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PL-1HOW TO DESIGN OPTIMAL CATALYTIC REACTOR?HONORARY PLENARY LECTURE DEDICATED TO PROFESSORMIKHAIL SLIN’KOYurii Sh. MatrosPresident of Matros Technologies, Inc., St. Louis, MO 63017, USA,E-mail: yurii@matrostech.comProfessor Mikhail Gavrilovich Slin’ko (1914-2009) was a watershed figure inRussian chemical process engineering. Though he published little and was not verywell-known in the West, he is merited among other leading scholars, whichestablished the chemical reaction engineering discipline in its present state.In the beginning of his carrier just after World War II, M. G. Slin’ko was activelyinvolved in heavy water production through hydrogen isotope separation. This was asecret Soviet weaponry project quickly realized in large scale. As M.G. Slin’ko noted[1], the development was based on calculations and direct scale-up without lengthystages of pilot testing. At approximately the same time, Prof. G. K. Boreskov andM.G. Slin’ko developed sulfuric acid reactors using advanced technique involvingchemical kinetics, transport phenomena, and rigorous mathematical optimization.Apparently, from these early works, M. G. Slin’ko understood power of physicchemicalmodels for industrial process engineering.From 1957 to beginning of 70 s , M.G. Slin’ko built a team of enthusiastic youngscientists and engineers in headed by him Department of Mathematical Modeling inthe newly created Institute of Catalysis (Novosibirsk, Russia). His own and hisstudents contributions at this time form a basis for his legacy. M.G. Slin’ko’s curiouslycombined great research and educational activities with vigorous publicizing hismathematical modeling method and results of the Department to Soviet and thenRussian chemical engineers.His commandments for the designers of heterogeneous catalytic processes (seefor example [1]) included:− building a kinetic model as an essential step of reactor design,− exploring theoretical-optimal conditions and revealing fully maximumpotential of the catalyst,7