SBCat - Brief History of Catalysis in Brazil

The first research activities in catalysis in Brazil happened in the beginning of 1970 for initiative of Remolo Ciola, (active at that time in the Institute of Chemistry of the University of São Paulo and in Petroquímica União), of Leonardo Nogueira (in Cenpes-Petrobrás, Center of Research of Petrobrás) and later for Martin Schmal (in the Program of Chemical Engineering of COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, PEQ/COPPE).

From the organizational point of view, the Brazilian catalytic community began to structure during the preparations of the "VI Iberian-American Symposium of Catalysis ", accomplished in Rio de Janeiro in 1978. The Symposium was organized under Martin Schmal's Presidency, with collaboration of Leonardo Nogueira, Roger Frety and Yiu Lau Lam, these last two researchers linked at that time to the Military Institute of Engineering.

The repercussion of this "Symposium" motivated the participants to give beginning to the organization of a similar Congress, of national character. So, in 1981 it took place the "1^st Seminar of Catalysis", accomplished at the Military Institute of Engineering, in Rio de Janeiro. On that same year the first catalysis book was published written by a Brazilian author (Remolo Ciola, " Catalysis Fundamentals", Editora Moderna, S. Paulo, 1981).

The success of the "1^st Seminar" showed the potentiality for the development of catalysis in our country. It was then decided for its accomplishment every two years, in places where there were industrial activities and research in the area, so that it allowed the participation of the researchers located in regions of the country. For the organization of those activities in catalysis, a Catalysis Commission was constituted at the Brazilian Institute of Petroleum (IBP)

The interest for catalysis among the Brazilian researchers was reinforced at 1982 with the creation of the "National Program of Catalysis" (Pronac), Presided by Martin Schmal and with the collaboration of the collaborators previously mentioned. During the four Pronac programs, accomplished in a period of eight years, it was organized the concession of the minimum infrastructure for the active academic groups in catalysis with financial resources of FINEP.

Starting from 1984 the organization of the Brazilian community interested for catalysis was enlarged with the creation of the Regional Commissions, today structured in four regions of the country (Northeast, Rio de Janeiro/Minas, São Paulo/Paraná and Regional South).

From the industrial point of view, several events showed the importance catalysis in Brazil, such as: the creation of catalysis research groups in companies of the Pólo Petroquímico of Camaçari, the inauguration of the Fábrica Carioca de Catalisadores in Rio de Janeiro, the enlargement of the Division of Catalysis of Cenpes/Petrobrás and, more recently, the inauguration of Newtechnos Automotive Catalysts in Americana city (SP).

The catalytic community's consolidation took the participants of the " 8o Brazilian Seminar of Catalysis ", accomplished in 1995 in New Friburgo (RJ), to change the denomination of the seminars for "Brazilian Congress of Catalysis".

The desire that the activities in catalysis in our country acquired a juridical form, allowing a representation before national and international organs, motivated the participants of the " 9th Brazilian Congress of Catalysis ", accomplished in 1997 in Águas de Lindóia (SP) to approve the creation of the "Brazilian Society of Catalysis" (SBCat).

The first Administration of SBCat was elected in December of 1998, having accomplished its first formal meeting in January of this year in the headquarters of IBP. In this meeting it was decided, among other, the creation of this page in Internet and the accomplishment of a race for definition of the logo of SBCat.

In 2003, the journal CatTech (Kluwer) published an article written by the Directory SBCat, upgrading the information about catalysis in Brazil (download in PDF format):

In 2004, the ex-President of SBCat, Martin Schmal, wrote a review about the history of catalysis in Brazil, occurred mainly in the academic area.

Below are listed the name of the Brazilian catalytic community's encounters, as well as of their organizers and of the city in that they were accomplished:

The figure below shows the evolution of the number of participants and the number of presentations at the "Brazilian Congress on Catalysis" since the beginning of this activity. Those interested in acquire the Proceedings of the congresses, please contact IBP.