In 1857 he set up a gas factory in Mataró (Barcelona) and five years after he patented the first inhalation gas called gas Arbós, which is a mixture of water gas and hydrocarbon.
One of the most famous Catalan and Spanish scientists. He devoted his life to research in organic chemistry. His main contribution to science was the development of perchloro-organic chemistry, which he began in 1954 with the discovery of a potent chlorination agent. In 1964 he discovered the Inert Free Radicals, a class of trivalent carbon species of exceptional stability, which opened the door to a new era in organic chemistry.
Born in Mont-Roig del Camp in 1920, he moved to Barcelona in the 1930s when his father, a state school teacher, was posted to the capital. A man committed to freedom, Ballester volunteered at the age of 17 to defend the Spanish Republic against fascist aggression. He suffered the shameful refugee camps in the south of France until he was able to return to Barcelona. At the end of the Spanish civil war, he obtained a doctorate in Chemistry and Biological Sciences with an excellent cum laude mark for his doctoral thesis.
He graduated in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, and also obtained degrees in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Montpellier. He was a chemical engineer at the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Montpellier (1941) and obtained a PhD in Physical Sciences from the Sorbonne (Paris, 1948).
He got his Ph.D. degree in the Universitat de Barcelona, where he worked as a teacher from 1950 until 1966. He was Professor of analytic chemistry at the Universidad de la Laguna (1967-1969) and in the Universtiat Autónoma de Barcelona (1969-1976); Professor of analytic and inorganic chemistry in the E.T.S. de Ingenieros Industriales de Barcelona (1969-1976); and Professor of analytic chemistry in the Universitat de Barcelona from 1976.
Lluís Cornudella i Mir was born in Barcelona on September 10, 1936, a few months after the start of the Spanish Civil War. It was the fourth of six brothers.
He got his Ph.D. degree at the University of Barcelona, where he was a teacher from 1899 to 1905. In 1905 he won the professorship of physics and chemistry at the Institut de Girona and in 1919 he became director of physics and chemistry at the Instituto-Escuela de Madrid.
He finished chemistry studies in Barcelona (1908) and got his Ph.D. degree of pharmacy in 1914 in Madrid. In 1917 he became Professor of botany in the faculty of pharmacy at the Universitat de Barcelona (1917-1922),
In 1906 he got his Ph.D. degree in pharmacy, in Barcelona, with a thesis called Procedimientos de anaálisis de silicatos… and in 1916 his Ph.D. degree in physics, in Genéve, with his thesis Contribution à la révision du poids atomique du brome…
He was first interested in sculptures but finally he started to study science. He finished his science studies in 1898 and his chemist studies in 1910. He was one of the founders of the Institució Catalana d’Història Natural in 1899 and in 1903 he became his president.
He was born in Mataró in 1895, son of Pere Pascual i Tayeda and Gertrudis Vila i Ribes. He died in Barcelona in 1979.
In 1991 Serratosa i Palet received the Catalan Foundation Prize for Research. In 1992 he was awarded the Narcís Monturiol Medal for scientific merit by the Catalan government for his work in the field of methodology of organic synthesis, and in 1993 he was named a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts Barcelona.
He was graduated in Pharmacy in Barcelona and he got his PhD in Madrid in 1856. In 1861 he obtained the Chair of InorganicChemical Pharmacy of the University of Granada and after a short time he was transfered to that of the same name in the University of Barcelona, where he ended up being Dean of the Pharmaceutical College.