Koji Hashimoto received the Marcel Pourbaix Award on November 5, 2014 from the International Corrosion Council at the 19th International Corrosion Congress held in Jeju, Korea. The International Corrosion Council founded to advance corrosion science and engineering consists of two representatives from each country and organizes the International Corrosion Congress every three years.
Koji Hashimoto made the following speech by the receiving the Award.
The great scientist, Professor Marcel Pourbaix was 31 years elder than me. We knew each other very well. I liked very much to talk with Professor Marcel Pourbaix. He was talking very gently with smiling always in spite of straight talk by broken English in my young days. I feel very honored to receive the award particularly of the name of Professor Marcel Pourbaix. All my achievements owe very capable coworkers and students and are also due to the continual encouragements given by many friends in the world. I express sincere thanks to all coworkers, students and friends. I am also thankful to my wife Yasuko who has been preparing lunch box every day for almost 50 years until now.
I am now working for research and development to supply renewable energy in the form of methane via electrolytic hydrogen generation using carbon dioxide as a feedstock. Prevention of corrosive degradation is most important for the good performance of all systems in particular the anode and cathode for hydrogen production and the catalyst for methane production by the reaction of carbon dioxide with hydrogen. The human activity has always been supported by fighting against corrosive degradation, because we are using metallic materials in the reduced state in spite of the fact that almost all metallic elements are stable in the oxidized state in nature, as Professor Marcel Pourbaix has been teaching to us in his Atlas of potential-pH diagrams.
For the sustainable development of the world maintaining the limited natural resources I do hope the success of the efforts of our corrosion community for prevention of corrosive degradation of materials, plants, systems and structures.
Thank you very much for the honorable award.
