Prof. Sixto Malato Rodríguez

Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA), University of Almería, Almería, Spain

Sixto Malato is full Professor of Research of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Universities, working at Plataforma Solar de Almería (www.psa.es). Prof. Malato is at the forefront of advanced wastewater treatment, especially in the development of photoreactors. Some of his milestones are: i) fundamentals for solar photoreactors; ii) methodology for combination of AOPs with aerobic treatments; iii) combination of membrane processes with AOPs; iv) treatment methods for the removal of contaminants of emerging concern from wastewater; and more recently v) production of hydrogen using solar photoreactors.

He has carried out top-level research, basic for the EU regulation on water reuse (EU 2020/741, applied since 26 June 2023) and the recent Directive (EU) 2024/3019 of 27 Nov. 2024 concerning urban wastewater treatment. More recently, his contributions are significant in photoreforming of organic matter for photofuel production.

He is among the most cited authors in Spain, with an H factor of 93 (www.scopus.com) and a continuous rise in citations, exceeding 32,000 citations in June 2025. He has co-authored more than 320 publications (over 200 in Q1) in indexed journals (JCR), and more than 400 contributions to international conferences. Director or Co-Director of CIESOL (www.ciesol.es), Joint Research Center (Univ. Almería–CIEMAT), since 2006. Director of Plataforma Solar de Almería 2012–2017. Prof. Malato has been chairman of the most important events in the area: the 3rd European Conference on Environmental Applications of Advanced Oxidation Processes (EAAOP3) and the 10th European Meeting on Solar Chemistry and Photocatalysis: Environmental Applications (SPEA10).

Broad participation in EU projects (over 30 projects for more than €15M, many of them as leader). He has supervised 22 PhDs (3 more under preparation) and edited 40 special issues in different high-IF journals: Appl. Catal. B: Environ., Chem. Eng. J., J. Hazard. Mat., Cat. Today and others. He received the Jury’s Grand Prix of the European Grand Prix for Innovation Awards (Monaco, 11 December 2004) and the Jaime I Prize (the most important in science in Spain) in Environmental Protection, 2011.