The Prince of Asturias Foundation
Author of more than a hundred works of research, his studies of stable free radions have opened up a wide field of organic chemistry with many possibilities and technological applications.
Born in Barcelona in 1919, Manuel Ballester graduated in Chemistry in 1944, after having studied at the University of Barcelona. Four years later he obtained his doctorate in Madrid and moved almost immediately to the United States, where he finished his training as a research student at the University of Harvard, from 1949 to 1951.
Since 1944 he has formed part of the scientific team of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas - CSIC), filling various posts: head of the Physical Organic Chemistry Section, from 1952 to 1971; director of the Institute of Applied Organic Chemistry, from 1971; and director of the reserach programmes of the Third Plan for Social and Economic Development and of the Advisory Committee on Technical and Scientific Research, since 1972.
Between 1961 and 1962 he was a guest lecturer at the University of Ohio, USA and at the Aerospace Research Laboratories. In 1969 he came to form part of the Spanish Committee of the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry; this was also the year of his admission into the Royal Academy of Natural, Physical and Exact Sciences of Madrid. In 1974 he was a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on Organic Free Radicals held in Sirmione, Italy and three years later he played a similar role in the II International Symposium on Organic Free Radicals, which met y Aix-en- Provence, France.
From 1972 to 1976 he was vice-president of the Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry Group of the Royal Spanish Society for Physics and Chemistry; spokesman of the Executive Committee of University and Scientific Research of the Ministry of Education and Science, and president of the III International Symposium on Polyhalogen Compounds and of the Scientific Committee of the Osborne Award for The Defence of Nature, for which he also acted as advisor.
In 1980, Manuel Boix was elected as a numerary member of the Royal Acaddemy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Two years later he filled the vice-presidency of the IV International Symposium of Polyhalogen Compounds. This scientist from Barcelona is also linked with important international chemistry institutions, such as the Association of Harvard Chemists, the American Chemical Society or the Chemical Society of London.
During the whole of his long professional life he has written mor than a hundred works on the kinetics and mechanisms of aldolic and Darzen´s condensations; the quantitative determination of chorine and silicon in organic compounds; stable salts of carbon anions and cations; and aromatic carbon clorides, among others. he has published various books in the United States, Great Britain and Spain, among which "Química Orgánica Física" and "Fundamentos y Espectrometrías", the latter of which is a fundamental work for the study of physical organic chemistry, are outstanding.
Manuel Ballester Boix has made important scientific discoveries, which have meant major advances in the fields of kinetics and organic chemistry. Among them, one may highlight the establishment of the kinetics and mechanism of Darzens condensation; the discovery of BMC, the most potent aromatic colouring reagent yet known; the discovery of a quantitative spectral law which relates aromatic substances to their ultraviolet absorbtion spectrum; the initiation and development of alcaromatic carbon chlorides, which has opened up a new field of chemistry; the discovery of hydride ion transfer in two phases; the synthesis of new bioactive perchlorate substances; and the discovery of the reversible cationization of trivalent carbon free radicals, induced by Lewis acids.
