Avelino received his Ph.D. from Universidad de Alcalá in 1991, under the supervision of Dr. Pascual Royo and Dr. Ricardo Serrano. Then he moved to the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cambridge where, under the supervision of Dr. Paul R. Raithby, he began his research into the field of crystallography and cluster chemistry.

 

In September 1992 he rejoined the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alcalá where he has been performing his teaching and research duties as “Profesor Titular de Universidad” (1997). Since then, he has continued his research working on the synthesis of organometallic compounds and their characterization by single crystal X-ray diffraction.

 

In this sense, after exploring the chemical reactivity of titanium mononuclear species, and well as di- and trinuclear oxo derivatives of titanium (IV), his research was focused on trinuclear alkylidine or imido-nitride species, which can act as preorganized ligands allowing the access to "tailor-made" molecular oxides and nitrides with MTi3O3(CR) and MTi3N4 cube-type cores.

 

Later, hydrogenation processes were carried out on the m3-alkylidine groups with alcohols, silanols and ammonia. Interestingly, the reaction with ammonia led to several sequential hydrogenation processes in which the alkylidene, alkyl and alkane elimination species could be detected / isolated, along with the formation of one oxonitride derivative.

 

Thermal behavior of tetraalkyl derivatives of the dinuclear titanium (IV) oxospecies was also studied. This led to C-H activation processes on the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl ligands giving rise to "tuck-over" complexes. Interesting insertion reactions with nitrile and isocyanide reagents were carried out both on tetraalkyl and tuck-over complexes.

 

In recent years, the synthesis of imido polynuclear species of tantalum, a rich variety of sulfide derivatives of niobium and tantalum (V), along with some of their hydrogenation processes, have also been addressed.

 

All this work has led to get more than 140 peer-reviewed papers (89 Q1), Hirsch-index 29, with a total citation value of 2684, average citations/year: 81 (2016-20).