Ferruccio Trifirò - Biography#

Ferruccio Trifirò born in Barce (Libya) on 17.06.1938 graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Politecnico of Milano (School of Engineering) in 1963 , having as supervisor Prof. Giulio Natta (Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1963) and as co-supervisor Prof.Italo Pasquon.

After military service he used in 1965 a scholarship to work in Prague at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Czechoslovakia with Dr. Pavel Jiru in application of electronic theory of catalysis to molybdates as catalysts for oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde. From 1/5/1966 to 31/3/1968 was CNR fellow at the Institute of Industrial Chemistry of the Politecnico of i Milano, then assistant in charge of industrial chemistry from 1/4/1968 to 1/12/1968, and then assistant professor until 31/10 1975. In 1968 he received a scholarship to work at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Reading (UK) with Prof Philip Mitchel In 1974 he won a scholarship Alexander von Humboldt to work at the Institute of Industrial Chemistry of the University of Erlangen (Germany) with Prof. Hans Hofmann, In November 1976 he was called as professor at the Faculty of Industrial Chemistry in Bologna where he became a full professor.

His main research has been to a large majority in the field of heterogeneous catalysis applied to the synthesis of large intermediate processes by oxidation and hydrogenation and in lesser amount in environmental catalysis and transformation of biomass by gasification.

He is the author of 503 scientific publications published in journals and in books of congresses, 20 patents. His research was always characterized by a collaboration with industries and many of his writings have, in fact, published along with industrial researchers.). A second feature of his research has been that he had close relationships with foreign researchers from Europe from United States,from Russia, from India and from Argentina