More talented and outstanding Unicauca students continue to hit it out of the park with their research! Today, we celebrate the achievements of Luisa Damaris Ramos Riascos, a chemistry graduate from our alma mater, who was co-author of two scientific articles published in accredited journals.

The first article, titled Sulfonated Reduced Graphene Oxide: An Acid Catalyst that Efficiently Promotes the Esterification of Glycerol, published in 2022 in the journal Topics in Catalysis, presents the effectiveness of a graphite-derived catalyst in the glycerol acetylation reaction. Building on these results, Luisa and the four co-authors aimed to obtain similar materials, but from biomass, reducing the use of harmful reagents and producing valuable materials from waste. This led to the second article, Acidic Eco-Catalysts Derived from Coffee Husks in the Acetylation of Glycerol, published in 2025 in the journal Tetrahedron Green Chem, which describes the feasibility of using waste from coffee processing to obtain active, economical, and environmentally friendly catalysts.

The co-authors of these brilliant studies are, for the first article, Alfonso Enrique Ramírez Sanabria and Cristian David Miranda Muñoz, professors in the Chemistry program at Unicauca; Gerardo Andrés Torres Rodríguez, professor in the Biology program at our alma mater; and Alexander Sachse. For the second article, professors Ramírez and Miranda participated again.

“It was an enriching and very rewarding experience. Each stage, from research to writing and the review process, was truly valuable. Discussing and defending the work with international experts and having it ultimately accepted demonstrates that at Unicauca we also conduct useful research. Definitely, the learning gained from the publication process is enormous,” says Luisa Ramos.