Carlos Bornes, 25, is a PhD student in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) applied to Chemistry, Materials and Biosciences at the associated laboratory CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials of the University of Aveiro.
THE INTERVIEW:
What was your dream profession as a child?
There was a time that I wanted to be a neurosurgeon, but most of the time I wanted to be a scientist.
What was your academic background and how important was it for your present/future?
My academic career is funny and strange (at least in my opinion). I got into chemistry because, during high school, I was always the one who prepared solutions in chemistry classes and thought it was incredible, besides, I was always fascinated by explosions and thought that during the course I would learn a lot about it (which was not the case). After a year as a chemistry student, I quickly realized that chemistry was not my thing, and at the same time, I’ve developed a big love for physics. At the end of the first year, I thought about dropping out and switching to physics, but I ended up deciding to take the easiest path and stay in chemistry. I realized that chemistry was not for me after spending day after day doing synthesis for my bachelor’s project, aimed at preparing new lanthanide-containing polyoxometalates for applications as luminescent materials. After graduation, I considered switching to physics, but again I decided to choose the easiest path and stay in the area, fearing not having enough foundation to pursue a physics degree. In the first year of the master's course, I took a course on NMR and where I had the chance to talk with my NMR professor and ask him how NMR worked in solid materials. He told me that those were not his expertise and told me to look for the solid-state NMR group in our university. On the other hand, I was aware that I had a very limited understanding of quantum mechanics necessary to work in the area. For some reason, I saw that as a challenge and decided to throw myself at the sharks. I went to professor João Rocha (one of my current doctoral supervisors) and told him that I wanted to do a master's thesis in solid-state NMR, that I was not interested in the specific topic of research topic, that I just wanted to learn the technique. My advisors decided that it would be a good idea to do a thesis on the characterization of structural and acidic properties of zeolites. At that time, I didn't know what was a zeolite or how a solid could be an acid, but that was exactly what I needed, something new, an opportunity to learn something different. Currently, most of my work is done in front of a computer screen, either to control the NMR spectrometer or to make computational calculations. The truth is that, in my day-to-day life, my chemistry training is very irrelevant, and I often feel that my colleagues with a stronger background in physics find it easier to deal with different work issues. However, my background in Chemistry gives me something very useful that those same colleagues don't have, something I usually call chemical intuition. This intuition has been very relevant to the success of my work and to define the future direction of my investigation.
If you could go back, what would you change in your career and academic life?
The truth is wouldn’t change much, I feel that I made the most of my university life. I met people, I was involved in various activities, I organized national events, I participated in several national university championships and I went to classes (some classes!). Maybe I would like to go back and tell myself to take more risks, that I have the skills I decide to have and that I could overcome a weaker background with hard work.
Briefly, what does your research work consist of, and why did you choose this area?
The concept of acid-base is perhaps one of the first topics covered when we are introduced to chemistry. However, most people working in chemistry and other adjacent sciences are not familiar with the concept of solid acids. These materials are essential in several relevant industrial processes and are safer alternatives to conventional acids. Although these materials are widely used, there is still a big gap when it comes to describing their acidic properties. Let me throw some question into the air. If we are talking about a solid, how do we measure the concentration of acid centers? And the strength of these acid centres? In the case of solid acids, indicator strips or pH meters do not help and pKa cannot be used to indicate the strength of a given acid centre. My work aims at developing methodologies that allow a complete characterization of zeolite’s acid centres, distinguishing between Brønsted and Lewis acid sites, quantify and determine their strength. For this, I use several solid-state NMR and computational chemistry methods, which combined with the adsorption of basic molecules, allow me to study the nature of the acid-base interaction between the different acid sites and the probe molecule.
In your opinion, what is the most stimulating thing in research VS the biggest challenges / difficulties in research? Did you ever imagine being where you are?
One of the things that fascinate me most is the scientific method, it is something that people rarely know how to define, but fortunately, most people recognize its usefulness. Even though we saw a widespread of several anti-scientific lines of thought in the last few years. This is something that concerns me. Sometimes I wonder why some people have such great contempt for science when it was the development of science that allowed us to increase the quality and the average life expectancy and also developed most of the things that we take for granted in our everyday life. I wonder if this is a reflection of the lack of communication skills of most scientists, which fail at communicating the real impact and the relevance of their work to the general public.
What fascinates me most about research is looking for the unknown, trying to better develop a better understanding of the world around us. This process is not always easy, sometimes we lose several weeks, months or even years looking into a rabbit hole and end up with a bunch of bad results big doubts about our abilities as scientists. At this point, the most important thing is to be able to stop, move on, and who knows, maybe one day we will revisit the problem with new tools and find the answer we were looking for.
What advice would you give to people who are thinking about going to study Biotechnology (or another area of science), to those who are studying, and to recent graduates?
The best advice I can give you is to be curious, to be sceptical and not to accept everything you hear as truth. If you decide to do science try to make the world a better place. It may seem a bit cliché, but the truth is that the future of the planet will depend on the development of science. If you decide to be part of this community, know that your work can have a great impact on our lives and of future generations.
We are grateful to Carlos Bornes for sharing his testimonial.
Click here (link para Blog) to find out more testimonials from other scientists.
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