Cavallaro Medal Awarded to Prof. Michael Schütze

The award is presented every two years on the occasion of EUROCORR in recognition of a scientist who has made a particularly distinguished contribution the field of corrosion research. The medal has been presented during the opening ceremony of EURCORR 2010, the main European corrosion event, in Moscow, Russia, on 14 September 2010.

Michael Schütze will receive the medal for his research and standardisation activities and numerous publications in high temperature corrosion science. He is head of the Karl-Winnacker-Institut of DECHEMA e.V. in Frankfurt.

He was among the first to discover the halogen effect on the oxidation resistance of intermetallic titanium aluminides. During the last two decades he has developed a comprehensive scientific understanding and a model for this strange, but extremely efficient phenomenon for oxidation protection. Recently the concept was additionally applied to Ni-base alloys.

He developed the concept of a quasi-stability diagram describing volatile corrosion products. The application of the diagram has since been extended to the complex situation of gas flows over material surfaces, as encountered under industrial conditions.

His recent research activities focus on high temperature corrosion protection without the formation of surface barrier layers (passive oxide layers). It is aimed to prevent the disintegration of aggressive compounds and the up-take of elements into the metal due to this disintegration by catalytic poisoning of the material surface. First intriguing results have been obtained for protection against coking and metal dusting.

Born in 1952, Michael Schütze studied materials sciences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg from 1972 to 1978. He then joined the Karl Winnacker Institute of DECHEMA as a research associate. He received his doctorate in engineering sciences from the Technical University of Aachen (RWTH) and completed his "Habilitation" in 1991, becoming a member of the external teaching staff of the RWTH. In 1998 he was appointed to a professorship there. In 1996, Michael Schütze was appointed director of the Karl Winnacker Institute. He is a recipient of the Friedrich Wilhelm Prize, the Rahmel Schwenk Medal, and the Otto von Guericke Prize, a past chairman of the Gordon Research Conference on Corrosion, and editor of the journal Materials and Corrosion. Michael Schütze was President of the EFC from 2005 to 2009 and of the World Corrosion Organisation (WCO) from 2007 to 2010. He has chaired the EFC Working Party on Corrosion by Hot Gases and Combustion Products since 1998.

Cavallaro Medal: In 1965, the University of Ferrara instituted a gold medal to be awarded every two years under the auspices of the European Federation of Corrosion to honour the memory and the work of Professor Leo Cavallaro, founder of the "Aldo Dacco" Study Centre on Corrosion, an annexe of the Institute of Chemistry of the University of Ferrara.