METALLICO Young Researchers: Juan José Cantero

Recovering valuable raw materials, demonstrating sustainable production or developing innovative technologies: Many young researchers are doing their part to achieve the goals of the METALLICO project. They are highly motivated and passionate about their work. One of our "METALLICO Young Researchers" is Juan José Cantero. He is a researcher at IDENER Research & Development AIE. Currently, he is involved in the mathematical modelling development. Read more about Juan and his motivation.

What is your motivation and what excites you the most about your work?

My motivation is to contribute to the environmental change in industry. I’m focused on the mathematical modelling development in IDENER, but I also draft proposals aimed at developing technologies to reduce environmental impact of industry and human doing. I’m really motivated with food, hydrometallurgical and energy industry and all my efforts will be focused on these sectors, trying to build a strong contact web to make research teams easier to collaborate and develop new ideas. The drafting of ideas is one of the most important step and I’m part of it.

Which impact do you think your research will have on the future? What do you hope to achieve with your research?

For now, mathematical modelling in Metallico will help to optimise processes, reduce energy consumption and enable the extraction of important metals for industry. In the future, I will contribute to research with my experience. I will continue studying to widen my opportunities and to apply my knowledge in the development of new ideas.

What opportunities does the research project METALLICO offer you as a young researcher in your early career?

The most important one is the experience. I’m learning how projects are coordinated, how the scaling-up of the processes is made, what is necessary to make it happen… All this knowledge is key in science development because good ideas are not enough to change the world. It also needs people who know how to present the idea, coordinate the efforts, find solutions, control budgets and so much more. This is an important part for improvement.

What is the best thing about your job as a scientist in the METALLICO project?

The best thing is that my ideas have direct impact on the results. The way I decide how to conduct the approach of mathematical modelling will help research teams in the project. Moreover, each time I prepare a proposal, I can see how my ideas will change this world a bit if they are selected. Each decision I make has an impact, maybe a little one, but an impact, something that I don’t see in other work. I can try to make the world better by implementing what I think is a good change and that’s something really inspiring.

Find Juan on LinkedIn!