María Fernández Álvarez (CSIC) on her work in CHARISMA and Raman spectroscopy for classification of materials
I consider that all the advances made in CHARISMA are very necessary and important to achieve a good interoperability between different devices and industries for any type of possible application.
María Fernández Álvarez (PhD)
Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
I graduated from Industrial Chemical Engineering at Universidad de Oviedo (Spain) in 2015. Then, I obtained my Master (2016) and PhD (2020) degrees in Materials Science and Engineering at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. During this period, my research mainly focused on the development of new high-performance functionalised organic powder coatings through the use of nanotechnology, to improve corrosion resistance and mechanical properties. Since 2021, I have been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Ceramics and Glass (ICV-CSIC), within the group of Ceramics for Smart Systems. Currently, in addition to continuing with the line of research into high-performance coatings, my research focuses above all on the use of Raman spectroscopy in different applications within the field of materials science and engineering.
Could you describe your role in the CHARISMA project?
My main role as a researcher within the CHARISMA project has been the development of a new reference sample for the development of new harmonisation protocols.
To achieve this, the first objective was to design, manufacture and optimise a new reference sample based on a composite material, in order to obtain a totally homogeneous, stable and reproducible material. Subsequently, the second objective was to develop a new protocol that allows different Raman devices to be twinned in order to harmonise their Raman spectra in terms of Raman intensity, using the new reference sample. Thanks to these developments, it has been possible to obtain equal Raman spectra in Raman intensity that are comparable between different Raman devices, being a challenge that had not been described until now.
These recent investigations, in addition to being an advance for the CHARISMA project, have allowed us to apply for a European patent for the development of this new reference material, and I have also had the opportunity on 10 November 2023, to present part of this work titled as “How to get Raman spectra harmonization from twinned devices’’ at the 10th International Conference on Advanced Applied Raman Spectroscopy (RamanFest2023). In addition, we will soon send a scientific article based on this research.
Besides, I also participate in other research activities related to nanomarkers of Fábrica de Moneda y Timbre (FNMT) and other tasks related to WP3 mainly.
What is it about Raman spectroscopy and Raman-related technologies that interests you the most?
The part that interests me most about Raman spectroscopy is the applications in which this technique can be implemented. Raman spectroscopy is a material characterisation technique that can be used for many applications, since it allows to obtain a lot of information about them, from the structure and chemical composition to the stresses that a material can present. This makes Raman spectroscopy a very useful tool that can be used in different studies, since it is also a non-destructive, non-invasive and easy to implement technique, which is also very interesting for different applications or industries.
Some of the applications where Raman spectroscopy can be implemented and that we are working on are, for example, to identify materials for classification, as a tool to control the behaviour of materials or for the traceability of security elements. For example, regarding the classification of materials, we have recently published an article (2023) on how to apply Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics for the classification of demolition waste from construction. This work is part of the doctoral thesis work of Sonia Marín-Cortés (Institute of Ceramics and Glass, ICV-CSIC) and is a clear example of how far Raman spectroscopy can go in an application as important as the recycling of this type of waste, which represents the 35% of total waste generated in 2018 (Eurostats, 2021).
In addition, in order to go further and be able to implement Raman spectroscopy in these applications at an industrial level, it is very important to have good harmonisation of Raman measurements, since it is essential to have good comparability, reproducibility and reliability of the different data that can be generated in different places and different Raman devices.
For that, I consider that all the advances made in CHARISMA are very necessary and important to achieve a good interoperability between different devices and industries for any type of possible application.
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