Maria Fly­tzani-Stephanopou­los, Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal Engi­neeringat Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty, has been select­ed as the win­ner of the 2013 Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Guiseppe Par­ra­vano Memo­r­i­al Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Research. Pro­fes­sor Stephanopou­los will give an Award Keynote Lec­ture at the 34th Annu­al Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Spring Sym­po­sium, which will be held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan-Dear­born on May 7, 2013 in Dear­born, MI.

Pro­fes­sor Stephanopou­los was cho­sen for dis­tin­guished con­tri­bu­tions to the field of catal­y­sis, par­tic­u­lar­ly new insights into the activ­i­ty of atom­ic-scale met­als as cat­a­lysts for fuel con­ver­sion process­es and “green” pro­duc­tion of chem­i­cals.

The Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety has two awards to rec­og­nize indi­vid­u­als who have made out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to catal­y­sis research and devel­op­ment. Both awards are spon­sored by the Memo­r­i­al Trust Fund for Pro­fes­sor Giuseppe Par­ra­vano, which has been estab­lished at the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan. The Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety admin­is­ters both awards which are pre­sent­ed in alter­nat­ing years. Both awards con­sist of a medal and a prize of $1,000. The two awards dif­fer only in the eli­gi­bil­i­ty rules. The recip­i­ent of the award is select­ed by a com­mit­tee that is appoint­ed by the offi­cers of the Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

1. The Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Guiseppe Par­ra­vano Memo­r­i­al Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Research
   • The award is giv­en bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years to an indi­vid­ual from North Amer­i­ca to for­mal­ly rec­og­nize out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to cat­alyt­ic sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy.
2. The Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Par­ra­vano Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Research and Devel­op­ment
   • The award is giv­en bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years to for­mal­ly rec­og­nize out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to cat­alyt­ic sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy by researchers in the greater Michi­gan area. To be eli­gi­ble, a per­son must be a res­i­dent of Michi­gan or a neigh­bor­ing area such as west­ern Ontario/northern Ohio and be nom­i­nat­ed by a mem­ber of the Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

Don­na Black­mond (Emmett Award 2001), Thomas Deg­nan (Cia­pet­ta Lec­tur­er 2013) and Hen­rik Top­soe (Houdry Award 2005) have been elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing.
 
See press release:
www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=02072013

The 2013 Tan­abe Prize for Acid-Base Catal­y­sis will be award­ed to Johannes A. Lercher, who receives the prize in recog­ni­tion of his sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to the field of acid-base catal­y­sis.

The award cer­e­mo­ny will take place at the 7th Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium on Acid-Base Catal­y­sis in Tokyo, Japan May 12–15, 2013.

Johannes A. Lercher stud­ied Chem­istry and received his PhD at TU Wien. After a vis­it­ing lec­ture­ship at Yale, he joined TU Wien as lec­tur­er and lat­er Assoc. Pro­fes­sor. 1993 he was appoint­ed Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty Twente, Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Tech­nol­o­gy, and moved in 1998 to his cur­rent posi­tion as Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Tech­nol­o­gy at TU Munchen. Since 2011 he is also Direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Inte­grat­ed Catal­y­sis at the Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry.

He is exter­nal mem­ber of the Aus­tri­an Acad­e­my of Sci­ences and Mem­ber of the Acad­e­mia Europaea, and holds sev­er­al Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor­ships. He serves cur­rent­ly as Edi­tor-in-Chief of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis.

Research is focussed on fun­da­men­tal aspects of oxide and mol­e­c­u­lar sieve based sorp­tion and catal­y­sis, new routes to acti­vate and func­tion­al­ize hydro­car­bons, decon­struc­tion and defunc­tion­al­iza­tion of bio­mass, the mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing of hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts, and the in situ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­alyt­ic process­es.
 
Source: www.shokubai.org/abc/tanabe.html

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Jens K. Norskov of the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and the SLAC Nation­al Accel­er­a­tor Lab­o­ra­to­ry at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty is the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment catal­y­sis. The Award is spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny and is admin­is­tered joint­ly by the NACS and the EFCATS. More infor­ma­tion on this award and the award process can be found in the Awards fold­er of the NACS home page www.nacatsoc.org.

The Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment catal­y­sis is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of 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.

The award rec­og­nizes Pro­fes­sor Jens K. Nork­skov for his pio­neer­ing work on under­stand­ing trends in cat­a­lyst activ­i­ty and devel­op­ing cat­a­lyst design prin­ci­ples based on reac­tiv­i­ty descrip­tors. He and his cowork­ers have con­tributed exten­sive­ly to the devel­op­ment of com­pu­ta­tion­al meth­ods and mod­els of sur­face reac­tiv­i­ty. Pro­fes­sor Norskov has intro­duced what is today a stan­dard mod­el of tran­si­tion met­al reac­tiv­i­ty and has used it to explain trends in adsorp­tion ener­gies and in the acti­va­tion ener­gies of ele­men­tary process­es on tran­si­tion met­al cat­a­lysts in terms of vari­a­tions in the d‑band cen­ter and oth­er para­me­ters char­ac­ter­iz­ing the prop­er­ties of sur­face elec­trons. Norskov has quan­ti­fied Brøn­st­ed-Evans-Polanyi (BEP) rela­tions and showed how they lead to pre­dic­tive mod­els that relate cat­alyt­ic reac­tiv­i­ty to adsorp­tion ener­gies of key rel­e­vant species. The meth­ods devel­oped for use in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis have been suc­cess­ful­ly trans­ferred into the area of elec­tro­catal­y­sis. Most recent­ly, his research group has intro­duced the first data­base of sur­face chem­i­cal prop­er­ties and devel­oped pub­licly avail­able soft­ware to access and mine ther­mo­dy­nam­ic and cat­alyt­ic data on active sur­faces, thus open­ing nov­el oppor­tu­ni­ties for dis­cov­er­ing trends and for design­ing new cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es.

Pro­fes­sor Norskov will present ple­nary lec­tures at the 2013 meet­ings of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in Louisville and at the 2013 Europacat Meet­ing in Lyon.

Aveli­no Cor­ma
Pres­i­dent, Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties

Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Giuseppe Bel­lus­si, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Research and Devel­op­ment, for ENI Refin­ing & Mar­ket­ing is the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Eugene J. Houdry Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Clari­ant. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. This award rec­og­nizes and encour­ages indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on the devel­op­ment of new and improved cat­a­lysts and process­es rep­re­sent­ing out­stand­ing advances in their use­ful appli­ca­tion. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000, which will be pre­sent­ed at the 23rd North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety to be held in Louisville, Ken­tucky on June 2–7, 2013. The Award Ple­nary lec­ture will also be pre­sent­ed dur­ing this meet­ing.

The 2013 Eugene J. Houdry Award rec­og­nizes Giuseppe Bel­lus­si for his impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al key process­es in petro­chem­i­cals and refin­ing through research in new cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, in fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of under­ly­ing cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, and in enabling engi­neer­ing con­cepts for cat­alyt­ic process­es.

Dr. Bel­lus­si joined the Eni Com­pa­ny in 1981. Since then, he has been engaged in research and devel­op­ment of new tech­nolo­gies with broad impact in refin­ing, petro­chem­i­cals, and explo­ration-pro­duc­tion. His spe­cif­ic con­tri­bu­tions have focused on het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, with spe­cif­ic empha­sis on the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy of zeo­lite cat­a­lysts. These con­tri­bu­tions have ranged from selec­tive oxi­da­tion reac­tions to acid catal­y­sis with broad appli­ca­tions to nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion, the upgrad­ing of heavy residues, and the syn­the­sis of new struc­tured mate­ri­als. Many of these achieve­ments have con­tributed to indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions, such as in oxi­da­tions with hydro­gen per­ox­ide on tita­ni­um-sil­i­calite (TS‑1) cat­a­lysts for the pro­duc­tion of di-phe­nols, cyclo­hexa­none oxime and propy­lene oxide and the alky­la­tion of ben­zene by light olefins to eth­yl­ben­zene or cumene on Beta-zeo­lites. Most recent­ly, Dr. Bel­lus­si has been involved in the devel­op­ment of a gas-to-liq­uids tech­nol­o­gy based on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis in slur­ry phase reac­tor and of the EST (Eni Slur­ry Tech­nol­o­gy) for upgrad­ing of heavy oils to clean high-qual­i­ty dis­til­lates with­out con­cur­rent for­ma­tion of coke and oth­er by-prod­ucts.

He has been rec­og­nized for these con­tri­bu­tions with the 1994 Don Breck Award of the Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion, which he shared with Eni col­leagues for the devel­op­ment of TS-1-based cat­a­lysts, the 2003 John­son Matthey Award for inno­va­tion in catal­y­sis, the 2007 Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion Award for sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence and appli­ca­tions of zeo­lites, and the 2008 “Prof. P. Pino” Gold Medal from the Indus­tri­al Chem­istry Divi­sion of Ital­ian Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. Since 2010, Dr. Bel­lus­si has been the Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion.

Pro­fes­sor Kri­jn de Jong (Utrecht Uni­ver­si­ty, The Nether­lands) has been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion. The Award is pre­sent­ed every three years dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to rec­og­nize endur­ing and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy for con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to valu­able prod­ucts. The pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents are Jack Lunsford (1993), Jens Ros­trup-Nielsen (1998), Lan­ny Schmidt (2001), Enrique Igle­sia (2004), David Trimm (2007) and Anders Hol­men (2010).

Pro­fes­sor Kri­jn de Jong is rec­og­nized for con­sis­tent­ly mak­ing note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tions to the field of nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion and the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies that are like­ly to play an impor­tant role in meet­ing the world’s chem­i­cal and fuel require­ments in the years ahead. These con­tri­bu­tions are based on a pow­er­ful com­bi­na­tion of sci­en­tif­ic excel­lence, orig­i­nal­i­ty and soci­etal rel­e­vance. In par­tic­u­lar he has made emi­nent con­tri­bu­tions to the syn­the­sis, struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing and uti­liza­tion of sol­id cat­a­lysts for the con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to fuels and chem­i­cals. As spe­cif­ic high­lights we men­tion his research on cobalt par­ti­cle size effects for the Fis­ch­er Trop­sch syn­the­sis and sup­port­ed iron nanopar­ti­cles for the direct con­ver­sion of syn­the­sis gas to low­er olefins. In addi­tion, Pro­fes­sor Kri­jn De Jong has been a lead­ing fig­ure both nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly in his field of catal­y­sis and chem­istry, via chair and board mem­ber­ship roles in con­fer­ences, pro­gram com­mit­tees, advi­so­ry coun­cils, pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tions and edi­to­r­i­al board roles for top-notch inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals and book series. Last but not least, De Jong is also rec­og­nized for being an inspi­ra­tional and dri­ven teacher, using his didac­tic tal­ent to equip a younger gen­er­a­tion for cre­at­ing con­tri­bu­tions them­selves to tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment in nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion and oth­er areas.

The award con­sists of a plague and a mon­e­tary prize, which will be pre­sent­ed at the 10th Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to be held in Doha, Qatar (March 2–7 2013). Pro­fes­sor Kri­jn de Jong will also give the Award Ple­nary Lec­ture dur­ing this meet­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia has received the 2012 Eni Prize “New Fron­tiers of Hydro­car­bons” for the devel­op­ment of hydro­car­bon syn­the­sis cat­a­lysts which improve process effi­cien­cy and reduce waste and ener­gy use.
 
Please use the links below for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion:
 
2012 Eni Awards
Press Releas­es
2012 Win­ners
Prof. Igle­sia Biog­ra­phy

Pro­fes­sor Fabio Ribeiro of the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty has been named the recip­i­ent of the 2012 Inter­na­tion­al Pre­cious Met­als Insti­tute Hen­ry J. Albert Award, spon­sored by BASF Cor­po­ra­tion, in recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing the­o­ret­i­cal and exper­i­men­tal con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy of pre­cious met­als. His research group com­bines mea­sure­ments on real­is­tic dis­persed clus­ters and flat mod­el sys­tems with pre­ci­sion and reli­a­bil­i­ty at the state-of-the-art. He has pro­vid­ed the kinet­ic data set for water-gas shift that rep­re­sents the stan­dard used by oth­ers in bench­mark­ing of oth­er mate­ri­als and of the­o­ret­i­cal esti­mates. This work has also demon­strat­ed the strong effects of sup­ports in the acti­va­tion of water in water-gas shift and that all exposed sur­face atoms are active on Pt clus­ters but only cor­ner atoms with low coor­di­na­tion are active on Au clus­ters. His sem­i­nal stud­ies of NOx reac­tions have unveiled the mech­a­nism of NO oxi­da­tion and pro­vid­ed ele­gant exam­ples of the use of spec­tro­scop­ic and kinet­ic tools in unrav­el­ing the com­plex path­ways in NOx trap­ping on Ba-pro­mot­ed Pt/alumina sys­tems. His group con­tin­ues to expand the exper­i­men­tal fron­tiers with recent devel­op­ments X‑ray absorp­tion spec­troscopy dur­ing catal­y­sis at high pres­sures in liq­uid and gaseous media, with infrared analy­sis of adsorbed species dur­ing iso­topic tran­sients, and with state-of-the-art envi­ron­men­tal trans­mis­sion elec­tron microscopy. These suc­cess­es build on his ear­li­er stud­ies of Pd cat­a­lysts which defined the reac­tion path­ways involved in cat­alyt­ic com­bus­tion of methane and in cat­alyt­ic hydrodechlo­ri­na­tion of a wide range of hydrochlo­ro­flu­o­ro­car­bon mol­e­cules.

 

Dr. John N. Armor has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the 2012 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The Award is pre­sent­ed every two years to rec­og­nize an indi­vid­ual who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing through both sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and out­stand­ing tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments. This award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. It is award­ed by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil and Clari­ant and will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2013 NAM in Louisville.

This award rec­og­nizes Dr. Armor’s ded­i­ca­tion to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty through his lead­er­ship in the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the New York Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and in the orga­ni­za­tion of inter­na­tion­al sym­posia and con­fer­ences. He has served the North Amer­i­ca Catal­y­sis Soci­ety as Pres­i­dent and Trea­sur­er for more than two decades and dur­ing his tenure strength­ened the finan­cial and tech­ni­cal under­pin­nings of the Soci­ety, the qual­i­ty and rig­or or its meet­ings, and the scope and reach of its edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties. He has brought enhanced recog­ni­tion to mem­bers of the Soci­ety and a brighter future to the dis­ci­pline through his artic­u­late advo­ca­cy of catal­y­sis and his lead­er­ship in strength­en­ing the involve­ment of stu­dents and young prac­ti­tion­ers in the activ­i­ties of the Soci­ety.

Dr. Armor has served the com­mu­ni­ty well as a teacher and as a vision­ary leader, while con­tribut­ing as an inde­pen­dent sci­en­tist and a suc­cess­ful men­tor and research man­ag­er in indus­tri­al set­tings. His tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions have been rec­og­nized with the Eugene J. Houdry Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and with the E. V. Mur­phree Award of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. He has served as Edi­tor of Applied Catal­y­sis and Cat­Tech and has served on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the lead­ing jour­nal in catal­y­sis. He has authored many com­pre­hen­sive reviews of cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies, often with insight­ful his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tives and always with a clear strate­gic vision.