Joan Rosell-Llompart

Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Engineering Sciences

He graduated in physics in 1987 from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Until his PhD (Yale University, 1994), he worked with Prof. J. Fernández de la Mora on aerodynamic focusing, inertial impaction, electrospray atomization, and differential mobility analysis. As postdoc associate with Prof. John B. Fenn at Virginia Commonwealth University, he did research on electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. In 1996 he joined Aradigm Corporation (California, USA) to develop liquid micro-jet technology for inhalation drug delivery. There, he co-discovered, with Prof. A. Gañán-Calvo (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain), the "flow blurring" fine liquid atomization regime. Since joining ICREA and Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in 2004, his research has focused on electrospray and electrospinning for the manufacturing of nanomaterials. He leads the Droplets, intErfaces, and floWs (DEW) research lab at URV.


Research interests

Under the action of electrostatic fields, liquid interfaces form liquid jets which are thinner than one hundreth of a human hair. We use such fine "electro-hydrodynamic jets" as templates for manufacturing of nanofibers, nanodroplets, and nanoparticles. Such elements (fibers, droplets, and particles) find use in many fields, like heterogeneous catalysis, non-linear optics, pharmaceutics, chemical sensing, solar energy harvesting, and others. We devise strategies for engineering the internal structure of such elements, as well as for their assembly as micro/nano- "building blocks" into suprastructures. We also focus on the function-structure relationships of the synthesized materials, and the modelling of the physical and physicochemical processes underlying their production. We are also investigating the scaling up into arrays of electro-hydrodynamic emitters for materials production.


Selected research activities

Organization of congress – European Aerosol Conference, Zürich (Switzerland), August 27 - September 1, 2017. – Organizing co-chair of special session #5: ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC ATOMIZATION (EHDA) TECHNOLOGIES: FROM FUNDAMENTALS TO APPLICATION – with co-chair Prof. Luewton Lemos F. Agostinho, NHL University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.

Organization of congress – Member of Scientific Committee of RICTA-2017, the 5th Iberian Meeting on Aerosol Science and Technology, Barcelona (Spain), July 4-6, 2017.

Organizing co-chair of the Workshop on Fluid Mechanics 2017, July 20-21, 2017, Tarragona (Spain), under the auspices of the "Red Nacional para el Desarrollo de la Microfluídica" Spanish Network – with co-chair Prof. Francisco Huera, URV, Tarragona.

Oral presentation at congress: N. Sochorakis, J. Grifoll, J. Rosell-Llompart. Extractor-free one-dimensional arrays of electrosprays [SPS5N3ea] European Aerosol Conference 2017, Zürich (Switzerland), August 27 - September 1, 2017.

Poster contributions at various congresses:

* "On the operation of linear arrays of electrosprays" [A30] RICTA–2017 (5th Iberian Meeting on Aerosol Science and Technology), Barcelona (Spain), July 4-6, 2017. With N. Sochorakis and J. Grifoll.

* "Electrospray plume control for uniform particle production" [A28] RICTA–2017. With Jordi Grifoll.

* "Ultra-fast submicron resolution electrohydrodynamic additive manufacturing" Workshop on Fluid Mechanics 2017. Red Nacional para el Desarrollo de la Microfluídica, DPI2015-71901-REDT, Tarragona (Spain), July 20-21, 2017. With I. Liashenko and A. Cabot.

* "Ultra-high resolution electrohydrodynamic AM technique with superior printing speed" [C4-P-THU-P2-6] EUROMAT–2017 (European Congress and Exhibition on Advanced Materials and Processes), Thessaloniki (Greece), September 17-22, 2017. With I. Liashenko and A. Cabot.