On Friday, 29 September 2006, our friend and scientific collaborator Francisco Carlos Nart, kindly called by his friends “Chico”, passed away. He was a victim of an air crash in Mato Grosso, Brazil, on his way back from an academic mission at the University of Amazonas in Manaus. Chico leaves his wife, Prof. Tania F. Salvini, his daughter Laura (14 years old), his son Pedro (11 years old) and many friends.

Chico was born in Rio Negrinho, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, on September 26, 1958. He graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Federal University of São Carlos and received an M.Sc. degree at the Chemistry Department of the same institution in 1986, working under the supervision of Prof. Carlos V. D’Alkaine on Niobium passivation. He then moved to the University of São Paulo at São Carlos, where in 1991 he was awarded a Ph.D. degree, working under the supervision of Prof. Ernesto R. Gonzalez on the characterization of electrode/solution interfaces by in situ infrared spectroscopy. Part of his Ph.D. experimental work was done at the University of Bonn, working with Prof. Wolf Vielstich and Prof. Teresa Iwasita.

He was appointed as Assistant Lecturer at the Chemistry Institute of the University of São Paulo at São Carlos in 1987, where since 2003 he was a full Professor. He was actively working on physical electrochemistry, being the Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry.

After his Ph.D., Chico collaborated with Prof. Iwasita in investigating the adsorption of oxygen-related anions on mono- and polycrystalline metal electrodes by means of group theory application to infrared spectra analysis and started collaboration with Prof. Jonas Gruber (University of São Paulo) and Ivo A. Hümmelgen (Federal University of Paraná), working with conjugated polymers for organic electronic applications. In 1998, he resumed his work on Electrocatalysis constructing a differential electrochemical mass spectrometry system in São Carlos and spent a year at the University of Harvard working with Prof. Cynthia M. Friend on surface reactivity under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. More recently, he became interested in anodic fuel-cell reactions involving alcohols and the correlation between catalyst activity and particle size.

Chico’s contribution includes many scientific articles and book chapters and the supervision of 14 Ph.D. students. He was seen as a Brazilian reference in several subjects related to electrocatalysis, actively collaborated as referee in several journals, and was a member of the Chemistry Advisor Committee of CAPES, Ministry of Education; he was responsible for evaluating and promoting the development of graduate and research programs in Brazil. Because of his excellent personal and academic credentials, he was able, in a relatively short life span, to significantly contribute to the development of Brazilian science. He will be missed.