Ana Rita C. Duarte

Ana Rita C. Duarte was born in Lisbon in 1978. Currently Associate Professor at the Chemistry Department from Nova FCT. She was previously Research Assistant at the 3B’s research group at Universidade do Minho, where she worked for 10 years. She graduated in Chemical Engineering by Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2002 and completed her PhD in 2006 by the same University. The International Society for Advancement of Supercritical Fluids granted her thesis the Best Thesis Award in 2007.

In 2016 she was awarded an ERC consolidator grant entitled: DES.solve – When Solids Become Liquids: Natural Deep Eutectic solvents for Chemical Process Engineering, to proceed the developments on green technologies. In 2022 she was awarded an ERC Proof of Concept grant to pursue one of the technologies developed withing DES Solve, CryoDES and in 2023 she was awarded a second ERC PoC Grant to develop ImproVITA. In 2018, co-founded Des Solutio, a spin-off company from FCT-NOVA which aims to develop safer and greener alternatives to the chemicals for pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

Her main research interests are the use of green technologies for the development of biomaterials. In particular, the use of water, and supercritical fluids together with the exploration of natural deep eutectic solvents for pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications.