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.
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