The McGrath Memorial Lectureship
In honor of the many contributions of Prof. James E. McGrath, including the creation of the “Advances in Polyolefins” workshop series in 1997, APO 2017 introduced a lectureship in his honor. Prof. McGrath was the University Distinguished Professor and Ethyl Corp. Professor of Chemistry at Virginia Tech. He wrote more than 400 articles and was a co-inventor of 40 patents. Prof. McGrath was the recipient of many awards in recognition of his scientific contributions.
McGrath Lecturer
Dr. Benjamin Monrabal
Polymer Char
(Valencia, Spain)
Benjamín Monrabal was born in 1946 in Valencia, Spain. He earned his degree in Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Químico de Sarriá (Barcelona) and holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (USA).
Dr. Monrabal joined Dow Chemical in 1970, where he led the Polyolefins R&D group in Tarragona, Spain. His leadership resulted in two major technology contributions: 1) The development of novel catalyst formulations for a new generation of Linear Low-Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) and 2) An enhanced technology for Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) that significantly increased production capacity. Both innovations were recognized with the prestigious Dow Scientific Future Awards. In 1988, he relocated to the Netherlands to oversee the Central Laboratory. During this tenure, he invented and patented the CRYSTAF (Crystallization Analysis Fractionation) technique—a pivotal development in catalyst research for LLDPE production.
In 1992, Dr. Monrabal founded Polymer Char in Valencia to commercialize CRYSTAF and develop advanced polyolefin characterization techniques. He was a major contributor in the development of instrumentation such as GPC-IR, Preparative fractionation and Cross-Fractionation Chromatography (CFC). In 2005, he patented Crystallization Elution Fractionation (CEF), a breakthrough technology offering superior resolution and efficiency in chemical composition distribution analysis. CEF is currently utilized by leading polyolefin producers and research institutions.
Dr. Monrabal co-founded the International Conference on Polyolefin Characterization (ICPC) in 2005 alongside Professor Soares and Dr. Colin Li from Dow. The conference remains a premier biennial event, rotating between Houston, Valencia, and Shanghai.
Throughout his career, he has authored numerous publications on polyolefins characterization and has served on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Polymer Analysis and Characterization and the Journal of Liquid Chromatography. Dr. Monrabal retired from his role as R&D Director of Polymer Char at the end of 2024.
Invited Speakers
TBA
View Past Programs
Thank you to our sponsor
