA, DSC, SEM, TEM, ISEC) are leitmotifs of his research, as can be inferred from several publications. The study of liquid and gas phase adsorption of olefins, alcohols and ethers is also part of his research. He is also engaged on catalyst preparation/testing for CO2 valorization with green H2 to produce green methane, i.e. power to gas technology. Arising from the postdoctoral periods abroad, he is also devoted to study the fundamentals of crystallization, nucleation and crystal growth kinetics, and the solid-liquid equilibrium thermodynamics of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in organic solvents. The thermodynamic/kinetic modelling of such processes with multivariate analysis (PCA, PLS) of big data sets are also key skills. He developed successful cooperation with international research groups of important Universities, e.g. Turkey, Ireland, Sweden, and also national, e.g. Catalan Institute for Energy Research (IREC). Rodrigo also participated in several R&D public and projects with private companies (e.g. REPSOL-YPF, Dow Chemical, Astellas Pharma, Hikma, Clarochem, DuPont, Wanhua). He is a member of several scientific societies, reviewer for 15 prestigious scientific journals, and part of scientific committee/chairmanship in international conferences.
Some relevant figures of his trajectory as researcher are summarized as follows: Total number of publications: 31, being most of them in Q1 journals with the first authorship of 17. Total number of citations (according to Google Scholar in January 2024): 407. Number of publications in first decile journals: 7. H-index: 13. I-10 index: 14. In addition, he published one book chapter as first author. Most important publications: 2 recent 2025 research papers in Separation & Purification Technology journal (Impact Factor-IF-2023: 8.2), 1 research paper in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental (IF-2020: 19.503), 1 research paper in Fuel Processing Technology (IF-2021: 8.129), 1 paper in Fuel (IF-2021: 8.035) and 1 paper in Chemical Engineering journal (IF-2017: 6.735). Total number of conference contributions: 50 (3 keynote lecture, 21 oral presentations, and 26 posters), from which 44 are international conferences. Likewise, R. Soto consolidated teaching abilities by a decade's experience as teaching assistant, adjunct lecturer, postdoc and lecturer at two universities. Besides currently teaching crucial subjects as Chemical Engineering at the UB, he co-directed/supervised 14-degree final year projects and 6 master final projects at the UB and 8 final year projects at the UL(Ireland).
