BALANDIN 36 



Council coordinates all work on catalysts in the U.S.S.R. In 

 1949 Balandin became a member of the Communist Party of the 

 Soviet Union. He was elected Corresponding Member of the 

 U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences in 1943 and Academician in 1946. 

 He has received the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Red 

 Banner of Labor, and a Stalin Prize. For his research in 

 synthetic rubber he was awarded the Mendeleev and Lebedev 

 Prizes. 



Balandin formulated the so-called multiplet theory of cataly- 

 sis, attempting to establish a relationship between the geometry 

 of the atomic groups, which change directly in catalysis during 

 a reaction, and the geometry of active centers on the surface 

 of the catalyst. On the basis of his theory and classification, 

 Balandin studied the dehydrogenation of paraffins, olefins, 

 alkylbenzenes, and those products of dehydrogenation which are 

 important for the industrial synthesis of monomers, for obtain- 

 ing synthetic rubber and other high-polymers. 



Balandin is a Soviet pioneer in the study of the kinetics of 

 organic catalytic reactions. He deduced the general kinetic 

 equation for monomolecular reactions in a flow system. Balan- 

 din and his associates carried out extensive research on the 

 kinetics of the dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons, the dehydro- 

 genation and dehydration of alcohols, and the dehydrogenation of 

 amines. Using the method of tagged atoms, the kinetics and 

 mechanism of the dehydration of ethyl alcohol on aluminum 

 oxide and the kinetics of the dehydrogenation of butane and 

 butylene were studied. The reactions of catalytic production of 

 styrene and its homologs were investigated in detail. This 

 study is of great importance for synthetic rubber and plastics. 

 Balandin formulated the theory of the hydrogenation of unsatu- 

 rated compounds. The multiplet theory proved useful in the 

 studies of Balandin and his co-workers on the hydrogenation of 

 polysaccharides to obtain polyatomic alcohols. It received con- 

 siderable development with the discovery of the laws for the 

 selection of catalysts. The following are members of his 

 scientific school: Ye. A. Agronomov, O. K. Bogdanova, A. Kh. 

 Bork, I. I. Brusov, V. E. Vasserberg, N. A. Vasiunina, P. G. 

 Ivanov, G. V. Isagulyants, Ye. I. Klabunovskii, S. L. Kiperman, 

 A. I. Kukina, G. M. Marukyan, V. V. Patrikeev, S. Ye. Payk, 

 A. P. Rudenko, T. A. Slovokhotova, N. P. Sokolova, A. A. 

 Tolstopyatova, L. Kh. Freidlin, A. P. Shcheglova, and others. 

 Bibliography: 



Modern problems of catalysis and the theory of multiplets. 



Uspekhi Khim., 1935, 4, #7. 



