Julio Lloret-Fillol

Julio Lloret-Fillol

Institut Català d'Investigació Química

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Dr. Julio Lloret-Fillol graduated in Chemistry from the Universidad de Valencia in 2001 where he also obtained his PhD in 2006, working under the supervision of Prof. P. Lahuerta and Prof. J. Pérez-Prieto. After his PhD he moved to the University of Heidelberg to the group of Prof. L. H. Gade as a postdoctoral MEyC fellow and postdoctoral Marie Curie fellow. Since 2010 he has been working as independent research leader at Universitat de Girona (Ramón y Cajal programme). In 2014 he obtained a position as Young Research Group Leader at the Institut de Química Computational i Catàlisi (UdG). In November 2014 he move to his actual position of group leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ).


Research interests

My research is mainly focused on designing new catalysts for more sustainable chemistry through the use of artificial photosynthetic schemes (APS) (ERC Consolidator Grant). Although artificial photosynthetic schemes are a potential solution for a future sustainable society, basic science still needs to be done in order to achieve this objective. Accordingly, my research dream is to address the production of fine chemicals using solely CO2, water and light as driving force. To this end, we are working on developing new methodologies to employ light as a driving force to produce reductive organic transformation and in the understanding of one of the most important reactions in earth, the water oxidation, identified as one of the bottlenecks for the production of solar fuels. Mechanistic investigations will aid to understand multi-proton multi-electron transformations. These areas of research can open up new avenues for newer and greener synthetic methods.

Selected publications

– Claros M, Ungeheuer F, Franco F, Martin-Diaconescu V, Casitas A & Lloret-Fillol J 2019, ‘Reductive Cyclization of Unactivated Alkyl Chlorides with Tethered Alkenes under Visible-Light Photoredox Catalysis‘, Ang. Chem. Int. Ed., 15, 4869 – 4874.

– Codolà Z, Gamba I, Acuña-Parés F, Casadevall C, Clémancey M, Latour J-M, Luis J M, Lloret-Fillol J & Costas M 2019, ‘Design of Iron Coordination Complexes as Highly Active Homogenous Water Oxidation Catalysts by Deuteration of Oxidation-Sensitive Sites‘, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 141, 323 – 333.

– Call A, CasadevallC, Romero-Rivera A, Martin-Diaconescu V, Sommer D J, Osuna S, Ghirlanda G & Lloret-Fillol J 2019, ‘Improved Electro- and Photocatalytic Water Reduction by Confined Cobalt Catalysts in Streptavidin‘, ACS Cat., 9, 5837 – 5846.

– Franco F, Fernandez S & Lloret-Fillol J 2019, ‘Advances in the electrochemical catalytic reduction of CO2 with metal complexes’, Curr. Opin. Electrochem., 15, 109 – 117.

– Sabenya G, Gamba I, Gomez L, Clemancey M, Frisch J R, Klinker E J, Blondin G, Torelli S, Que L Jr, Martin-Diaconescu V, Latour J-M, Lloret-Fillol J & Costas M 2019, ‘Octahedral iron(IV)-tosylimido complexes exhibiting single electron-oxidation reactivity‘, Chem. Sci., 10, 9513 – 9529.

– Bucci A, Mondal S S, Martin-Diaconescu V, Shafir A. & Lloret-Fillol J 2019, ‘Cobalt Amide Imidate Imidazolate Frameworks as Highly Active Oxygen Evolution Model Materials‘, ACS Appl. Energy Mater., 2, 8930 – 8938.


Selected research activities

  • Member of the Young Academy of Europe
  • Professor at the Master’s in Advanced Catalysis and Molecular Modelling (UdG)
  • Co-organizer of the ICIQ-INTECAT School

Selected Conferences &Talks

  • Advancing Chemistry in Spain: ERC Researchers (Spain) Invited
  • ICCC2018 – Sendai (Japan) Invited
  •  ACS-Spring-Orlando (US) Invited
  • AMN9, Wellington, (New Zealand) Invited 
  • Otago Future Fuels (OFF), Dunedin, (New Zealand) Plenary Lecture
  • CaixaForum Química i energia, les fronteres del segle XXI Tarragona & Girona Outreach Lectures