BIO
Avelino Corma (Moncófar, Castellón, Spain, 1951) earned a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Valencia in 1973, and just three years later completed his doctorate at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). He began his professional career as a scientific researcher for the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and is currently a Research Professor at the Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIC/UPV), a mixed center which he co-founded in 1990. For the last fifty years he has researched in heterogeneous catalysis. Author of more than 1,400 papers in international journals, he has also written three books and numerous reviews and served on the editorial boards of leading titles in the catalysis field. Corma holds over 200 invention patents, over 20 of them applied industrially in commercial processes.
CONTRIBUTION
Avelino Corma has pioneered the field of heterogeneous catalysis, so called because the catalyst is in a different phase of matter from the agents of the chemical reaction the researcher is seeking to accelerate. In his work, concretely, the catalyst is a solid and the reactants could be gases or liquids. Corma has led the conception and synthesis of microporous materials that act as solid catalysts, where the reactions unfold inside molecule-sized cavities. These materials have opened the door to a more sustainable, less polluting chemistry.
Corma’s influence stretches even further than these basic research findings, which have had a major international impact in the catalysis field. He is also the inventor of over 100 patents with industrial applications that are now being rolled out to improve efficiency and sustainability in the production of fuels, plastics, cosmetics and food.
For the laureate, moreover, this is just the start of a technological revolution that in coming years could be a powerful transformative tool in the fight against climate change, and believes catalysts will make it possible to capture CO2 from the atmosphere or biomass on the way to developing fuels and chemical processes with far less environmental impact.
