User:Alexisgab95/Francisco Colom Polo

Francisco Colom Polo (Cullera, Valencia 1927 - Madrid, 2011) was a Spanish scientist and Research Professor at the Instituto de Química Física Rocasolano, affiliated to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

Biography

Francisco Colom Polo graduated in Chemistry from the University of Valencia in 1951 and obtained his doctorate in the same field from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1954 under the supervision of Professor Juan Francisco Llopis Marí. In 1957 he moved to the United States with a contract as a research associate at the John Harrison Chemistry Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The following year he was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. On his return to Madrid in 1959, he devoted himself entirely to research at the Rocasolano Institute of the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), where he was director from 1979 to 1992. During this period, he published numerous papers in his field and acted as scientific advisor in government contracts with national industries.

Research

His research topics focused on special metals that are difficult to obtain at ambient temperature or in aqueous media, such as aluminium, titanium and others that require production from molten mineral salts at high temperature. He also worked on the corrosion of metals or alloys in the construction of some atomic batteries. In the line of electro-catalysts, he was interested in the use and behaviour of noble metals in the production of electrodes for electric batteries.

His work with the perchlorate anion deserves mention. Perchlorate was traditionally considered to be the ideal anion for an inert support electrolyte, because of its electrochemical stability and its negligible adsorbability. However, Prof. Colom found that, on ruthenium, perchlorate was reduced to chloride in the hydrogen adsorption region, and during the positive sweep, in a rather singular reaction mechanism. This finding was of importance because this formation of chloride from perchlorate can seriously affect experiments carried out under ultraclean conditions. Prof. Colom also studied the electrodeposition of antimony, bismuth and germanium in molten salts, and the corrosion of iron and steel in molten salts.

Francisco Colom (back row) with the team of researchers from the John Harrison Laboratory of Chemistry (Philadelphia) in 1957.

His work on the platinum-group metals achieved notable international recognition. Proof of this is that Profs. Llopis and Colom were chosen to write the chapters on platinum, iridium, osmium and palladium in the Encyclopedia of Electrochemistry of the Elements, edited by Allen J. Bard. Later, Colom authored the chapters on all the platinum-group metals in the book Standard Potentials in Aqueous Solution, edited by Allen J. Bard, Roger Parsons and Joseph Jordan.

He had a significant international projection. He was President of the Organising Committee of the 36th Congress of the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE), held in Salamanca in 1985. He was also the Spanish representative to the ISE from 1982 to 1988 and to the Selective Activation of Molecules Panel of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division in Brussels from 1985 to 1988. Between 1990 and 1995 he was President of the Electrochemistry Group of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry. Although he retired in 1992, he visited his former Institute every day, thus becoming a living history of it. He was a cultured person and, above and beyond his scientific dedication, a lover of the fine arts, particularly opera, which he attended with the relish reserved for connoisseurs.

References

Encyclopedia of Electrochemistry of the Elements, ed. by Allen J. Bard. New York, Marcel Dekker Inc., 1976.

Standard Potentials in Aqueous Solution, ed. by Allen J. Bard, Roger Parsons and Joseph Jordan. New York, Dekker Inc., 1985.

External links

Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry (CSIC)

History of the Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry

John Harrison Laboratory of Chemistry. University of Pennsylvania

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry [[Category:Chemistry]] [[Category:Electrochemistry]] [[Category:Science]] [[Category:Spanish scientists]] [[Category:Csic]]