Alfons Baiker

Alfons Baiker was Professor of Catalysis and Reaction Engineering at ETH Zurich's Laboratory of Technical Chemistry starting in 1989. He retired at the end of July 2010.

Alfons Baiker was born on April 14, 1945 in Zurich. He first served as an apprentice precision mechanic, while simultaneously preparing his maturity examination. Subsequently, he studied chemical engineering at ETH Zurich and graduated from the Laboratory of Technical Chemistry in 1974. Afterwards, he spent several years at various universities abroad. He completed his habilitation thesis on ammonia synthesis kinetics at Stanford University, California, USA (1980), where he was also involved in teaching courses in kinetics and catalysis. After returning to ETH he started his own research group focusing on heterogeneous catalysis and reaction engineering. In 1989 he became associate professor and in 1990 Full Professor at the ETH Zurich. His main research interests lie in the areas of catalyst design, mechanism and kinetics of catalytic surface processes, in situ spectroscopy, and the application of supercritical fluids in catalysis. His goal is to further the scientific basis required for developing environmentally-benign chemical processes which make optimal use of raw materials and energy.

Alfons Baiker was guest professor at the University of California, Berkeley and at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, Germany. He serves as a member of the editorial boards of several international journals. His bibliography includes over 900 scientific publications and patents, largely in the area of catalysis. He has been rated by ISI Web of Science to belong to the top 0.5% most cited scientists in the field of chemistry in the past two decades.