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Professor Aviezer Stevan Kertes

 

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Aviezer Stevan Kertes (Steve) was born in Szeged, Hungary in 1922 and obtained his degree in chemical engineering at the University of Belgrade in 1949.  Following his emigration to Israel he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem gaining a PhD in 1952.  His interest in solvent extraction followed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute de Radium in Paris with Michael Lederer studying metal ion complexation in aqueous/organic solvent systems by paper chromatography.  

On returning to Jerusalem he began studying liquid-liquid extraction of metals and organic acids often using long chain amines as extractants.  These studies involved fundamental thermodynamic studies of interactions between solvent (diluent), extractant and water.  In 1969 he was joint author with Professor Yizhak Marcus of Ion Exchange and Solvent Extraction of Metal Complexes. At the time this book with its detailed explanations of the thermodynamic properties of these systems had an enormous effect on both the ion exchange and solvent extraction communities and remained an important text for many years.

Also about this time he was invited to become a member of the IUPAC Commission on Equilibrium Data and was largely instrumental in the formation of the Solubility Data Commission under his chairmanship. This led to the compilation and critical evaluation of solubility data resulting in the publication between 1977 and 1988 under his leadership as Editor-in-Chief of 38 volumes of solubility data.  He also helped initiate a series of symposia on solubility phenomena.

During this time he continued his research activities in solvent extraction extending his interests into the areas of micro-emulsions (1980s), extraction of metals from low temperature melts (1970s), the latter using low melting alkylammonium salts predated the current interest in the use of room temperature ionic liquids by many years. Professor Kertes was nominated for the Carl Hanson medal in 1988 but unfortunately died of a heart attack on 8th July, 10 days before the ISEC opened in Moscow.