Professor-emeritus Prof. dr. Hans de Wit, passed away in the night of January 21 and 22, 2018 in Broek op Langedijk at the age of 71 years. Hans was professor Corrosion Technology and Electrochemistry from 1985 to 2011 at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of Delft University of Technology.

From 1996 to 2002, Professor De Wit was also Chief Technology Officer at the former Hoogovens, later Tata Steel / Corus.

Until his retirement in 2011, Hans had played an important role for M2i. He was involved with M2i as from the earliest stages of the Netherlands Institute of Metals Research (NIMR). Hans was the Cluster Leader of the M2i Cluster Durability and supervised several M2i PhD research projects.