Jean-Claude Volta, Institut de Recherches sur la Catalyse IRC, Villeurbanne, France, passed away last week. Volta was born in Givors near Lyon, France, in 1946 and received his chemical engineer degree at the Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon ESCIL in 1968 and his Doctorat ès Sciences in 1973 from the University of Lyon.

His scientific career was spent almost entirely at the Institute of Catalysis Research (IRC), part of CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique), now called IRCELYON. He was head of the Oxide group and Directeur de Recherche au CNRS until his retirement in 2006. He was a founding member of the European CONCORDE (CO-ordination of Nanostructured Catalytic Oxides Research and Development) network and played a vital role in discussions leading to its formation.

Volta’s research focused on oxidation catalysis. In particular, he developed vanadium-phosphorus oxides for the selective oxidation of alkanes. He also developed the spin echo mapping technique in MAS-NMR, pioneered in situ/Operando Raman studies with analysis of reactants and products by online GC, and HR-TEM.

• Vanadium phosphorus oxides for n-butane oxidation to maleic anhydride
  M. Abon, J.-C. Volta,
  App. Catal. A 1997, 157(1-2), 173—193.
  DOI: 10.1016/S0926-860X(97)00016-1
• Role of the product in the transformation of a catalyst to its active state
  G. J. Hutchings, A. Desmartin-Chomel, R. Olier J.-C. Volta,
  Nature 1994, 368, 41—45.
  DOI: 10.1038/368041a0