Dr. P. González Herrero carried out his PhD thesis at the University of Murcia (UMU) under the supervision of Profs. J. Vicente and M. T. Chicote (1994-1997) thanks to a PhD fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education. During this period, he performed two short stays at foreign institutions: the University of Würzburg, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. H. Werner, and the University of California at Berkeley, under the supervision of R. G. Bergman. The most relevant results of his doctoral thesis include the synthesis of the first hydrogensulfido and trithiocarbonato gold complexes. Some of these results have reached inorganic chemistry textbooks used at universities.
In May 1998, he started a postdoctoral research stay at the University of Würzburg, under the supervision of Prof. H. Werner, thanks to a Marie Curie Research Training grant from the European Commission under the Training and Mobility of Researchers Programme. He then stayed in Würzburg for 10 additional months as a contracted researcher. During his postdoctoral stay, he got important results in the chemistry of ruthenium vinylidene, carbene and carbyne complexes.
In March 2001 he was awarded a grant from Fundación Séneca (Región de Murcia) to return to the UMU. In November 2001, he was selected under the Ramón y Cajal programme of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology and in 2006 he got a permanent position at the University of Murcia as a Research Professor (Profesor Contratado Doctor) within the I3 Programme. In February 2010 he became an Associate Professor (Profesor Titular).
Since his return to the UMU, he developed his research activity within Prof. Vicente's research group on the synthesis, structural characterization and study of the photophysical properties of gold, silver, copper, palladium and platinum coordination complexes, including heterometallic derivatives, and also on the chemistry of arylpalladium complexes. Until 2013, his research was done in collaboration with Prof. Vicente.
Since 2014, he focused on the photophysics and photochemistry of cyclometalated platinum complexes. This research has led to important achievements, including the synthesis and study of the luminescence and electrochemistry of the first series of strongly luminescent cyclometalated Pt(IV) complexes and the discovery of an unprecedented photoinduced C–H activation process in cyclometalated Pt(II) complexes. He has reached a high level of expertise in photoactive compounds and the interpretation of their excited-state properties through photophysical methods, electrochemistry and quantum-chemical calculations.