Sol W. Weller, a retired pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty at Buf­fa­lo, died Sun­day, August 24, 2008 in Beech­wood Con­tin­u­ing Care, Get­zville. He was 90. Born in Detroit, he earned his Ph. D. in chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go. Dur­ing World War II, he worked on the Man­hat­tan Project. Over the next two decades, he worked in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing, spe­cial­iz­ing in kinet­ics, coal liq­ue­fac­tion, the sep­a­ra­tion of gas­es by per­me­ation, cat­a­lysts and stan­dard­iza­tion of cat­a­lyst- test­ing meth­ods. He was respon­si­ble for sev­er­al patents in his field. In 1963, he became a pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing at The State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Buf­fa­lo (UB), where he taught until 1988. While at UB, he held the C. C. Fur­nas Memo­r­i­al Chair in Engi­neer­ing in 1983. He also received two Ful­bright Awards, the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excel­lence in Teach­ing in 1973, the Storch Award for coal research in 1981, Mur­phee Award for Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry in 1982 and the Schoel­lkopf Medal in 1984. Dr. Weller also taught and con­sult­ed in Madrid, Spain; Istan­bul, Turkey; Oxford, Eng­land; and Haifa, Israel. He wrote many sci­en­tif­ic papers, book chap­ters and ency­clo­pe­dia entries dur­ing his career. A tal­ent­ed ama­teur pianist, Dr. Weller and the for­mer Miri­am Dam­ick, his wife of 62 years, host­ed many musi­cal events in their Williamsville home. She died in 2006.
 
Source: The Buf­fa­lo News, Sept. 3, 2008

Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis

 
An Award pre­sent­ed joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties.
 
The Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny, and is admin­is­tered joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. The Award will be pre­sent­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years. The recip­i­ent will give ple­nary lec­tures at the bian­nu­al meet­ings of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM) and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EFCATS) (EuropaCat). The award con­sists of a plaque or object of art and a prize of $6,000. Up to an addi­tion­al $2,000 will be made avail­able for oth­er­wise non-reim­bursed trav­el expens­es.

The Award rec­og­nizes and encour­ages indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions to the elu­ci­da­tion of the mech­a­nism and active sites involved in cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na and to the devel­op­ment of new meth­ods or con­cepts that advance the under­stand­ing and/or prac­tice of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. The Award selec­tion process will empha­size accom­plish­ments and con­tri­bu­tions pub­lished with­in the five pre­ced­ing years. Can­di­dates may be nom­i­nat­ed with­out any restric­tion of nation­al ori­gin, thus reflect­ing the inter­na­tion­al scope of the career and con­tri­bu­tions of Michel Boudart.

The recip­i­ent of the Michel Boudart Award will be select­ed by a com­mit­tee of renowned researchers appoint­ed joint­ly by the Pres­i­dents of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. The selec­tion shall be made with­out regard for age, sex, affil­i­a­tion, or nation­al ori­gin.

Nom­i­na­tions should clear­ly state the qual­i­fi­ca­tions and accom­plish­ments of the nom­i­nee and should also include a CV and no more than two sup­port­ing let­ters. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made, as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Each nom­i­na­tion is to be sub­mit­ted as one com­plete pack­age (nom­i­na­tion let­ter, CV, 2 sup­port­ing let­ters, and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion).

After Sep­tem­ber 2008, one com­plete elec­tron­ic copy of the nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the 2009 Boudart Award should be sent to the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (John Armor; nacatsoc@verizon.net) or the Pres­i­dent of The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of the Euro­pean Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (Roel Prins; prins@tech.chem.ethz.ch) by 17 Novem­ber 2008. Nom­i­na­tors should expect to receive email con­fir­ma­tion of their sub­mis­sion.

A reminder that each local club can apply for the new annu­al stu­dent sup­port awards for a max­i­mum of $1,000. per year. The amount can only be used for stu­dents (both grad­u­ate & post­doc­tor­al). A time­ly pro­pos­al from the local club must be sub­mit­ted before the event to the Pres­i­dent which out­lines the pro­ject­ed use of the monies; a full account­ing of the monies has to be pro­vid­ed by the local club (in good stand­ing) to the Trea­sur­er short­ly after the event, but with­in one year. This award is dis­tinct from the Kokes Awards for the NAM meet­ings. The mon­ey can be used for the student’s meals, trav­el, liv­ing, and for poster awards. The award will be made avail­able 1–2 months before the spon­sored event. Local clubs need to allow one addi­tion­al month for prepa­ra­tion of the check; the funds are not intend­ed as a means to gen­er­ate advanced income (via inter­est), but are intend­ed to sup­port stu­dent involve­ment at the spon­sored event by the local catal­y­sis club. Address pro­pos­als to the Pres­i­dent at nacatsoc@verizon.net.

Pro­fes­sor Oleg Valenti­novich Krylov, one of the major fig­ures in the field of catal­y­sis for sev­er­al decades, passed away in Moscow on the July 28, 2008, at the age of 83.

Oleg Krylov was born on Sep­tem­ber 13, 1924 into a fam­i­ly of teach­ers in the city of Ivano­vo. His moth­er was a high school biol­o­gy teacher and his father taught chem­istry at the Agri­cul­tur­al Insti­tute. It was, in fact, with­in his fam­i­ly that the main qual­i­ties of his per­son­al­i­ty were laid down, which became so bright­ly evi­dent in the future: a love for the nat­ur­al sci­ences and art, and a con­sid­er­ate atti­tude toward peo­ple.

Upon com­ple­tion of high school, Oleg Krylov entered the Ivano­vo Chem­i­cal Insti­tute, upon com­ple­tion of which he became a grad­u­ate stu­dent in the lab­o­ra­to­ry of Prof. S. E. Rogin­skii in the Col­loidal-Elec­tro­chem­i­cal Insti­tute (sub­se­quent­ly – the Insti­tute of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry) of the USSR Acad­e­my of Sci­ences. This lab­o­ra­to­ry was then one of the lead­ers in the devel­op­ment of new con­cepts in the sci­ence of catal­y­sis – the the­o­ry of non-uni­form sur­faces, the elec­tron­ic the­o­ry of adsorp­tion, and the method­ol­o­gy for select­ing cat­a­lysts for reac­tions of var­i­ous types. The theme of his candidate’s the­sis, which he defend­ed in 1951 under the direc­tion of Prof. S. E. Rogin­skii, was the acti­va­tion of plat­inum by oxy­gen for reac­tions of oxi­da­tion and hydro­gena­tion. In 1953 at the sug­ges­tion of S. E. Rogin­skii (whom Oleg Valenti­novich val­ued very high­ly and con­sid­ered his teacher) he took up a new theme – the inves­ti­ga­tion of the rules for select­ing oxide cat­a­lysts. In sig­nif­i­cant mea­sure this choice defined his sci­en­tif­ic inter­ests for many years.

In 1961, at the sug­ges­tion of its direc­tor, Nobel lau­re­ate and aca­d­e­mi­cian N. N. Semen­ov, the lab­o­ra­to­ry of S. E. Rogin­skii moved to the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Physics (ICP). From this time on, all of O. V. Krylov’s sci­en­tif­ic endeav­ors were con­nect­ed with the ICP. His main area of inter­est dur­ing this peri­od was defin­ing the rela­tion­ships between the elec­tron­ic con­fig­u­ra­tions and cat­alyt­ic prop­er­ties of tran­si­tion met­al com­pounds, par­tic­u­lar­ly for com­plex reac­tion sys­tems. He elu­ci­dat­ed impor­tant cor­re­la­tions and rela­tion­ships that were gen­er­al­ized in his doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion, which he defend­ed in 1964. This work served as the basis for the mono­graph enti­tled Catal­y­sis by Non-Met­als (pub­lished in Eng­lish by Aca­d­e­m­ic Press in 1970), which to this day is one of the clas­sic texts on het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis.

Over many decades Prof. Krylov direct­ed a lab­o­ra­to­ry and a divi­sion, and served as Deputy Direc­tor for Sci­ence of the ICP. He ini­ti­at­ed in situ inves­ti­ga­tions of cat­alyt­ic process­es using IR, UV, and EPR spec­troscopy, x‑ray phase analy­sis, calorime­try; and launched inves­ti­ga­tions to study the role of non-equi­lib­ri­um and excit­ed states and par­ti­cles in adsorp­tion and catal­y­sis. He (in col­lab­o­ra­tion with L. Ya Mar­go­lis and cowork­ers) for­mu­lat­ed ideas about the role of mul­ti-phase cat­a­lysts in the process­es of par­tial oxi­da­tion, which led to a new under­stand­ing of the mean­ing of “active cen­ters, as well as process for their syn­the­sis. In the ear­ly 1980s Prof. Krylov was one of the ini­tia­tors of broad-based inves­ti­ga­tions in the area of nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion by chem­i­cal means.

O. V. Krylov played and invalu­able role in the devel­op­ment of inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic con­nec­tions. Over many years, he was respon­si­ble for this activ­i­ty with­in the frame­work of the Sci­en­tif­ic Coun­cil on Catal­y­sis. In par­tic­u­lar, he was one of the ini­tia­tors and lead­ers (togeth­er with aca­d­e­mi­cian G. K. Boreskov) of the col­lab­o­ra­tion on catal­y­sis between the USSR and the USA in the 1970s. He was the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the USSR, and then Rus­sia, in many inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing jour­nal edi­to­r­i­al boards, the Coun­cil of the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Catal­y­sis (now known as IACS), the Coun­cil of the World Con­gress on Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis, of which he was one of the ini­tia­tors. One can con­fi­dent­ly say that Prof. Krylov was one of the peo­ple who can be thanked for estab­lish­ing with­in the world com­mu­ni­ty an atmos­phere, in which the fun­da­men­tal atti­tudes are per­son­al kind­ness, decen­cy, and sci­en­tif­ic hon­esty.

One of Prof. Krylov’s main activ­i­ties dur­ing the last 15 years was to main­tain the Moscow sem­i­nars on catal­y­sis, a task that he led for near­ly 40 years. The sig­nif­i­cance of this sem­i­nar for cat­a­lyst com­mu­ni­ty in Rus­sia can­not be over­es­ti­mat­ed, espe­cial­ly when many pre­vi­ous­ly estab­lished con­nec­tions and forms of orga­ni­za­tion for sci­en­tif­ic activ­i­ties were dis­ap­pear­ing. This sem­i­nar exam­ined not only con­tem­po­rary fun­da­men­tal and applied ques­tions of catal­y­sis, but also more gen­er­al ques­tions of sci­ence, paths and lim­its of its devel­op­ment, which great­ly con­cerned O. V. Krylov in recent years.

Prof. Krylov’s work of more than 60 years con­sist­ed of 12 mono­graphs, more than 450 papers and reviews, and tens of patents. More than 50 can­di­date and doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tions were defend­ed under his lead­er­ship and with his par­tic­i­pa­tion as a con­sul­tant.
 
Writ­ten by Mikail Sinev, trans­lat­ed by Alex­is Bell.

Thanks to the efforts of Burt Davis (the NACS video­g­ra­ph­er) and our web design­er (Ray Buch­ta) we have launched quite a few new video clips of his­tor­i­cal fig­ures in catal­y­sis. These include:

• John Bailor
• Robert Bur­well
• John Butt
• Adal­bert Farkas
• Robert Garten
• Ricar­do Levy
• Don­ald Nace
• Edward Teller
• Hal­dor Top­søe
• John Turke­vich

You can find these 5 minute video clips with­in the His­to­ry sub­fold­er off the Home page of the NACS web­site.
 
John Armor

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace and Com­pa­ny. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years, gen­er­al­ly at the North Amer­i­can meet­ing of The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, where the awardee will be asked to give a ple­nary lec­ture. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. An addi­tion­al $500 is avail­able for oth­er­wise unre­im­bursed trav­el expens­es.

The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, pro­pos­al of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species.

Selec­tion of the Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists and engi­neers appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Selec­tion shall be made with­out regard for sex, nation­al­i­ty or affi­I­ia­tion. The award win­ner must not have turned 46 on April 1st of the award year , thus nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should indi­cate the age and birth­date of the nom­i­nee. [The next award is the 2009 Award year for this Emmett Award (nom­i­na­tions due by Sep­tem­ber 1, 2008). Thus, nom­i­nees should not yet be 46 on April 1, 2009.] Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the awardee’s death is received after announce­ment of the Award Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion. Nom­i­na­tions for the Award should present the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, birth­date, and biog­ra­phy. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in one com­plete pack­age to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters.

Selec­tion of the 2009 Emmett Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists and engi­neers appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by on 1 Sep­tem­ber 2008.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages (one ELECTRONIC COPY) for the Emmett Award should be should be sent to John Armor, Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; at nacatsoc@verizon.net . Receipt of any nom­i­na­tion, will be con­firmed by an email mes­sage sent to each nom­i­na­tor.

This is a non-NACS Award, spon­sored by the AIChE. The AIChE is solic­it­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Catal­y­sis & Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion’s Prac­tice Award. Please see the attached for a descrip­tion of the award and details of the nom­i­na­tion process. Note that can­di­dates must be AIChE mem­bers. Address all inquiries to Kei­th Hutchen­son at keith.w.hutchenson@usa.dupont.com.

Description

 
This award rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who have made pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to indus­tri­al prac­tice of catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing. The can­di­date must have made impor­tant and spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions, ver­i­fi­able by means of well-doc­u­ment­ed evi­den­tial mate­ri­als, to the inven­tion, devel­op­ment, design or imple­men­ta­tion of indus­tri­al prod­ucts, cat­a­lysts or process­es through inge­nious and cre­ative appli­ca­tion of chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing and/or catal­y­sis con­cepts. Awardees will be select­ed based on their con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive catal­y­sis or reac­tion engi­neer­ing solu­tions to tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems, and/or com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new prod­ucts and process­es. Can­di­date must be an AIChE mem­ber. Can­di­dates may be from acad­e­mia, nation­al labs, or indus­try.

Deadline

 
Sat­ur­day, 31-May-2008

Procedure

 
Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages should include a 2‑page (max­i­mum) dou­ble spaced nom­i­na­tion state­ment, a 2‑page CV, and up to four sup­port­ing let­ters. Sub­mit the nom­i­na­tion elec­tron­i­cal­ly via email to the CRE Divi­sion Vice-Chair: Kei­th W. Hutchen­son, DuPont (keith.w.hutchenson@usa.dupont.com, 302–695-1389).

Award

 
A plaque and cash award of $1,000

Presentation

 
The award is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly at the Divi­sion Recep­tion or Din­ner. The recip­i­ent is also invit­ed to give a spe­cial lec­ture at the AIChE Annu­al Meet­ing.

Past Recipients

• 2007 Car­mo Pereira
• 2006 Lar­ry Smith
• 2005 Robert Far­rauto
• 2004 Stephen B. Jaffe
• 2003 Israel Wachs
• 2002 Teh C. Ho
• 2001 Thomas R. Keane
• 2000 L. Hege­dus

The Tan­abe Prize for Acid Base Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Co. and The Inter­na­tion­al Acid-Base Catal­y­sis (ABC) Group. It is admin­is­trat­ed by The ABC Group and will be award­ed at the ABC‑6 Con­fer­ence and at all sub­se­quent ABC con­fer­ences. Each awardee will be asked to give a ple­nary lec­ture. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $ 2000. Up to an addi­tion­al $ 1000 will be made avail­able for oth­er­wise non-reim­bursed trav­el expens­es.

The award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to the field of acid and/or base catal­y­sis. It may be giv­en either to a young per­son who has demon­strat­ed real promise in the ear­ly part of his/her career, or to an indi­vid­ual at any stage of his/her career (sub­ject to the age require­ment below), who has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the area with­in the six years pre­ced­ing the award.

Selec­tion of the awardee will be made by a com­mit­tee appoint­ed by a vote of the board mem­bers of The ABC Group. The nom­i­nees should not have passed their 56th birth­day on 10 May 2009 on which date the award will be pre­sent­ed at the ABC‑6 con­fer­ence. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages should indi­cate the nominee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, one option­al sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of the candidate’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by 1 June 2008. All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages (one elec­tron­ic copy) should be sent to Jacques Vedrine, Pres­i­dent, The ABC Group; at vedrine@ccr.jussieu.fr. An email receipt mes­sage will be sent to each nom­i­na­tor.

Trav­el Grants for Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 14^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis Seoul, Korea, 13–18 July 2008
 
The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, NACS, through the office of the For­eign Sec­re­tary (Pro­fes­sor Wm. Cur­tis Con­ner) will dis­perse fund­ing from the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion and the Depart­ment of Ener­gy to sup­port par­tic­i­pa­tion by US cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tist and engi­neers in the 14th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis, 14th ICC, to be held in Seoul, Korea from 13–18 July 2008. We hope to sup­port the air trav­el by US car­ri­ers for at least two dozen par­tic­i­pants.

Appli­ca­tions will be cho­sen based on sev­er­al cri­te­ria:

1. Young US fac­ul­ty and/or mem­bers of under­rep­re­sent­ed or minor­i­ty par­tic­i­pants active in catal­y­sis research.
2. Cho­sen pre­sen­ters of oral or poster pre­sen­ta­tions at the 14th ICC.
3. Par­tic­i­pants as ses­sion chairs or oth­er ICC or NACS pro­ceed­ings in Seoul.

Please apply to Wm. Cur­tis Con­ner (For­eign Sec­re­tary of NACS) before 15 May 2008 by email at wconner@ecs.umass.edu, or by Fax to 413–545-0316 or by postal mail to:
 
Wm. Cur­tis Con­ner
For­eign Sec­re­tary of NACS
Dept. Chem. Engi­neer­ing
Univ. Mass­a­chu­setts
Amherst, MA 01003

Your one page appli­ca­tion should doc­u­ment your qual­i­fi­ca­tions as spec­i­fied in the cri­te­ria, 1–3, above and include:

1. Your posi­tion, includ­ing years in present posi­tion and activ­i­ty in catal­y­sis research in the last four years (pub­li­ca­tions, grants and pre­sen­ta­tions in catal­y­sis).
2. Your accept­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 14th ICC: oral pre­sen­ta­tions and/or poster(s).
3. Oth­er par­tic­i­pa­tion such as ses­sion chair.
4. Any oth­er fac­tors the inde­pen­dent pan­el should con­sid­er.

The Inde­pen­dent pan­el will inform the appli­cants of their trav­el grants before 1 June 2008.

Again, young fac­ul­ty, par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dents and under rep­re­sent­ed groups are encour­aged to apply and will be con­sid­ered pos­i­tive­ly! How­ev­er, these grants are restrict­ed pri­mar­i­ly to trav­el expens­es by US car­ri­er. Reg­is­tra­tion and hotel costs are not gen­er­al­ly to be cov­ered by these grants (oth­er spec­i­fied funds are required).