Year after year, Lab FIRP investigators have been presenting more "in-house" courses for our industrial partners. These "a la carte" trainings containing confidential issues, actually include both knowledge and know-how features. They are often complemented by discussions and counseling on R&D specific problems or manufacturing processes.

Last november, we offered a course on Enhanced Oil Recovery at the ECOPETROL R&D Center (ICP) in Bucaramanga, Colombia, and we will have soon the visit of some of their investigators to carry out an advanced practical training in our laboratory.

Last May we gave a know-how course on "Surfactans, Emulsion Formulation and Propierties" for the strategic sciences "green" group at the SC Johnson R&D center in Racine, near Chicago.

In June we delivered an Internal Specialist Course on "Emulsion Technology using the SAD Approach" in Geleen, Netherlands. It was for investigadors in Colloid and Surface Science coming from different European R&D Centers of DSM.

In July we offered our typical training about "Micro-, Macro, Nano-Emulsions" dedicated to petroleum applications for the R&D center of Baker Hughes in Houston.

In the first week of September we presented a new course on “Surfactants and Emulsion Formation for Home and Personal Care Products” in OXITENO Reseach and Development Center in Maúa, close to São Paulo, Brazil.

It is not really a wonder that we have partners concerned with such apparently different businesses. In fact the ability of handling the formulation of systems with surfactants in mini-, micro-, macro-, or nano-emulsions, dispersions and foams which required three decades of our R&D to be mastered, applies to a very extended variety of industrial, domestic and personal care products. Changing is just a matter of switching the water or oil phase .. for instance from crude, to corn or olive oil, lanolin, paraffin or acrylic resin. Aside a few petroleum companies which are interested in enhanced recovery, dehydration, drilling fluids, well remediation or emulsified fuels, we have partners producing detergents and cleaners like PROCTER & GAMBLE, UNILEVER, ECOLAB, JOHNSON, … or surfactant manufacturers as CLARIANT, AKZO-NOBEL, BASF, RHODIA, COGNIS, OXITENO,... Additionally we have companies dealing with unusual interfacial phenomena in emulsions and foams, such as LAFARGE, the World number one in cement business, or PECHINEY-ALCAN a leader in aluminum production.

A new bibliographical material will be available this month in the “treasure of technical documentation” section, in particular selected publications, not only free access papers, but also graduate thesis and dissertations, communications to congress and new FIRP booklets, which will be accessible for downloading from our web page. During 2011 first semester an i-library will be put in service in our web page with a restricted access limited to our professors and students, as well as to the researchers of our industrial partners. This i-library will offer a selection of well known textbooks, handbooks and encyclopedias to complement a package of about 4,000 of the most significant articles in surfactant science and technology as well as in an assortment of applications. You will find in what follows a serie of publications of interest in our area of research and development. Just do a CLICK on any reference to get a pdf copy.

This Thursday July 4, 2011, our researcher and graduate student María Antonieta Arandia Frey presented her dissertation in Applied Sciences PhD program from the Engineering College at University of The Andes. The title of the work was "Formulation of microemulsions robust to changes in composition". The research was supervised by Drs. Jean-Louis Salager and Ana Forgiarini, and the other jury members were Drs. Johnny Bullon (president), Fredy Ysambertt and Laura Marquez. This research dealt with a problem not yet solved in the Enhanced Oil Recovery by surfactants, i.e. the spontaneous shift from optimum formulation for ultralow tension when the injected surfactant solution is diluted in the reservoir fluids.

Our new specialist Dr. Richard Márquez is contributing with our laboratory by preparing a new web page, with a new content and a new image and an important amount of information for our collaborators, partners and friends. This new page will give access to a digital treasure of scientific-technical bibliography with more than 4000 classified entries for FISA network researchers and partners.

Last year we signed a cooperation agreement with OXITENO ANDINA, a venezuelan company which manufactures nonionic surfactants, polyalcohols and polyethers, and whose mother company OXITENO Brazil, is the World second producer of ethylene oxide. The surfactants and polymers made by OXITENO are important raw materials for the formulation of cleaners, detergents, cosmetics and personal care products, as well as paints and textiles … among other applications.
With its adhesion to our general agreement, OXITENO is now one of our privileged partners and has access to our special services.For more information on OXITENO visit the web site.

The NMR Laboratory from our University College of Sciences has decided to join us for the achievement of concerted projects. Prof. Ali Bhasas and Prof. Sonia Koteich are then associated with Lab. FIRP and complement our capability with their expertise in synthesis and NMR spectroscopy. Welcome.

On October 15th, 2010 Procter & Gamble of Venezuela signed a cooperation agreement with our University to carry out a project on the “formulation of emulsion for the treatment of Leishmaniasis desease”. This project gather participants of our Lab FIRP and of the parasitology Research Institute José W. Torrealba on ULA Trujillo Campus. Our colleagues in Trujillo have developped a new medication which has to be injected every day around the cutaneous lesion for more than a month, and our cooperative effort target is to formulate a new vehicle of the micro/nanoemulsion type to insure a more pleasant transdermal application of the medication. The succes of this project that requires the cooperation of different investigators could have a significant social impact. For more information on this agreement, CLICK here

We recently dictated our usual "Surfactant level 1", this time applied to detergents, with visitors from Chile Virginia and Cenco-Zotti among other industrial partners.

In June our "Dehydration" course gathered many researchers and employees of the national oil industry companies dealing with this speciality (Picture 1).

The next specialized courses to be offered in Mérida this year are an advanced one on "Surfactants level 2" in September and another on "Enhanced Oil Recovery" in November.

On June 30 - July 1, our Director Prof. Johnny Bullon and Dr. Cesar Scorzza participated to the Meeting on the "Advances in diagnosis and chemical therapy of Chagas and Leishmaniasis diseases".  The event took place at the Research Institute José Witremundo Torrealba in the Rafael Rangel University Campus in Trujillo. The contribution of our delegates was to present our advances in the vehicle innovation for the Ulamina medication. The picture shows the Leishmaniasis patients attention in the medical service in Trujillo.