Dr. Walter Kaminsky
University of Hamburg
Inducted 2024
In the early 1980s, Professor Dr. Walter Kaminsky 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 had low efficiency and high cost. Kaminsky found that certain metallocenes could be activated using an aluminum compound called alumoxane. This new catalyst polymerized olefins with extraordinary high efficiency, generating millions of pounds of plastic for each pound of catalyst.
These “Kaminsky catalysts” have much better performance, enabling plastic fabricators to develop new applications and higher-value products for consumers. 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 every year. This level of enthusiasm continues today.
As an educator and a scholar for over 40 years at the University of Hamburg, Professor Kaminsky has guided more than 140 Ph.D. students and post doctorates to complete their degrees and training. His students are key contributors to the plastics industry throughout the world.
Kaminsky has been recognized by many institutions and has earned prestigious awards from all over the world including the Benjamin Franklin Medal from 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 the field of polymer science. Cited more than 5000 times, Professor Kaminsky ranks among the top chemical engineering faculty members in the world.
In recent years, Kaminsky worked on plastic waste recycling technologies. New pyrolysis plants were built using his technology to recycle plastic wastes into oil and gas. For this, he received the medal for Most Excellent Contribution to Recycling of Plastics from Japan in 2011.