Things About Me Series - 02 - Omeletes Sem Ovos

Where do you go after an Honours Project? Straight into a PhD.

I was very fortunate to receive a scholarship from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal) and even more fortunate to have had three incredible women as my thesis supervisors. Was it easy? Hell, no. Did everything go smoothly? Not at all. A PhD is a winding path, full of unexpected turns, but in the end, it all worked out.

My PhD research focused on the graphitisation of high-rank coals—anthracite and meta-anthracite—to assess their potential for producing synthetic graphite. You might wonder, why is this important? Well, graphite is one of the key components of lithium-ion batteries, used as an anode material, among many other technological applications. With the global push for energy transition, graphite is now classified as a critical mineral (IEA Report). It was a relevant topic 15 years ago, and it’s even more relevant today.

I often got asked: Why produce synthetic graphite when you can mine it? If you search "synthetic graphite from coal" on Google Scholar, you’ll find that much of the research comes from Chinese authors. But why would China, the world's largest producer of natural graphite, invest in this synthetic alternatives? I’ll leave that question here for you to think about.

Anyway, back to my research. I successfully obtained partially graphitised material from meta-anthracite samples from the Douro Basin. Interestingly, the ability of these coals to graphitise was not primarily controlled by their rank but rather by their geological history—especially conditions where shear pressure played a role. This is a paper from my PhD that I still need to write. Now, looking back at my old data files, I’m noticing aspects I didn’t fully grasp at the time.

My PhD years were intense—so much to learn:

• New analytical techniques

• Selecting the appropriate methodologies

• Data interpretation and visualisation

• Developing arguments

• Reading and writing in a foreign language (probably the hardest part)

If you want your research to reach a global audience, publishing in English is the way to go. I remember a colleague who proofread our drafts once saying:

"This is how you write: The sky is blue. The grass is green. You have a nice car."

That line has stuck with me ever since. I spent months dissecting journal articles, pulling apart sentences to understand how ideas were structured and communicated. I wrote my thesis in a paper-based format and published five papers from my PhD. Easy you may say. No, not at all.

One of my supervisors used to say, “Fazemos omeletes sem ovos” (we make omelettes without eggs). And back then, we really did. Funding was scarce, but strong collaborations kept our work moving forward. I’ll always be grateful to those who contributed, in one way or another. We also had sheer determination, and that kept us pushing ahead.

After all, we were in “Invicta”—you might want to look up that reference. 😉

That experience taught me resilience, adaptability, and the value of seeing beyond the obvious—skills that now shape CarbonMat’s mission. Whether in research or industry, unlocking the full potential of carbon materials requires the same curiosity and determination that drove my PhD journey.

A couple of my papers if you want to know a little bit more about graphitisation of high-rank coals:

Microstructural evolution of high temperature treated anthracites of different rank

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166516211001339

Development of graphite-like particles from the high temperature treatment of carbonized anthracites

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166516210002223