In the early 1980s, Professor Walter Kaminsky (1941 – ) pioneered major new families of catalysts at the University of Hamburg that made a global impact on the production of plastics. Kaminsky’s breakthrough discoveries sparked a revolution that has been utilized by nearly every polyolefin producer in the world. Today, more than 20 billion pounds of polyolefin plastics and elastomers are produced annually.

Before Kaminsky’s discoveries, polyolefin plastics and elastomers were produced using difficult-to-control catalysts that were low-efficient and high-cost. Kaminsky found that certain metallocenes could be activated using an aluminum compound called aluminoxane. This new catalyst polymerized olefins with extraordinarily high efficiency, generating millions of pounds of plastic for each pound of catalyst.

These “Kaminsky catalysts” perform much better, enabling plastic fabricators to develop new applications and higher-value consumer products. The polyolefin industry regards Professor Kaminsky as the father of modern metallocene technology.

Research into these new catalysts escalated in the 1990s and 2000s, with specialized scientific conferences drawing hundreds of scientific and management attendees yearly. This level of enthusiasm continues today.

As an educator and scholar for over 40 years at the University of Hamburg, Professor Kaminsky has guided more than 140 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows to complete their degrees and training. His students are key contributors to the plastics industry worldwide.

Many institutions have recognized Kaminsky, and he has earned prestigious awards worldwide, including the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the U.S.A. in 1999 and the Hermann Staudinger Prize from Germany in 2003. Having published more than 450 journal papers and patents, Kaminsky is one of the most active scientists in polymer science. Cited more than 5000 times, Professor Kaminsky ranks among the top chemical engineering faculty members in the world.

In recent years, Kaminsky has worked on plastic waste recycling technologies. New pyrolysis plants were built using his technology to recycle plastic waste into oil and gas. In 2011, Japan awarded him the medal for Most Excellent Contribution to Recycling of Plastics.