Author Archives: edrick

In Memoriam: Juan F. Garcia de la Banda (1921–2015)

Juan_F_Garcia_de_la_BandaJuan Fran­cis­co Gar­cía de la Ban­da was born in Madrid (Spain) in 1921. He stud­ied Chem­istry and Math­e­mat­ics in the Uni­ver­si­ties of Val­ladol­id, Oviedo and Madrid, com­plet­ing his Bach­e­lor Degree in 1943. In 1948 he pre­sent­ed his PhD dis­ser­ta­tion (“Rela­tion between calorif­ic con­duc­tiv­i­ty and vapor pres­sure of high boil­ing point sub­stances”) super­vised by Pro­fes­sors Foz-Gazul­la and Colom­i­na and car­ried out at the Insti­tu­to de Quími­ca Físi­ca “Roca­solano” (IQFR) of the Span­ish Coun­cil for Sci­en­tif­ic Research (CSIC).

He stud­ied in Bris­tol between 1951 and 1952 with Pro­fes­sor William E. Gar­ner with Dr. Den­nis A. Dow­den at the Catal­y­sis Group at ICI. After­wards, he returned to Spain, with­in the frame­work of the IQFR and found­ed the “Lab­o­ra­to­ry on Catal­y­sis”, which became the birth­place of the Insti­tu­to de Catáli­sis y Petroleo­quími­ca (ICP) in 1975. He was the first Direc­tor of the ICP and the indi­vid­ual most respon­si­ble for enhanc­ing the scope and qual­i­ty of research in catal­y­sis and bio­catal­y­sis in Spain.

He par­tic­i­pat­ed in the First Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis (ICC) held in Philadel­phia in 1956 and main­tained per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al links with many U.S. catal­y­sis researchers, espe­cial­ly through his per­son­al friend­ship with Dr. Heinz Heine­mann through­out their careers. He pro­posed and orga­nized the 1st Iberoamer­i­can Sym­po­sium on Catal­y­sis, held in Madrid in 1968, the first in a series that will cel­e­brate its 25th edi­tion this year in Mon­te­v­ideo.

Pro­fes­sor Gar­cia de la Ban­da served in sev­er­al influ­en­tial posi­tions with­in the research and devel­op­ment and sci­en­tif­ic struc­ture at the high­est lev­els in the gov­ern­ment of Spain. He is with­out doubt the most influ­en­tial and impact­ful pro­mot­er of catal­y­sis research in Spain in the 20th cen­tu­ry and the key indi­vid­ual in the for­ma­tive years of the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in Spain.
His pres­ence and his sage advice will be missed.
 
Dr. Enrique Sas­tre
Vice-Direc­tor, Insti­tu­to de Catáli­sis y Petroleo­quími­ca, CSIC,
Madrid, Spain.

Kerry Dooley is the recipient of the 2016 SWCS Award for Excellence in Applied Catalysis

Kerry_DooleyIt is with great plea­sure to announce that Dr. Ker­ry Doo­ley, the BASF Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at LSU, has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the 2016 SWCS Award for Excel­lence in Applied Catal­y­sis.

“As an edu­ca­tor, instruc­tor, research and the­sis men­tor / admin­is­tra­tor, Ker­ry has been a part of the devel­op­ment and pro­gres­sion of the LSU depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing since 1983. Ker­ry is well known in the field of syn­the­sis & char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of selec­tive zeolite/metal dehy­dro­gena­tion cat­a­lysts & cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions of these mate­ri­als, includ­ing car­bony­la­tions, alka­ne & amine dehy­dro­gena­tions & homolo­ga­tions. He has over 100 pub­li­ca­tions, patents and pre­sen­ta­tions. Ker­ry has an inter­est­ing body of work in cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion, that includes direct oxi­da­tion of methane to methanol, and most notably his research on com­bined super­crit­i­cal flu­id extrac­tion (SCFE) of pri­or­i­ty pol­lu­tants from con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed soils, with cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion of the extract. He has relat­ed con­tri­bu­tions in the field of high-pres­sure pro­cess­ing & extrac­tion. Kerry’s ser­vice to the SWCS and the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty has been excep­tion­al; he has held every office in the SWCS and was also Pres­i­dent of the 2007 NAM”.

Ker­ry will receive the award, which includes a plaque and a $1500 check, at the upcom­ing SWCS sym­po­sium on Fri­day, April 22. Please join me in con­grat­u­lat­ing Prof. Ker­ry Doo­ley for this award!
 
Best Regards,
 
Teng Xu
2016 Chair
South­west Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (SWCS)

Catalysis researchers elected to the National Academy of Engineering

Teh C. Ho (Exxon­Mo­bil, ret.) and José Santi­este­ban (Exxon­Mo­bil) have been elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing.
 
 
Teh_C_HoTeh C. Ho: For con­tri­bu­tions to cat­alyt­ic removal of sul­fur and nitro­gen com­pounds from hydro­car­bon fuels.
 
 
0000069José G. Santi­este­ban: For devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of cat­alyt­ic sys­tems for petro­chem­i­cal man­u­fac­ture and clean­er fuels pro­duc­tion.
 
Press Release: http://www.nae.edu/Projects/MediaRoom/20095/149240/149788.aspx

Ahmad Moini of BASF is the recipient of the 2016 F.G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

Ahmad_MoiniI am pleased to announce that Dr. Ahmad Moi­ni of BASF is the recip­i­ent of the 2016 F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by W.R. Grace & Co. and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2017 NAM in Den­ver, CO. The recip­i­ent will present lec­tures at most of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this Lec­ture­ship.

The Award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on indus­tri­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es and the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al impor­tance.

Ahmad Moi­ni is a well-rec­og­nized expert in the area of zeo­lites and catal­y­sis. Dur­ing his career at Mobil, fol­lowed by sub­se­quent posi­tions at Engel­hard and BASF, his research stud­ies were direct­ed at var­i­ous aspects of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis for chem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions and envi­ron­men­tal appli­ca­tions, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on zeo­lite syn­the­sis. He has been a co-inven­tor on more than 45 U.S. patents.

Specif­i­cal­ly, Ahmad is being rec­og­nized for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions toward the devel­op­ment of the Cu chabazite (Cu-CHA) cat­a­lyst for selec­tive cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion (SCR) of NOx emis­sion from diesel vehi­cles. Ahmad and his team were able to iden­ti­fy unique prop­er­ties of Cu-CHA, mak­ing it a prospec­tive mate­r­i­al solu­tion for NOx con­trol by SCR. This research, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the extend­ed BASF team, led to the devel­op­ment of the Cu-CHA cat­a­lyst, wide­ly accept­ed as a break­through tech­nol­o­gy. Today, it is found on mil­lions of diesel vehi­cles meet­ing strin­gent emis­sion stan­dards world­wide. Since its dis­cov­ery, Ahmad has been instru­men­tal in var­i­ous aspects of prod­uct devel­op­ment, as well as fun­da­men­tal attrib­ut­es of the asso­ci­at­ed zeo­lite chem­istry. The impact of this work is also evi­dent by the expo­nen­tial increase in the amount of research activ­i­ties focused on CHA chem­istry and catal­y­sis.

I am delight­ed that the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of Dr. Ahmad Moi­ni with this lec­ture­ship. I speak with the voice of our grate­ful com­mu­ni­ty in also thank­ing the man­age­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. for its con­tin­u­ing sup­port of this lec­ture­ship.
 
Bruce Cook
Vice Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Call for Nominations of the 2016 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

Each year the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia rec­og­nizes an out­stand­ing mem­ber of the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, who has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal, or in orga­ni­za­tion lead­er­ship. The Award con­sists of a plaque and a $1,000 cash prize.

We appre­ci­ate your help in sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tions. The entire nom­i­na­tion pack­age, includ­ing a resume and rec­om­men­da­tion let­ters, should not be more than 10 pages and should include a ½ page ten­ta­tive award announce­ment. The dead­line for the receipt of nom­i­na­tions is Thurs­day, March 31, 2016. Pri­or nom­i­na­tion pack­ages sent in 2014 or lat­er will auto­mat­i­cal­ly be con­sid­ered for the 2016 Award.

Nom­i­na­tion let­ters along with sup­port­ing mate­ri­als should be emailed to vnikolak@wlgore.com
 
Vladimiros Niko­lakis
W.L. Gore and Asso­ciates Inc.
101 Lewisville Rd.
Elk­ton, MD 21921
 

Previous Winners of the Award

  • 1968 Adal­bert Farkas
  • 1969 Charles J. Plank
  • 1970 Paul H. Emmett
  • 1971 G. Alex Mills
  • 1972 Alfred E. Hirschler
  • 1973 Paul B. Weisz
  • 1974 Roland C. Hans­ford
  • 1975 Paul Venu­to
  • 1976 Heinz Heine­mann
  • 1977 G.C.A. Schuit
  • 1978 George W. Par­shall
  • 1979 Alvin B. Stiles
  • 1980 Abra­ham Schnei­der
  • 1981 James F. Roth
  • 1982 Robert Eis­chens
  • 1983 Edward Rosin­s­ki
  • 1984 James R. Katzer
  • 1985 N.Y. Chen
  • 1986 Bruce C. Gates
  • 1987 James E. Lyons
  • 1988 George Koko­tai­lo
  • 1989 Mau­rice Mitchell, Jr.
  • 1990 Wern­er O. Haag
  • 1991 John A. Sofranko
  • 1992 Fran Waller
  • 1993 George Kerr
  • 1994 Theodore A. Koch
  • 1995 John N. Armor
  • 1996 Mae Rubin
  • 1997 Leo E. Manz­er
  • 1998 Ray Gorte
  • 1999 Anne M. Gaffney
  • 2000 Hen­ry C. Foley
  • 2001 Mark Barteau
  • 2002 Steven D. Ittel
  • 2003 Frank E. Herkes
  • 2004 Jing­guang Chen
  • 2005 Israel Wachs
  • 2006 James Dumesic
  • 2007 John Vohs
  • 2008 David Olson
  • 2009 Ted Oya­ma
  • 2010 Chuck Coe
  • 2011 Chun­shan Song
  • 2012 Ros­tam Madon
  • 2013 Daniel Resas­co
  • 2014 Haiy­ing Chen
  • 2015 Sourav Sen­gup­ta

Attendance and abstract submission at the ICC 2016

TO: NACS Mem­ber­ship
FR: Enrique Igle­sia
 
Sub­ject: Atten­dance and abstract sub­mis­sion; ICC 2016 Bei­jing, Chi­na
 
Pro­fes­sor Can Li (Chair, 16th Inter­na­tion­al Catal­y­sis Con­gress, http://www.icc2016china.com) has con­tact­ed me to request that I encour­age the sub­mis­sion of abstracts from the NACS mem­ber­ship to this meet­ing.

The ICC meet­ings pro­vide the broad­est inter­na­tion­al forum for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of research in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and relat­ed fields. These meet­ings start­ed in the U.S. in 1956 and the NACS will be pre­sent­ing a bid to hold the 17th ICC in North Amer­i­ca, for the first time since 1996.

It is impor­tant, both to demon­strate the excel­lence of the sci­en­tif­ic enter­prise in catal­y­sis with­in North Amer­i­ca and to ensure the suc­cess of the NACS bid, that our NACS com­mu­ni­ty be rep­re­sent­ed in the sci­en­tif­ic pro­gram with num­bers and qual­i­ty con­sis­tent with prece­dents and with the strength of the on-going research activ­i­ties.

Please con­sid­er sub­mit­ting abstracts and attend­ing.

The sub­mis­sion dead­line has been extend­ed until Decem­ber 20 (http://www.icc2016china.com/en/page.asp?hid=&pageid=86.html)
 
With regards,
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

The 26th Biennial Organic Reactions Catalysis Society Conference

ORCS_Miami_2016The Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety cor­dial­ly invites you to our 26th bien­ni­al meet­ing.

When: Sun­day, March 27, 2016 3:00 PM through Thurs­day, March 31, 2016 12:00 PM East­ern Time

Where: Hyatt Regency Mia­mi 400 South East Sec­ond Ave, Mia­mi, Flori­da 33131–2197, USA USA

Reg­is­tra­tion for the 26th ORCS Con­fer­ence is now open. Click here to reg­is­ter for the 26th ORCS Con­fer­ence.
 
Top­ics at the con­fer­ence will include

  • Chem­i­cals pro­duc­tion from bio-renew­able resources
  • Cou­pling reac­tions with tran­si­tion met­als
  • Enan­tios­e­lec­tive trans­for­ma­tions
  • Selec­tive oxi­da­tion and acid cat­alyzed trans­for­ma­tions
  • Hydro­gena­tion: het­ero­ge­neous and homo­ge­neous; chi­ral and achi­ral
  • Nov­el mate­ri­als for organ­ic syn­the­sis
  • Syn­the­sis of fine chem­i­cals and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals

Award Win­ners
ORCS is pleased to announce the fol­low­ing award win­ners that will be hon­ored at the 26th ORCS Con­fer­ence. The Mur­ray Raney and Paul N. Rylan­der Award win­ners will present ple­nary lec­tures dur­ing the 26th ORCS Con­fer­ence.

2016 Mur­ray Raney Award Spon­sored by W.R. Grace and Co.
The Organ­ic Reac­tion Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce Dr. Jens Nørskov as the recip­i­ent of the 2016 Mur­ray Raney Award for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to advance the use of base met­al catal­y­sis in organ­ic reac­tions.

2015 Paul N. Rylan­der Award Spon­sored by BASF
The Organ­ic Reac­tion Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce Dr. Joseph R. Zoeller as the recip­i­ent of the 2015 Paul N. Rylan­der Award for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the use of catal­y­sis in organ­ic reac­tions.

2016 Paul N. Rylan­der Award Spon­sored by BASF
The Organ­ic Reac­tion Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce Dr. Anil S. Guram, CSO – Art of Ele­ments, LLC, as the recip­i­ent of the 2016 Paul N. Rylan­der Award for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the use of catal­y­sis in organ­ic reac­tions.

Keynote speak­ers con­firmed to date include:

  • Gadi Rothen­burg, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam
  • Break the Bark: New Cat­alyt­ic Routes From Bio­mass to Chem­i­cals
  • Mar­tin John­son, Eli Lil­ly and Com­pa­ny
    Con­tin­u­ous Reac­tors for Homo­ge­neous and Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis
  • Teshik Yoon, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin
  • Huw Davies, Emory Uni­ver­si­ty

    • Please vis­it www.orcs.org or email us at orcschair@orcs.org for more infor­ma­tion.

    ACS recognizes catalyst scientists with national and division awards

    Aditya Bhan (Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta-Twin Cities) received the Ipati­eff Prize.
     
    Don­na G. Black­mond (Scripps Research Insti­tute) received the Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis.
     
    Stu­art Soled (Exxon­Mo­bil) received the ENFL Dis­tin­guished Researcher Award in Petro­le­um Chem­istry.
     
     

    Press Releas­es
    ACS 2016 Nation­al Award Recip­i­ents
    ENFL 2016 Dis­tin­guished Researcher Award in Petro­le­um Chem­istry

    Catalysis Researchers Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

    Catal­y­sis researchers John Hartwig and Enrique Igle­sia of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley have been elect­ed to the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Arts and Sci­ences.
     
     

    Press Releas­es
    Amer­i­can Acad­e­my Press Release: https://www.amacad.org/content/news/pressReleases.aspx?pr=10233
    Berke­ley News: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/04/23/american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences-elects-six-berkeley-faculty/

    In Memoriam: John T. Yates, Jr. (1935–2015)

    John_YatesPro­fes­sor John T. Yates, Jr. received his B.S. degree from Juni­a­ta Col­lege and his Ph.D. in phys­i­cal chem­istry from M.I.T. After three years as Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at Anti­och Col­lege, he joined the Nation­al Bureau of Stan­dards, first as a NRC Post­doc­tor­al Research Fel­low and then as a mem­ber of its sci­en­tif­ic staff. His research in the fields of sur­face chem­istry and physics, includ­ing both the struc­ture and spec­troscopy of sur­face species, the dynam­ics of sur­face process­es, and the devel­op­ment of new meth­ods for research in sur­face chem­istry, kept him at the fore­front of this field of sci­ence through­out his long and dis­tin­guished career.

    Pro­fes­sor Yates joined the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh in 1982 as the first R.K. Mel­lon Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry and as Found­ing Direc­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh Sur­face Sci­ence Cen­ter. He estab­lished and led the Sur­face Sci­ence Cen­ter and men­tored 40 Ph.D stu­dents and more than 100 senior researchers at Pitts­burgh. He moved to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia in 2006 as a Pro­fes­sor and Shan­non Research Fel­low; there, he estab­lished a new research pro­gram in Sur­face Sci­ence and became active in the new field of astro­chem­istry.

    Pro­fes­sor Yates served as Asso­ciate Edi­tor of Chem­i­cal Reviews and of ACS Lang­muir and on the Advi­so­ry Boards of Chem­i­cal & Engi­neer­ing News and Chem­istry World. He was active as a mem­ber of the AVS Boards of Direc­tors and Trustees and as Chair of the AVS Sur­face Sci­ence Divi­sion, the APS Divi­sion of Chem­i­cal Physics, and the ACS Divi­sion of Col­loid and Sur­face Chem­istry. He chaired three Gor­don Research Con­fer­ences.

    He was the recip­i­ent of the AVS Medard Welch Award, the ACS Arthur W. Adam­son Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Sur­face Chem­istry, the ACS Peter Debye Award in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry, and an Alexan­der von Hum­boldt Senior Research Award. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in 1996. Dur­ing his dis­tin­guished career, he co-authored more than 700 arti­cles in the lead­ing jour­nals of chem­istry and physics.

    We mourn his pass­ing as we cel­e­brate his achieve­ments.