Avelino Corma Canos


Avelino Corma Canós is a Spanish chemist distinguished for his world-leading work on heterogeneous catalysis.
He received a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the Universidad de Valencia and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1976. In 1979 he started working as a researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and in 1987 he was a full professor. He has been carrying out research in heterogeneous catalysis in academia and in collaboration with companies. He has worked on fundamental aspects of acid-base and redox catalysis with the aim of understanding the nature of the active sites and reaction mechanisms. Based on these aspects, he has developed catalysts that are being used commercially in several industrial processes.
He has published more than 1200 documents and has more than 200 patents. Over 20 of those patents have been applied industrially in commercial processes of cracking, desulfuration, isomerization, epoxidation, chemo selective oxidation of alcohols and chemoselective hydrogenations.

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