Celebrating the 60th birthday of José Carlos Pinto

This Macromolecular Reaction Engineering special issue is dedicated to Celebrate the 60^th birthday of José Carlos Pinto, or Zé, as he likes to be called by his friends and colleagues. We were honored and delighted to organize this special issue of Macromolecular Reaction Engineering with Dr. Spiegel to celebrate the importance of Zé’s contribution to developing polymer technology throughout his 35 working years.

José Carlos is now a full Professor of the Chemical Engineering Program at Instituto Alberto Luiz Coimbra de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Engenharia (COPPE), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a permanent member of the Graduate Program in Chemical and Biochemical Process Engineering at the School of Chemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Zé has worked in modeling, simulation, and control of polymerization processes since 1987, published about 500 papers in refereed journals and deposited 50 patents during the supervision of more than 150 MSc Dissertations, 100 DSc theses, and hundreds of projects with industrial partners. He is currently a member of the editorial committee of the journal Polímeros: Ciência e Tecnologia (edited by Associação Brasileira de Polímeros (ABPol)) and a member of the Editorial Board of Macromolecular Reaction Engineering (published by Wiley) and Processes (published by MDPI). He has been a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences since 2010 and the National Academy of Engineering since 2014. Finally, he has deserved about 11000 citations in published materials, according to the “Google Scholar” database (consulted on February 13^th, 2023).

Prof. Pinto participated in industrial and academic research projects in 20 countries and 126 different institutions, as illustrated in Figure 1, reinforcing the relevance of this research in the global polymer scenario.

Zé has been a versatile researcher, as highlighted in Figure 2, presenting many keywords in his papers, totaling 726. As shown in Figure 2, his work has been focused on the general area of Chemical Engineering, with an emphasis on chemical reactors, particularly modeling, simulation, and control of polymerization systems. He has also been active in emerging technologies in polymer, motivating Brazilian researchers to work in eco-friendly polymers, biodegradable polymers, polymers for biomedical applications, polymer biodegradation and stabilization, and chemical recycling of polymer wastes. Zé dedication to the academia and to his students can be summarized in one of his sayings taken from a Djavan lyric: “if I had more soul to give, I would give it”.

Zé is versatile not only in his professional career but also in his personal life. Zé has written two poetry books! Besides, he has recorded a CD with his composed songs, “Turbilhão” being one of our favorites. And during the pandemic, he created a YouTube Chanel (“Falando Com Ciência”), to discuss scientific and educational matters related to Brazilian society and education. Therefore, Zé has taught us that it is possible to amalgamate science, politics, and arts! As a matter of fact, while he writes a new paper, he also writes poems, records chemical engineering lessons and records songs. However, it is impossible to forget that his great passion is the Flamengo soccer team, as captured in Figure 3.

This special issue contains papers on synthesis of polyesters, production of magnetic microparticles, thermodynamics of polymerization systems, Ziegler Natta catalysts, and new composites from polymer residues, among many other interesting studies that find many points of contact with Prof. Zé Carlos’ works. We hope the readers will appreciate this very fine selection of papers on polymer science.

We thank all colleagues and former Prof. Zé Carlos' partners who accepted the invitation to collaborate with this issue and this celebration. And we thank Dr. Stefan Spiegel and Wiley-VCH for supporting the preparation and publication of this special issue of MRE.

Zé, we wish you a happy 60^th birthday on behalf of all the authors! Thank you for your partnership, humbleness, and simplicity. It's an honor to work with you! We wish you all the best and many Flamengo victories!!! As you say, Zé, life goes on…and we hope our lives go on together on the upcoming 60^th 70^th 80^th…years!

Let's raise a toast to Zé to celebrate his 60^th birthday!!!

Martina & Márcio