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Preface: In Honor of Dr. Alberto Cassano In the last 40 years, Dr. Alberto Cassano has pioneered, inspired, and established a general and well-grounded phenomenologically based theory for photoreactors. This remarkable accomplishment brought the value of using light (especially solar radiation) in chemical processes to the attention of the scientific community. Dr. Cassano is the author of more than 250 refereed publications and 100 communications in international conferences. Over the years, he has been involved in the supervision of more than 50 graduate researchers and the first two Ph.D. theses in the history of Argentinean engineering faculties. One of his exceptional initiatives was the development of an experimental plant for heavy water production that was sponsored by the Argentinean National Nuclear Energy Commission. Dr. Cassano has been a most effective communicator who reported his photoreactor mathematical radiation modeling with special applications on water treatment processes, during numerous lectures held in many universities and international conferences in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, and most Latin American countries. Dr. Cassano graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in 1961 and a Ph.D. degree from the University of California at Davis, in Berkeley, CA, in 1968. Since 1976, Dr. Cassano has been a CONICET Investigador Superior, and since 1968, he has been a Full Professor at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina. Dr. Cassano is the founder and past director of two leading research organizations in Latin America, both of them located in Santa Fe, Argentina: the Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnolo´gico (INTEC) and the Centro Regional de Investigacio´n y Desarrollo (CERIDE). Dr. Cassano has led numerous professional activities in Argentina as co-founder of the National Catalysis Committee and as prominent figure of the Argentinean Society for
Engineering Education, the Latinamerican Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer, the Research Council of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral and the National Committee for Postgraduate Engineering Education. Dr. Cassano has been member of Advisory Committees of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas y Te´cnicas (CONICET). He is currently a Scientific Advisor of the Argentinean Secretary of Science and Technology (SECyT). Dr. Cassano has received many distinctions and awards. These accomplishments include the following: the JoVen Sobresaliente Award, with nomination by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Bernardo Houssay (1969); the Consagracio´ n Nacional en Ciencias Aplicadas prize from the Argentinean Ministry of Culture and Education (1993); the Alexander von Humboldt Price (1998); the Trajectoria Academica Award from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (1998); the Distinguished Lecturer of the American Association of Environmental Engineering Professors (U.S.A.) (1999); the Gustavo Fester Prize in Chemical Engineering, from the Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (2000); and the Iones Foundation’s Diploma de Honor en Ingenierı´a (2003). Dr. Cassano is currently a member of the Argentinean National Engineering Academy. His colleagues, and his past and present students, are honored and delighted to dedicate this special issue of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research to Dr. Alberto Cassano, a leading chemical engineering researcher with exceptional contributions to the field of photoreactor engineering. Hugo de Lasa Faculty of Engineering, UniVersity of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5B9, Canada
10.1021/ie0780086 CCC: $37.00 © 2007 American Chemical Society Published on Web 10/31/2007
IE0780086
