ORALS

SESSION: SolidStateChemistryMonAM-R6	Alario-Franco international Symposium (2nd Intl Symp on Solid State Chemistry for Applications & Sustainable Development)
Mon. 28 Nov. 2022 / Room: Andaman 1
Session Chairs: Alejandro Varez; Session Monitor: TBA

11:30: [SolidStateChemistryMonAM01] OS Plenary
A career in novel Chemistry- Part 1
Miguel A. Alario Franco¹ ; ¹Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain;
Paper Id: 518 [Abstract]

The beginning of my scientific & academic career my first challenge, started in fact, in the 4th year undergraduate when, under the direction of my supervisor, Professor A. Mata Arjona, I did build the technical equipment for the thermal treatments of solid samples in vacuum and the measurement of their porous texture. This led to my thesis work concerning the structural & textural study of porous solids (The porous texture of Aluminium Phosphate Gels. Univ. Complutense-Serie A-Nº 110; 1970-In Spanish¡). Interestingly, these materials and studies are now relevant, more than 45 years later, when ALPO is being studied as absorbent of CO2 and water from the atmosphere fighting with drought and climate change (B.D. Yuhas et al Chem.Mater.2018,30, 583-586 and references therein). This equipment was then used for a number of years by mine and other doctoral students: my first achievement¡ I did my postdocs in the UK, learned various techniques as TEM, ED, ESCA.…and more about materials synthesis. Back in Spain, in 1976, I became Chemistry Professor at 34 years of age; another landmark in Spanish Universities- By 1974, I created the first Solid-State Chemistry group -by then a relatively new subject- and after setting up an Electron Microscopy center and a High Pressure Synthesis lab -a technique that I did get to know in the CNRS & INPG in Grenoble France, I did mentor various “collections” of undergrads (around 70) and graduate (some foreign) students – to arrive to have, along the years, more than 25 D.Sc. disciples, 15 of which are today University full professors and have created their own schools, in Spain and other places. One can estimate that around 200 scientists have participated in and benefited of the activities of this innovative scientific school. Simultaneously I did develop and implemented in the Chemistry Curricula Solid- State Chemistry as a discipline in the degrees of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, that is now used in many Spanish Science Faculties. In the Academic career, I have been successively Professor, Dean of Faculty, Director of Summer School, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Spain, -of which I have been President- Also honorary member of Colombia and Argentina and of various other national and international scientific organizations, like EURASC or the university of Wales.

SESSION: SolidStateChemistryMonAM-R6	Alario-Franco international Symposium (2nd Intl Symp on Solid State Chemistry for Applications & Sustainable Development)
Mon. 28 Nov. 2022 / Room: Andaman 1
Session Chairs: Alejandro Varez; Session Monitor: TBA

11:55: [SolidStateChemistryMonAM02] OS Plenary
A career in novel Chemistry- Part 2
Miguel A. Alario Franco¹ ; ¹Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain;
Paper Id: 519 [Abstract]

The work on my D.Sc thesis consisted in a study of the textural and structural developments in the thermal treatments of Aluminum Phosphate hydrated gels. Immediately after, in my fist postdoc I discovered the interconversion between CrO2 & CrOOH in different atmospheres and I also performed a textural analysis that was followed in ulterior thesis back in Spain where we did study the diffusion coefficient of H in this process. A plethora of oxyhydroxides & hydroxides was than prepared and deeply studied structurally and microstructurally. In my second postdoc we looked at extended defects in CrO2 and found a new family of Crystallographic Shear (CS) Phases, a subject of great interest at the time -mid 70’s.; simultaneously we made a deep study by means of Photoelectron Spectroscopy, in the first equipment available commercially, of chromium oxides and confirmed Goodenough Model for Rutile type dioxides. Back to Spain in my then starting research group (1973-4), we dedicated our efforts, mostly, but not exclusively, to the synthesis and characterization (structure, microstructure, electric, magnetic, thermal) properties we did extend the studies on CS in various system and the structure/properties relations and its evolution with temperature in TM oxides obtained at RP/HT and, specially at HP & HT in the HP-Laboratory that we did set up -first one in Spain and one of the very few in Europe by then- more than 15 external groups have benefitted of this innovative laboratory. Also, the deep microstructural and spectroscopic characterization was performed in the Electron Microscopy “Luis Bru Center” that I founded at UCM. Work on Perovskites followed and we did publish the first Spanish paper in Physical Sciences in Nature (1977) concerning extended defects in bulk SrTiO3 and later on its surface (SS Sciences 2009). Continuing on perovskite related work we did launch an extensive collaboration wit three French laboratories: Two in Grenoble and one in Bordeaux, where we did introduce the electron microscopy and diffraction techniques. In this last case, we demonstrated the phenomenon of three-dimensional microdomains associated to non-stoichiometry associated to Red-Ox processes in Ca-La Ferrites. In late 1986, the extraordinary phenomenon of HTSC, was discovered and we were the first group in Spain to obtain YBCO derived materials, such as REBa2Cu3O7-x (Solid State Comm 1987) still the Highest Tc (=96.5 K in the case Re <> Sm) for an YBCO superconductor. Shortly after we did prepare the whole family with most of the Rare Earths and distributed samples of the in various laboratories, including the one of Cardona in Stuttgart¡ For its part in Grenoble, we had a verry strong collaboration in those HTSC cuprates in which we established the existence of the “intermediate phase” Y2Ba4Cu6O13 (Solid State.Comm.65, 283-6, (81988/1/1) and obtained “A new family of cupro-carbonates” (Physica C, 1-2, 52-6(1994) & Physica C,235-240, 975-6 (1994). Which still displays the High Tc record for non-toxic materials:117K at room pressure. On the other hand, in Madrid, our work has also demonstrated a novel Red/Ox mechanism in the oxidation –and concomitantly a very marked increase in Tc- of cuprates having two different transition metals: Mo0.3Cu0.7Sr2RECu2O7+x (Dalton Transactions: 44(23) 10795- 805(2015)). A few additional examples of our more recent work in superconducting and other materials will be presented in the lecture.