In 1929, Giovanni Semerano, as undergraduate student, began using the first polarograph instrument acquired in Padova by the will of Arturo Miolati. In the same year he graduated in chemistry magna cum laude and started his research activity in polarography. In December 1931, after two years of research, he found numerous disagreements with respect to the literature, and decided to go to Prague to discuss his findings with the method's inventor: Jaroslav Heyrovsky. The future Nobel Laureate was so favorably impressed that he offered to help in publishing by making available the blocks for the figures and type face for Czech authors' names. In 1939 Semerano succeeded Miolati to the chair of Physical Chemistry in the Faculty of Sciences at the Università di Padova. Although Miolati had introduced polarography in Italy, Semerano was considered the real importer and propagator of the polarographic method in Italy, through the dedicated work of his collaborators - Vianello, Fornasari, Griggio, Giacometti, Favero and Foffani, which was attested in the multi-volume Padua edition of the polarography papers presented by Semerano in occasion of Heyrovsky's Nobel Prize award in 1959. Semerano's work in the field of polarography spans 30 years (1932-1963), a period marked by the publication, either alone or with his students, of almost eighty papers. From 1961 to 1978 he moved to Bologna to the chair of General Chemistry. With his return to Padua in 1978, Semerano once again renewed close ties to the Institute of Synthesis, Polarography and Electrochemistry of CNR, directed by Prof. E. Vecchi, and the university's chair of electrochemistry held by Prof. Elio Vianello.

The scientific activity of Armando Gennaro (1948-2022) was mainly developed in the field of molecular electrochemistry, both organic and inorganic. In his long career as a researcher, he dealt with various topics of great relevance in this field such as mechanisms and dynamics of electron transfer processes, electrocatalysis and electrocatalytic materials for energy conversion and storage, electrochemical activation of unreactive molecules, such as carbon dioxide and organic halides, electrochemical abatement of pollutants and eco-friendly electrosynthesis processes.

He began his research alongside Elio Vianello, who he always remembered as his highly esteemed Scientific Mentor, on topics of organic electrochemistry devoting particular interest to the mechanism of electrode reduction and the reactivity of electrogenerated radicals. Some years later, in the mid 80's, he began to be interested in the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to high value molecules. This coincided on the one hand with the start of scientific collaboration with the group of Palermo (Giuseppe Silvestri and Giuseppe Filardo, and later Onofrio Scialdone), but especially with the one who will become his most important scientific collaborator Abdirisak Ahmed Isse. In 1998, after the death of Elio Vianello, he founded his research group and began an exciting study on the dissociative electron transfer to the carbon-halogen bond. Studies on the electrochemistry of organic halides have not been limited to basic research but have opened the door to important applications. In the last 10 years, Prof. Gennaro's research activity has been oriented on two tracks: development of an electrochemical approach for controlled radical polymerization and electrocatalytic oxygen reduction on carbon-based nanostructured materials.