He graduated in physics in 1987 from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Before and during 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 Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) in 2004 as ICREA Research Professor, 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

We deform liquids to shapes such as jets, which are then converted to microscopic solid objects, such as nanoparticles. To overcome surface tension forces, we use electrostatic fields, which pull the liquid surface into a liquid jet, 100 times thinner than a human hair or more. Such electro-hydrodynamic jets become templates for creating nanofibers (electrospinning), nanoparticles (electrospray), and other structures with tailored composition and internal structure. We apply this knowledge to make novel materials for applications in catalysis, pharmaceutics, medical diagnostics, energy harvesting, and others. We aim to understand the mechanisms by which the starting liquids transform to specific final structures. We also focus on the function-structure relationships of the engineered materials. Finally, we investigate the scaling up of such processes so they can be implemented industrially, and develop specific collection processes such as high resolution 3D printing.