Abstract

Over the last few decades, the development of more accurate theories and methods, combined with the exponential growth of computational resources, has made computational chemistry an invaluable tool for achieving a fundamental understanding of chemical reactivity. Computational studies can provide insights into details that are often inaccessible through experimental techniques, such as the atomic-level mechanisms of chemical processes and the relative importance of their different reaction pathways, also known as branching ratios. This information is particularly valuable for optimizing, catalyzing, or simply understanding chemical processes.

In this presentation, I will demonstrate how we apply various computational tools to investigate the kinetics and reaction mechanisms of chemical reactions and processes relevant to the combustion and production of both conventional and alternative fuels.

Biography

Manuel Monge Palacios received a B.A. in Chemistry in 2009 and a Ph.D. cum laude in Chemistry in 2013 from the Universidad de Extremadura (Spain). He completed postdoctoral training as a Research Associate at the University of Missouri-Columbia (USA) and at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Since 2019, he has been a Research Scientist at the Clean Energy Research Platform at KAUST. His research focuses on theoretical and computational studies of chemical reactions, including quantum chemistry, reaction kinetics, and molecular dynamics.