🌟 Nanoscience Revolutionizing Green Chemistry with Julio Terra: Episode 201 of Under the Microscope🔬

Pranoti: Hi, everyone. I’m Pranoti, your host of Under the Microscope. And today we have with us, by the way, 201st episode. So very excited about this one. Today we have with us Julio Terra, who is a postdoctoral associate at EPFL Lausanne. Which is in Switzerland and Julio also has an amazing office view and that is the lake of Lausanne.

Pranoti: So welcome, Julio. How are you? 

Julio Terra: Thank you. With the Alps on the background, which is beautiful. Yeah. 

Pranoti: And I just realized I went all German and turned the J into Y and instead of continuing to call you Julio, I started calling you Julio at some point. So apologies about that. 

Julio Terra: It’s fine. I’m used to Julio as well all the time 

Pranoti: okay. Okay. And now that you are in Europe, I think you might hear this very often that you are called Julio and not Julio. So I apologize on behalf of the German speaking people collectively. All right, let’s get cracking. 

Julio’s Research in Green Chemistry

Pranoti: Julio, sorry, Julio, tell me about your research. Please tell us about your research in [00:01:00] super simple words, please.

Julio Terra: Yeah. The motivation of my research number one is green chemistry. So what we want to do is we want to make chemistry more sustainable and also safer. And, we want to produce less toxicity. So those are, Basically, the the basic ideas of green chem and then we can approach green chem throughout different, we can use different tools to achieve green chem.

Julio Terra: And what I do specifically is catalysis. So I design nanoparticles that can be used to make processes, more sustainable and greener because catalysis is in almost everything that we do. All chemical product is made through a catalytic process. So if we change a little bit catalyst, we can change a lot of the process.

Julio Terra: We can, use less energy to make the products. We can, have higher selectivities, produce less waste. We can change completely the products. that we have. Like small tweaks in catalytic systems, they can make big differences. So this is what we try to do. We try to [00:02:00] find where we can change the catalytic systems so that we change the reaction as a whole and we make them greener in some way.

Julio Terra: Yeah. 

Pranoti: Okay. That’s interesting. 

Applications and Impact of Green Chemistry

Pranoti: So when you say greener reactions, are we talking about making the renewable energy reactions more efficient? Or are we talking about some other field? So not batteries or not renewable energies. And Making the reaction like the chemical process more green. What do you mean when you say green chemistry?

Julio Terra: Yeah. It’s a very, it’s a very broad theme. So it depends on what exactly you do. Like in my PhD, I worked mostly on reactions that are important for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s an industry that is highly wasteful. If you think about if you look at the the e factors, which is basically how much waste is formed per product.

Julio Terra: In the pharmaceutical industry, you have 90 percent of waste and 10 percent of product usually. So it’s nonsense. It’s because usually, the molecules, they’re very specific because, they need to make, to play very specific roles. So putting them together is not that easy.

Julio Terra: So usually [00:03:00] you need many steps and each step has a small yield. So you go decreasing the yield. So you produce a high high amount of waste. You have to purify the products all the time. So it’s highly wasteful. So this is why in my PhD, we were approached a pharmaceutical industry. 

Speaker 3: So 

Julio Terra: I looked at two processes specifically.

Julio Terra: So one of them, we were making rose oxide, which is which is a fragrance that gives the smell of roses. It was really nice because the lab was smelling good for once. So I liked working with this reaction. But this is a multi ton scale process. So it’s done it’s the fragrance that is used the most in the cosmetic industry and we can make it using a photochemical step.

Julio Terra: So we can make one, a key transformation using the energy of light. So this is in the scope of Green Chem because, we’re using light which is abundant and, doesn’t and inherently like safer than let’s say heating reactor things like that. [00:04:00] 

Speaker 3: In 

Julio Terra: another, in another product I used, project I used I was producing like amines, which are molecules that have, lots of applicability.

Julio Terra: If to make medicines, for instance, they have a lot of activity in the nervous system. If you think of like methamphetamine, anything that we think about, they have, They really have high activities in our bodies and and we could make them, but then it’s a multi step process as well.

Julio Terra: But what we managed to make the, to make it in a one step and to use it to really use the bits of molecules that we leave that would be waste. We can incorporate them again and, make the process more, like more one part, like more efficient, let’s say, more what we say in green chemistry, we talk about atom economy.

Julio Terra: Out of all of the atoms that you put in there, we try to incorporate as much as we can in the end, so that we don’t have too much waste, 

Pranoti: oh, wow. Basically, green chemistry can be used in, Any industry, a lot of waste. 

Julio Terra: Yeah. 

Pranoti: [00:05:00] Where we can use, sorry, go ahead. 

Julio Terra: Yeah. In my postdoc now, the group that I’m working on, so I just started, so I haven’t really, worked a lot in their themes yet, but they are known for doing biomass transformation reactions.

Julio Terra: So they work with lignin. which is the part of food that is usually hard to work with and they have methods to stabilize it and then they can, extract very high value chemicals from this biomass that is usually waste. So you know, there’s many ways that you can approach green chemistry differently.

Pranoti: Okay. Interesting. You know where we can definitely use green chemistry. I recently. He recorded the movie glass onion and probably know 

Julio Terra: the movie in Portuguese. 

Pranoti: Ah, okay. Probably. Yeah. 

Julio Terra: But I know what you’re talking about, 

Pranoti: but the content would be the same. So in that they claim there is this clear crystal, which is like a zero carbon emission.

Pranoti: And it’s like super cool and hydrogen fuel and that, and we recorded a podcast with we recorded a video rather. With the science behind Knives Out and in [00:06:00] that one, one of the points was, it’s ridiculous at this point, like as of today, making the hydrogen fuels or making the hydrogen fuel cells or this clear crystal, it’s not environmentally friendly, it’s not environmentally, I should not say that, it’s not green.

Pranoti: It’s not like creating this crystal or synthesizing this hydrogen fuel is emitting a lot of carbon dioxide because we don’t have any process. So I think that’s where we would definitely need you and your group to step in. 

Julio Terra: Exactly. And and this is really like something that we talk about in Green Chem as well.

Julio Terra: We talk about cradle to gate that we try to think about our processes. So from, the beginning or when, the everything, the raw materials are sourced from nature until when they’re disposed. So this is ideally we should think about green chemistry looking at this whole process, it’s it’s difficult for us to, do the whole thing.

Julio Terra: So we usually, we try to, Break it up. So we look into specific steps, but ideally green chem talks [00:07:00] about, this whole process, like looking at where we source the materials and how they’re disposed in the end. And we try to, like really do like smart chemistry. We have the resources, we have the tools, we just, we’d have to put them together, in a in a smart way.

Julio Terra: Yeah, 

Pranoti: It’s it’s it’s really interesting for sure. So which are the industries? Now that you we have the expert on the podcast under the microscope, which are the industries which are which could use greens chemistry? Sooner rather than later. You already mentioned the pharmaceutical industry where 90 percent of the chemicals are disposed of and only 10 percent are useful or valuable.

Pranoti: So which other industries are the ones which definitely could use some help of green chemistry or making their chemical processes more greener? Which other industries are there? 

Julio Terra: Yeah it’s very broad to say to making them greener. So like every, every industry we can make the processes greener in different [00:08:00] ways.

Julio Terra: I think like the pharmaceutical industry is the one that I focused a lot on my PhD really, because it’s like, it’s screaming the amount of waste that they produce. And, there’s also like use of solvents, for instance, most of the waste that we form in chemical reactions are from.

Julio Terra: Solvent use, which is insane because the solvent is not, like we usually don’t think about the solvent when we’re thinking about reaction because the solvent is just there, theoretically assistant, it’s usually most of the waste that we produce. So those are things that we look into a lot.

Julio Terra: There’s of course, the petrochemical industry, which is, incredibly efficient. On the way they do everything. So those are reactions, that work very well. We have a lot of infrastructure for it, like , theoretically, it’s a very efficient process there. There’s not much waste on anything.

Julio Terra: The problem is like the raw material that we use. So we, every industry we have to look into different aspects of [00:09:00] it. Yeah. 

Pranoti: Yeah, that makes sense. And now that you say it when you said solvents, I was reminded of how much solvent we used when I was doing my master thesis, for example, or even PhD, but mainly master thesis while cleaning the substrate.

Pranoti: So we used like 250 ml of acetone three times. Plus 250 ml of isopropanol one time. So it’s just a lot. And we had like crates and crates or buckets and buckets of acetone. And we had buckets. And I know that acetone is probably not the solvent. That’s not what you meant, but I’m just thinking from the chemicals.

Pranoti: No, 

Julio Terra: but then that goes into it as well. Purification columns is just so this is why What I do in my projects, we usually do catalysis in a heterogeneous way, which means the catalysts are usually like solid. And it’s heterogeneous just means that this, the catalyst is not in the same phase as the as the reaction media.

Julio Terra: In my case, I usually use solid catalysts and I do the reactions in the liquid phase so that I can separate the catalyst by filtration [00:10:00] or in some way, for example, I worked with magnetic materials so I could separate them magnetically. So 

Speaker 3: you don’t 

Julio Terra: have to run. Those columns to purify from, from the catalyst, because the catalyst is usually like most times you use metals and like scarce metals, toxic metals that they do a great job in catalyzing the system, but of course you don’t want to keep them in there.

Julio Terra: Otherwise they’re going to be they’re going to add toxicity to your system. So we need to find ways to separate, heterogeneous catalysis is a good way to do this because the catalyst is solid. You can let it settle. You can track. Track it like magnetically. You can filter, you can centrifuge it.

Julio Terra: There’s many different ways to look into it. Yeah. 

Pranoti: That’s a very good point. And for everyone who does not, or who hasn’t understood what heterogeneous catalysis means, just to give like a very simple and non relatable or relatable example, so to say, is that if you have water and if salt is your catalyst, water is your solvent, it’s in liquid state and salt is your catalyst, let’s assume that.

Pranoti: And so what you do or what you could do is. [00:11:00] As a heterogeneous catalysis approach is like you dunk a giant crystal of salt in the water. Let there, let the salt, a part of the salt be dissolved in the water to whatever extent, five minutes, 10 minutes, and then take the solid crystal of salt out.

Pranoti: So that means it’s easier to remove it instead of putting like ground salt, like the normal salt in the water and Letting it all dissolve. Does that make sense? Did I give a good example? 

Julio Terra: It does make sense, but I think a better example would be let’s say if you get like a fine salt and you put in water, it would dissolve.

Julio Terra: So this would be, like homogeneous catalysis. But let’s say you use sand instead of salt. Ah. This would be heterogeneous. So if you use sand instead of salt, after you can separate the sand from the water. That is. 

Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s a good one. Because, 

Julio Terra: in the example you gave, when the part of the salt is is, being dissolved, actually, the it would be homogenous catalysis because the salt that is actually doing the catalysis, the reaction is the one that is dissolving.

Julio Terra: [00:12:00] In the system, but those are boundaries of there’s a lot of discussion on what is homogeneous or heterogeneous, but I think the sand example is good because, after you can separate it, there’s no sand left in the system. You can filter it and yeah, Let it settle. Yeah. 

Pranoti: Yes. Thank you for explaining that.

Pranoti: That’s a very good point, because in my head, heterogeneous catalysis only meant that instead of using a liquid catalyst, you use like a solid catalyst in case of in this particular example, but you’re absolutely right. It’s not just about that. We are the homogeneous heterogeneous Homogeneity goes beyond just the phase or liquid or solid or whatever.

Julio Terra: Exactly. Yeah. 

Pranoti: Okay. Wow. Oh my God. This is so cool. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah. 

Julio’s Academic Journey

Pranoti: Julio, tell me, How did you, how did this is so fascinating. So how did you end up now that you’re in Switzerland, very close to me, actually, in Germany, how did you end up doing green chemistry now, a postdoc in Switzerland, how did that happen?

Pranoti: Tell me your. life story 

Julio Terra: Okay I’m originally from Brazil. I’m from a [00:13:00] small village in Brazil And then I went to a university that is close to my village that is known for being like an agriculture University It’s traditionally, agriculture, but they have a good chemistry department because agriculture depends a lot of chemistry and they really have they really have a mindset of sustainability in the university as a whole.

Julio Terra: So from the beginning, from my my formation as a scientist, there was always the sustainability, mindset throughout it. And then I started working just like in my second year undergrad, I started working in the lab and we did degradation of pollutants in water. And then it was really, yeah, it was super cool.

Julio Terra: And then, it’s like already like in my second year. So I had a lot of opportunities there, to be close. And it’s a small university. So we’re very close to the profs and very close to the grad students as well. So I was very exposed to all of this. And then I, I did it like I had an opportunity to do an exchange during my undergrad, [00:14:00] like in Canada, in Toronto.

Julio Terra: And then I did some different type of catalysis, but I wanted to have the sustainability mindset. So I was in a green chemistry related group. So I really liked the idea, it’s something that makes sense to me. And it’s something that motivates me as a scientist to, Think about that.

Julio Terra: There’s like this huge problem that we’re facing. We have to, there’s climate change there. We produce too much waste. We have to, become carbon neutral. There’s so many challenges. So it motivates me to think that I. That I can somehow use my knowledge to contribute to that.

Julio Terra: And then for my PhD, by the time I did my master’s in a group that also did degradation of pollutants in Brazil, in in kind of the similar line, and then for my PhD, I was already pretty sure that I wanted to work on this field and because I knew how to do catalysis that I have learned, in my master’s.

Julio Terra: I thought about, maybe I, let’s look into the groups that use catalysis to do green chemistry. 

Speaker 3: And 

Julio Terra: then I found the group of professor Morris [00:15:00] and McGill that they’re really towards, green chem. It’s like really the main theme of the lab. And professor Morris was super cool.

Julio Terra: I did an exchange with her during my masters and we really worked well together. And then I went for the PhD at McGill and during my PhD, I had Every single opportunity to be in the green chemistry community. It’s such a welcoming community and everybody’s so close and, really the, I really like how how the community is built.

Julio Terra: And we had opportunity to like, be with like the big names in green cam and I went to summer schools of like green chemistry. There’s a big green chemistry initiative at the ACS that I went to everything they did. We have the green chemistry conferences. The community is very very close and we get close to people.

Julio Terra: And then, we start to collaborate more. We start to learn more and we start to be more motivated to be in the field. So everything just went together. And then, yeah, and then I was finishing my PhD, I was interested, and, keep working with Green chem, but looking at [00:16:00] different, different parts of it, let’s say.

Julio Terra: And and then I found the group here, Professor Luther Bacher, they’re doing super good work. I got in touch, and then I wanted to move around because I like to move around the world, so I did my PhD in Canada, I was like, now I have to go somewhere else. So yeah, so it just so it worked out to be here and I like it because GreenCam really gives me motivation and I’m very cute.

Julio Terra: I like, I love like nanoscience. I find it fascinating how we can control, like down to the nanoscale. How can you control nature in this way and make those weird particles, those weird shapes, like I find it mind blowing. So it moves me, the green chemistry motivation of it. And also I’m very curious about all of this.

Julio Terra: So like I get to marry the two together. So it’s pretty cool. I really like it. 

Pranoti: That is so cool. I was so happy to hear that. And. I think you are like the definition of traveling scientist because you have from [00:17:00] the South America to the Northern America. And now you are in Europe. And I hope next your next Asia, yeah, and then Australia, New Zealand, while you’re at it, and then also the Arctic Circle, Antarctica I see you going there, and I think, honestly, I think at the North and the South Poles I never remember which one is North, Arctic is North, right?

Julio Terra: The Arctic is north. Yes, Canada is the Arctic. 

Pranoti: Canada is the Arctic, exactly. And I think with so many expeditions happening there, I think we could definitely use your expertise as a green chemist over there. But yeah, that’s a bit infutile. Let’s go with that. But this is I am with you. I also find it really fascinating.

Pranoti: And I’m very happy that we have you on this episode of Under the Microscope because green chemistry is something which we, when, whenever anyone says green or sustainable, the first thing that comes to people’s mind is, oh yeah, renewable energy. But that’s not what you mean. You can mean that as well, but.

Pranoti: Exactly. Renewable 

Julio Terra: energy is also green chem, but it’s not only, Yeah, 

Pranoti: exactly. It’s not only renewable energies that is the green chem. So this is extremely important and it’s very [00:18:00] nice to hear that the community, the green chemistry community is like a tight knit community. Definitely want to hear more about it after we stopped recording.

Pranoti: I don’t want to put you on the spot here that about the summer schools or conferences or something, because I definitely would like to have more green chemists on the podcast. Let’s go podcast because we have had a bunch of people who are working with renewable energy in the renewable energy field be it the hydrogen fuel cells or be it the battery Research and da.

Pranoti: But yeah, I would love to have more from the green chemistry 

The Green Chemistry Community

Julio Terra: perspective I can give you a lot of names of people that are super cool. They will love to be here in the podcast And what’s cool is that, when I did my undergrad many years ago we had the idea of of, sustainability in chemistry somehow, but At least like in my university, we didn’t have a green cam course.

Julio Terra: We didn’t have a program for green chemistry. So we learn it on the go. So for my, so in my PhD, I was lucky to have the opportunities to go to the summer school and all of this. When I got, like more let’s say more formal education about green cam and all of this. But nowadays there’s a lot of schools that have most of summer schools, they do have a green chemistry course.

Julio Terra: So it’s really nice. And there’s also beyond benign which is like a company that they that they help green chemistry education. So they, they produce a lot of resources for, [00:19:00] from high school to like university level as well. They have a green chemistry commitment that the university signed so that they, will get resources and they get support from beyond benign to, promote green chemistry education in their institutions.

Julio Terra: So it’s really cool. We’re seeing this movement and we’re seeing more and more green chem because in the end what we say is that ideally there should be no Green, there should be no such thing as green chem, like all chemistry should be green because it’s really something that spans all over, there’s no because when people ask me are you an organic chemistry or inorganic or physical chemistry?

Julio Terra: Chemist. I don’t know. What type of 

Pranoti: chemist 

Julio Terra: are you? But most times we don’t know, right? Most times even if you are organic, like you do a lot of like inorganic and analytical. Who doesn’t do analytical chemistry? It’s just it’s difficult to define. But green chem really like spans all over the spectrum of chemistry, which is cool.

Julio Terra: Yeah. 

Pranoti: That is that. Yeah, that is absolutely right. It’s almost like material science, [00:20:00] which just goes into all the industries. Green chemistry is similar. It just goes. Into all the different industries. And 

Speaker 4: yeah, 

Pranoti: absolutely and I agree with you. Every chemistry should be doing chemistry or rather, we shouldn’t have to create a niche field that is green chemistry in an ideal world.

Pranoti: There should just be chemistry, 

Speaker 5: which is green by which should be green intrinsically by 

Pranoti: nature. 

The Need for Diversity and Inclusion

Pranoti: Yeah, it’s like diversity and inclusion. We don’t need to have diversity and inclusion. We should not need to have. Diversity and inclusion and equal opportunity and that it is that in an ideal world.

Pranoti: In a perfect world, everyone gets equal opportunities. Everyone gets everything that they, that anyone else can. They’re not being excluded. 

Julio Terra: But since, but yeah, but since it’s not like this, we do have to have the EDI people when, since not all chemistry is green, as we know, we do need to have the green chemistry people, someday maybe it will be a, We’ll be better at all of this.

Julio Terra: Hopefully 

Pranoti: it’s wishful thinking. Yeah, absolutely. 

Highlighting a Favorite Research Project

Pranoti: So until we reach the point where every chemistry is green chemistry, I want to know from you, which, it’s, it sounds to me that chemistry is Since your undergrad time and up until now, even like today [00:21:00] when you’re doing a postdoc in Switzerland, you have been involved in a lot of interesting research projects.

Pranoti: I’m assuming I have the feeling based on the examples you gave me. So I want to know, and this is a tough question. I know that and I apologize in advance, but can you pick one research project? That you’re most proud of or your most fun or quirky one and explain it to us in the section we call in other words.

Julio Terra: Yes, of course. So I do have one project that I really like it, that I’m very proud of, which hasn’t been published yet, but hopefully it’ll be published soon. But the idea. Yeah, I can talk about it. 

Exploring Mesoporous Materials

Julio Terra: It’s it’s on camera so it’s probably the idea is that so funny thing is do during my masters we found out serendipity serendipitously.

Julio Terra: How do you say this 

Pranoti: right? Serendipity. 

Julio Terra: Serendipity, yes. We found out through by this, that we were using like mesoporous materials to make catalysis. So materials that have, [00:22:00] pores that are so tiny that they are close to the sizes of the molecules. 

Pranoti: So like a sponge? 

Julio Terra: You could make the analogy of being like a sponge, but I was using, mesoporous silica, but it’s structures that you can think about lots of, just think about, lots of straws together.

Julio Terra: Straws? Okay, straws together, so they, there’s lots of, like holes, cylindrical holes, long ones, but imagine this like very tiny so that the hole, in the straw is almost, it’s just a little bit bigger than the size of a molecule, let’s say. 

Speaker 4: Okay. I’m with you. Okay.

Speaker 4: Microscopic micro Nanos. 

Julio Terra: Copics. Yeah. Yeah.  

Speaker 4: Okay. 

Julio Terra: Yeah. Yeah. So like very tiny. And then, we found out chemistry happened very differently when it was inside those pores that were tiny, close to the size of the molecules. Then it would happen when they’re on the outside of those pores.

Pranoti: What you’re saying is that if we have a straw, then The chemistry, the chemical process [00:23:00] inside the straw is different than outside on the outer layer of the straw. 

Julio Terra: Yes. Yes. 

The Little Prince Analogy

Julio Terra: So let me tell, let me give you another, like an analogy that I really like that I usually give in my talks. So you know, the little prince, who the little prince, 

Speaker 4: little prince, 

Julio Terra: the little prince, the guy, the French story of the little prince that, lives in a tiny planet.

Julio Terra: And then he he travels around. 

Pranoti: I grew up in Asia, so we didn’t have a little prince, but yeah. 

Julio Terra: Anyways, anyways. Tell 

Pranoti: us a story. It’s story time with Julio. 

Julio Terra: If you Google after, if you just Google the little prince, you’ll see you’ve probably seen the cartoon, the drawings somewhere, somehow.

Julio Terra: But the idea is that he lives in a very tiny planet. Okay. He’s a little boy that lives in a very tiny planet. Very tiny. And then when you see the joints the, like the, his height is the radius of the planet. The planet is not much bigger than his. Oh, wow. And it’s very [00:24:00] cute. And then he travels around the universe and eventually he goes to the earth.

Julio Terra: But the idea is that when he, when I was a kid, I would see this and I was surprised because, his size is so close to the size of the planet that, when he walks, he’s You really see like him tilting, walking through the planet because the planet is so tiny 

Speaker 3: and 

Julio Terra: when he’s in his planet, he sees everything.

Julio Terra: So if there’s a, let’s say if there’s a tree that starts growing, he has to cut it right away. Otherwise the true become too big and we’ll take over the planet. And he has a rose that he really takes care of, and he’s always close to the rose, so he’s close to everything in the planet, if anything ever happens there, he sees it right away.

Speaker 3: Huh. And 

Julio Terra: he feels the curve of the planet as he walks. 

Julio Terra: It’s a very different perception. When he goes to the earth, he doesn’t feel the curve of the earth as he’s walking, just because the earth is much bigger than he is. True. And and if you think all of us, we live on the earth our whole lives, we never see the whole planet, we never see everybody who’s in here who would say at the same time. The little prince, he sees the world very differently when he is in his little planet [00:25:00] versus when he’s on the earth. Just because his planet is not much bigger than he is, but the earth is much bigger than he is. 

Speaker 3: So 

Julio Terra: if you think about the molecules, if they are in a space that is very tiny, close to their size, They will feel the walls of the, let’s say, whatever place of the little straw they are in.

Julio Terra: They will feel the walls, they will interact a lot with the walls. They will see all of the other molecules that are in there, all of the time. There will be no shock with the other molecules all the time. Which is different if they are outside of the straw, let’s say. When they have a lot of free space, they will maybe not encounter the walls.

Julio Terra: of the straw that match, they will maybe not encounter all of the other molecules that match, they can grow as much as they want. When they’re inside the straw, they cannot grow too much, so they cannot form big molecules, for instance, inside the straw. 

Julio Terra: Everything is very different. 

Confinement Effects in Chemistry

Julio Terra: So the idea is that chemistry happens differently when it’s what we call [00:26:00] confined.

Julio Terra: So if we put the chemicals in tiny nanospaces and we let them react, they will form different products than they would when they are not in those tiny nanospaces. And this is the idea. So I tried to explore the fact of confining the reactions inside those nano spaces. And I tried to use this to make the reaction more efficient and more effective.

Julio Terra: So let’s say I was working with a reaction that forms hydrogen. So we just talked about how difficult it is to produce hydrogen, right? The forms hydrogen. And then uses this hydrogen to a second step in the same reaction. Oh, wow. So this is really good because you don’t need to put a hydrogen source in there.

Julio Terra: You form the hydrogen and you use it right away, in the same reaction. 

Pranoti: Ah, it’s like an ecosystem. 

Julio Terra: Exactly. The problem is that hydrogen is tiny, hydrogen is a gas. So if it’s not, it, not it it can escape very easily. 

Speaker 3: . So you lose 

Julio Terra: it. So what we did is we trapped it into the, into [00:27:00] tiny nanospheres.

Julio Terra: So spheres that are so tiny that they’re not much bigger than the molecules themselves. So when the hydrogen was formed inside the nanosphere, it would be, it would stick there. It wouldn’t have that much time to escape because, it would be shocking with all of the other molecules all the time and then, you would have it utilized right away.

Julio Terra: And this is something that I really found and we found, that it’s drastic how much the reaction changes when it’s confined when it’s not. And we could study, like how big the space is where we are confining how this changes the reactivity. And this is really cool. And I think this is something that I don’t know it blew my mind when we saw how much of a difference it made just, trapping them in there.

Julio Terra: Even the idea 

Pranoti: of it, now that you’re explaining it to me It’s blowing my mind in real life. 

Julio Terra: Maybe I didn’t like a long round to go through the Little Prince, but I hope it made sense. 

Pranoti: It made a lot of sense. And while we were talking, I just very quickly Googled and looked at the picture of this Little [00:28:00] Prince with the rose and a fox, I think.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And 

Pranoti: yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Oh my God. Wow. That is so cool. I hope your paper is out sooner rather than later. Because, oh my God. You have submitted it, right? Please tell me you have submitted it. Yeah, 

Julio Terra: yeah, I’ve 

Pranoti: submitted it. Okay, that’s good. That’s good. Then it will be out soon, hopefully soon, and then we will know all the more details, like quantitative details, like what, how is the rate of the reaction is better.

Pranoti: Oh my God, that is so cool. Oh my God. 

Julio Terra: We can use this concept and it’s a concept that we can use for many, many different types of reactions we can study. We, there’s so funny thing is like doing COVID confinement. So when you’re like staying at home, I wrote a review about confinement of molecules. 

Pranoti: I was, I was about to, I stopped myself from doing it when you were explaining, the confinement and the molecules outside, the first thing that came to my mind was like, it’s like COVID, it’s like during the pandemic and the lockdowns, how we were all stuck in our house. And you can see that 

Julio Terra: we behaved, we behave very differently when we are confined [00:29:00] versus when we are not just like the molecules.

Pranoti: . 

Pranoti: Exactly. Oh my God, yes. It’s the, that’s how nature works, even at a nano scale. Exactly. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, 

Pranoti: we behave differently. Atoms behave differently. Reactions happen in a different way when you’re confined in your four walls compared to when you go out and bump into other people, not literally, sometimes literally.

Julio Terra: I’m not the one who found it out. There’s like many studies about confinement effects already. But what we’re trying to do and what I did really in this review is I tried to point out how confinement effects can make chemistry greener. So how can we use those and harvest this power to use it in green chemistry?

Julio Terra: This example that I gave, we really are trapping the hydrogen in there. So we don’t need to add extra hydrogen and or the product is much more pure at the end. So we don’t need to purify that much and separate. So You know, there’s a lot of like different things that we can tackle using this tool in green chem.

Julio Terra: So yeah, that’s wow. Yeah, 

Pranoti: absolutely. Also, I see this [00:30:00] like psychology aspect, like angle to it and philosophical angle to it as well. Oh my God, that is so cool. Please link the review when you’re curating the real scientists, not on Twitter account, and please go over it because I think this is so cool.

Speaker 3: Oh my God. 

Pranoti: This is so cool. Okay. 

Passion for Education and Teaching

Pranoti: It’s clear to me Julia, that you love the research part of research aspect of being a scientist. What else do you like about being a scientist? 

Julio Terra: I really love education. Actually, I got into chemistry because of education because my dream was to be a teacher.

Julio Terra: My dream was to be a chemistry teacher. And then I went to I went to a chemistry teaching program in my university. But then in Brazil, usually when you take pure sciences, like chemistry or math or physics you usually have the chance to take both degrees, like the teaching and research together.

Julio Terra: And, because I was there at the university I was curious, I started [00:31:00] doing research, I liked it. So I took both degrees together. And I have always been doing education during my undergrad. I volunteered in a lot of like NGOs and did education for like extra activities for kids and stuff like this, which is really cool.

Julio Terra: During my grad school, I loved TAing. It was just so much fun. I TAed like the Gen Chem tutorials for years and I loved it. I had so much fun. So education is really something that that, rings a bell to me. So this is what I like about academia because, I know that’s not, it’s not completely balanced.

Julio Terra: The value that academia gives to education and to research, right? Most of the times, but I like it that we can do both, 

Speaker 4: yeah, absolutely. 

Julio Terra: So this is something that, like really motivates me because I love interacting with people, I like the research.

Julio Terra: Love the motivation of doing this. I’m curious about it, but I think I’m mostly like a people’s person So I love to talk to people. I love to be with people, you know So like students are I love students [00:32:00] because we’re talking all the time We see them, like being interested about things and I love this and I love it too that you know Something else that I like about research, which is also related to the to this interpersonal Part of it is that it’s so global, so international.

Julio Terra: Like we interact with people from like all over the world. Look at us, we’re here talking because of science. And you get to meet all sorts of people, very different people, more and more diverse. And and we get to travel around, we get to live in different continents, we get to experience all these different cultures.

Julio Terra: It’s something that I really like like it’s a lifestyle that I like. At least I’ve been enjoying, this time. Eventually I will, I think eventually I’ll probably settle somewhere, but, I’m enjoying it right now, the latest. 

Pranoti: Yeah, that sounds good. You, I don’t think, or rather, I don’t want to see you settle until you have lived on all the different continents.

Pranoti: So that’s not happening anytime soon. Two down. How many continents are there? Six four more to go? I think there are six or seven major continents in the world. 

Julio Terra: Yeah, I’m missing [00:33:00] Africa, Asia, and then Oceania. 

Pranoti: Exactly. Wow, my geography knowledge is really shit. Oh my God. But yeah, no, I this is really cool because we definitely need scientists who enjoy educating and they enjoy interacting and they are more like people people, 

Julio Terra: people.

Julio Terra: Yeah. I don’t know how to say that. 

Pranoti: But no, I, we I love that. And I love that. That is really cool. So Julio, it has been wonderful. And I hope that your research experience So far has been wonderful and that’s how it sounds like to me, at least, of course, because you also only told us about the highlights.

Wishes for a More Inclusive Academia

Pranoti: However, if you had three wishes to improve your research experience, what would you ask for? And I’m not promising anything here. Okay. 

Julio Terra: Two wishes. 

Pranoti: Three wishes. Yeah. 

Julio Terra: Three wishes in the chemistry field and STM in general. There’s things that we could three things that we could have more, which is more LGBTQ, more women and more BIPOC people.

Julio Terra: I think those are three wishes. Is that too much to ask? It’s 

Pranoti: definitely not too much to ask. No, it’s definitely not too much to ask. And for anyone doesn’t understand what [00:34:00] BIPOC what does it stand for? Can you just explain it? Cause it’s, it’d be a new term for a lot of listeners. 

Julio Terra: Yeah, I don’t remember what it stands for.

Julio Terra: It’s people of color be black, indigenous and other people of color. So it’s basically like people. Yeah. 

Pranoti: Basically diversity and inclusion. 

Julio Terra: Yeah, it’s something that, of course, academia is not perfect and research environment is not perfect. There’s lots of things that we can improve. But I think, we generally, we have the conditions at least, like in the places I’ve been to, I was lucky to be, let’s say like in Canada and like in Switzerland places with like resources to do to do research.

Julio Terra: So those are very good things. What I miss more is more people like me in the environments, our research, so yeah, I think diversity is is the thing that we miss the most, at least from my perspective in science. 

Pranoti: Absolutely. Absolutely. We definitely need more diversity.

Pranoti: I’m with you. Yeah. More 

Julio Terra: people like us. Yeah. 

Pranoti: More people like us. More people like us. Absolutely. Julio, this has been wonderful. Please tell [00:35:00] me, last question, and then I stop asking you questions. 

Taking Over Real Scientists Nano Twitter

Pranoti: When you’re taking over the Real Scientists Nano Twitter account, what can the followers expect from that one week from Monday to Sunday?

Julio Terra: Okay, so you will see green chemistry, you’ll see a lot of green chem and maybe, you know what, maybe I’ll share like resources on green chem things that I really like how to get more involved and how to learn more about green chem. You will see pretty cool nano confinement things. And pretty cool nanoparticle designs that that I’ve been through or things that I like in the literature.

Julio Terra: I will share with you guys some of it. We’ll do some education as well. Some links on education that I like. And, Of course stuff on EDI as well, which is never too much. Yeah. 

Pranoti: Okay, so we are going to get a mixed bag of of information and lots of education. 

Julio Terra: I hope we’ll be able to deliver all of this, but yeah.

Pranoti: I’m sure you will. Just what I missed from that is pictures from the EPFL chemus, pictures from the lake, pictures [00:36:00] of the view of your office, and a picture of the alps and the sheep as well. 

Julio Terra: Okay, so can I put that as well? Okay, yeah, of course, 

Pranoti: of 

Julio Terra: course. Then you’ll be you’ll be pleased.

Julio Terra: I do have a lot of of those. 

Pranoti: Awesome. We want your coffee, your tea, your food, everything. We want to know everything about Julio in that one week, everything, 

Julio Terra: literally. 

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Julio Terra: I just for context for the viewers that just got here, I started my postdoc like two weeks ago. And I’m just like, I feel like a tourist everywhere.

Julio Terra: So like I’m on chemus and like stopping by, taking pictures of everything and I’m walking around the city and I’m taking pictures of everything. It’s the first time I’m living in Europe too. So like things are very different. It’s, everything’s like too too exciting for me at the moment. Yeah.

Pranoti: That’s awesome. Also in Lausanne, there is this Olympic Museum or something, right? I 

Julio Terra: have to go. I haven’t been there. Yeah. 

Pranoti: You have to go. We need to see it. Absolutely. Just for us, you have to go. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Pranoti: All right. Super. Thank you very much, Julio. This has been wonderful and looking forward to having you on Real Scientists Nano.

Pranoti: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Julio Terra: Yeah. So nice meeting you. Have a great day. [00:37:00]