Roginskii, Simon

Born Mar. 12 (25), 1900, in the locality of Parichi, in what is now Svetlogorsk Raion, Gomel’ Oblast; died Feb. 5, 1970, in Moscow. Soviet physical chemist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939).

Roginskii graduated from the University of Dnepropetrovsk in 1922. He taught at the Dnepropetrovsk Mining Institute and Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and from 1943 to 1952 was head of a subdepartment at the Moscow Institute of Chemical Machine Building. From 1941 to 1961 he worked at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He also worked at the academy’s Institute of Chemical Physics, where he was head of a laboratory from 1961 to 1970. His main works were devoted to catalysis, the kinetics of heterogenous reactions, and the chemistry and use of isotopes. Roginskii proposed a microchemical theory of active surfaces and a theory of catalyst preparation. He was awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1941), two orders, and various medals.