Madam Carmen Capel-Boute was born in Buenos Aires in 1914 to a Belgian family.

She became a researcher in the Electro-chemical and metallurgical field at the Science Faculty of Free University in Brussels. Madame Capel-Boute was working with Prof. Pourbaix studying phenomena appearing after physical treatment of water. She suggested several interesting explanatory hypotheses regarding effects of physical factors of low energy on water solutions. In this period she read several of Piccardi's articles about the same study in "Chemical Abstracts" journal published before the 2nd World War.

Madam Capel-Boute was impressed by Piccardi's considerations. When she attended the Conference organized by CITCE* on the coasts of Como's lake and Lago Maggiore, she seized the opportunity to inquire Prof. Piontelli who accompanied her, about Piccardi. She learned, that Piccardi returned to Florence as Director of Chemical-Physical Institute, leaving the Genoa University where he had chemistry-physics chair since 1938.

Eventually madam Capel-Boute met Piccardi when visited Florence in 1950. Piccardi had a long discussion with her and found it very interesting that the water behavior was empirically utilized in the industry. Piccardi believed that some external factors of low energy influenced the variations in effects of water activation. Madam Capel-Boute and Piccardi quickly became scientific partners and their collaboration was very intense. Dr. Capel-Boute became the best collaborator of Prof. Piccardi in completing colloidal the tests and in studying phenomena of fluctuations. Piccardi made his colloidal tests in Florence from 1951 to 1972 and Capel-Boute in Brussels from 1956 to 1978. They obtained interesting results also in the mutual comparisons of their collected data.

Madam Capel-Boute became President of CIFA in 1972 (CIFA was founded by Piccardi in 1969, in Brussels). After Piccardi's death, Capel-Boute continued his work, devoting herself to CIFA, sharing her great enthusiasm and impassioned determination.

In 1987 she left CIFA Presidency, and Prof. E.P.Wedler (Biometeorology Institute of Free Berlin University), replaced her. Three years later, in 1990 Wedler died, and Capel-Boute become again CIFA President in spite of her poor health, age and her other responsibilities as CIFA General Secretary and editor-in-chief of CIFA News.

She accomplished her management-masterpiece, transferring in 1993 CIFA Head Office from Brussels to Pushchino (Russia), maintaining all typical traditions given by CIFA founder Giorgio Piccardi to this Commitee. This initiative guaranteed the future of the Committee, and CIFA obtained its new President Prof. Boris Vladimirsky (Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchny, Ukraine).

Madam Capel Boute recently passed away, and we are greatly saddened. She was close to every one of us, always with her humanity and her "unusual driving power". Her little cottage at the Isola dei Pescatori on the Lago Maggiore, will no longer be the warm site of hospitality for her collaborators and friends. Only the distance separated us from Madame Carmen, but now the distance is too unlimited….

Let's together continue our work, so that our dear Madam Carmen will have again her life through us: She has earned it!

Piero A.R. Faraone, CIFA's Vice-President.

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* CITCE - Comitè Internazionale de Termodinamique et Cinetique Electrochimique, founded in the 1949 at Universitè Livre de Bruxelles

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