The Amer­i­ca Chem­i­cal Soci­ety has announced (pubs.acs.org/cen/fellows/) the elec­tion of 192 mem­bers to its 2010 ACS Fel­lows pro­gram for their out­stand­ing achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence, the pro­fes­sion, and ser­vice to the soci­ety. These fel­lows include the fol­low­ing mem­bers of our catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty:

• Galen B. Fish­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• Cyn­thia M. Friend, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty
• Anne M. Gaffney, AMG Chem­istry & Catal­y­sis Con­sult­ing
• Enrique Igle­sia, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley
• Bruce D. Kay, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry
• Robert J. Madix, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty
• Chun­shan Song, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty
• Kath­leen Tay­lor, Gen­er­al Motors (retired)
• Yong Wang, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry
• Joseph R. Zoeller, East­man Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny

 
CONGRATULATIONS!

The Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sion of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety is pleased to announce that Dr. Hen­rik Top­søe has been select­ed as the win­ner of the 2010 Dis­tin­guished Researcher Award.

Hen­rik Top­søe is being rec­og­nized for his out­stand­ing research con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts. Hen­rik Top­søe is Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at Hal­dor Top­søe A/S in Lyn­g­by, Den­mark. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing in 1972 from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. After a post­doc­tor­al stay at Stan­ford, he joined the Hal­dor Top­søe Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries in 1974. Here he start­ed the fun­da­men­tal catal­y­sis group and he has also been the man­ag­er of the catal­y­sis research depart­ment. Hen­rik Top­søe is adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­mark (DTH) and has for many years been pres­i­dent of the Dan­ish and Nordic Catal­y­sis Soci­eties and he is on the edi­to­r­i­al boards of sev­er­al catal­y­sis jour­nals. His awards include UOP Inter­na­tion­al lec­tur­er, Ford Dis­tin­guished lec­tures, Mason lec­tur­er and the 2003 Glenn Award from ACS Fuel Chem­istry Divi­sion. He was the first indus­tri­al researcher to be award­ed The Fran­cois Gault Lec­ture­ship from the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (2000). In 2005, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety award­ed Hen­rik Top­søe the Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis.

A cen­tral theme in the research of Hen­rik Top­søe has been the estab­lish­ment of a mol­e­c­u­lar basis for the design and pro­duc­tion of improved indus­tri­al cat­a­lysts. In order to achieve this goal, Hen­rik Top­søe and his col­leagues have over the years devel­oped many impor­tant nov­el mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques and approach­es. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis has been placed on under­stand­ing and devel­op­ing improved hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts, but many stud­ies were also devot­ed to ammo­nia syn­the­sis, methanol syn­the­sis and DeNOx cat­a­lysts. At the time Hen­rik Top­søe and his col­leagues start­ed their research on hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts, the cat­a­lyst sys­tems were poor­ly under­stood. Con­se­quent­ly, spe­cial efforts were devot­ed to the devel­op­ment of new tools and in situ approach­es which could pro­vide the nec­es­sary atom­ic and mol­e­c­u­lar insight under rel­e­vant con­di­tions. The stud­ies were the first ones to reveal the nature of the active struc­tures, the so-called Co-Mo‑S fam­i­ly of pro­mot­ed struc­tures. Lat­er stud­ies have pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al atom­ic insight into these struc­tures and have elu­ci­dat­ed the fac­tors gov­ern­ing their pro­duc­tion and how their activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty may be enhanced based on the opti­miza­tion of sup­port inter­ac­tions and oth­er cat­a­lysts fea­tures. This insight has been used by the indus­try world­wide for the intro­duc­tion of many improved gen­er­a­tions of cat­a­lysts – the lat­est being the Top­søe BRIMTM tech­nol­o­gy for sev­er­al crit­i­cal refin­ing ser­vices includ­ing the pro­duc­tion of Ultra Low Sul­fur Diesel (ULSD). Hen­rik Top­søe has co-authored 180 pub­li­ca­tions, 3 books and has giv­en more than 140 invit­ed lec­tures.

An ACS Sym­po­sium in Hon­or of Hen­rik Top­soe is being orga­nized by Prof. Chun­shan Song of Penn State on behalf of ACS Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sion at the ACS Nation­al Meet­ing in Boston dur­ing August 22–26, 2010.

Dr. Jef­frey T. Miller, cur­rent­ly Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis Group Leader at Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, is the recip­i­ent of the 2010 F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis Award spon­sored by the Grace Davi­son oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award is pre­sent­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years and con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The award plaque will be pre­sent­ed at the clos­ing ban­quet dur­ing the 2011 Meet­ing of the North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Dr. Miller will present lec­tures at the reg­u­lar meet­ing of the affil­i­at­ed local clubs and soci­ety dur­ing 2010 and 2011.

Dr. Miller is being rec­og­nized for his con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture and to the prac­tice of catal­y­sis. His ded­i­ca­tion and inten­si­ty in the pur­suit of knowl­edge has led to indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions of his inven­tions and to a large num­ber of sci­en­tif­ic papers. His excel­lent con­tri­bu­tions have advanced our knowl­edge of fun­da­men­tal cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, while his inter­ac­tions with acad­e­mia have enriched the edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence of many grad­u­ate stu­dents.

His research at BP/Amoco led to the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al refin­ing and petro­chem­i­cal cat­a­lysts that remain in use. These include cat­a­lysts and process­es for upgrad­ing of high­ly aro­mat­ic feeds, for toluene dis­pro­por­tion­a­tion and transalky­la­tion reac­tions, and for con­ver­sion of waste chem­i­cals to high-val­ue aro­mat­ic chem­i­cals and fuel com­po­nents. Through his aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tions, he has con­tributed to our fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of acid-cat­alyzed hydro­car­bon crack­ing by zeo­lites and to the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and func­tion of met­al and alloy nanopar­ti­cles. He is wide­ly regard­ed as a leader in the appli­ca­tion of X‑ray absorp­tion meth­ods dur­ing catal­y­sis to probe syn­thet­ic path­ways, iden­ti­fy active sites, and deter­mine the dynam­ics of spe­cif­ic ele­men­tary steps with­in com­plex cat­alyt­ic sequences. Upon retire­ment from BP/Amoco, he joined Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, where he con­tin­ues his research on future sources of ener­gy and his ped­a­gog­i­cal endeav­ors in the appli­ca­tion of X‑ray spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to the study of cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic chemistries.

Pro­fes­sor W. Nicholas Del­gass (Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty) is the recip­i­ent of the inau­gur­al NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This Award will be 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. The award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. The lat­ter will be pre­sent­ed at the clos­ing ban­quet dur­ing the 2011 NAM in Detroit.

The career of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass, over its four decades, exem­pli­fies this com­bi­na­tion of pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence of catal­y­sis, ded­i­ca­tion and rig­or in the edu­ca­tion of sci­en­tists and engi­neers, and ser­vice to oth­ers in the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. His research achieve­ments include the syn­the­sis of nov­el cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, the devel­op­ment of mod­ern spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods for cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and the use of rig­or­ous kinet­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to elu­ci­date the mech­a­nism of com­plex cat­alyt­ic reac­tions on solids. He is lead­ing a team that is devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing mod­el-based approach­es for the design and effi­cient opti­miza­tion of new cat­a­lysts. Pro­fes­sor Del­gass has been a remark­ably gift­ed and ded­i­cat­ed teacher, both in the class­room and in the research lab­o­ra­to­ry. He has been rec­og­nized with the most pres­ti­gious teach­ing hon­ors on the Pur­due cam­pus. In his ser­vice to stu­dents and peers as Asso­ciate Head of the School of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, he has shown a true com­mit­ment to men­tor and edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of chem­i­cal engi­neers. His pas­sion for men­tor­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents and young fac­ul­ty was rec­og­nized with the inau­gur­al Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing Men­tor­ing Excel­lence Award. Many among our catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, in acad­e­mia and in indus­try, have been touched by his thought­ful advice. For many years, he was the zeal­ous guardian and gen­tle stew­ard of the archives of our dis­ci­pline, as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis. He has ded­i­cat­ed his time and efforts to the orga­ni­za­tion of the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis and of numer­ous sym­posia at AIChE, ACS and Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ings. It is a fit­ting ges­ture of thanks that our com­mu­ni­ty has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the schol­ar­ship and ded­i­ca­tion of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass with this inau­gur­al award for ser­vice.

Pro­fes­sor Anders Hol­men (Nor­we­gian Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy) has been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2010 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 the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy for the con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to valu­able prod­ucts. The pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents are Jack Lunsford, Jens Ros­trup-Nielsen, Lan­ny Schmidt, Enrique Igle­sia, and David Trimm.

Pro­fes­sor Hol­men is being rec­og­nized for his achieve­ments in advanc­ing con­cepts and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of direct and indi­rect routes for the effi­cient uti­liza­tion of nat­ur­al gas. He has con­tributed fun­da­men­tal con­cepts for the con­ver­sion of methane to acety­lene in high-tem­per­a­ture short-con­tact time reac­tors. His research group has devel­oped and used meth­ods for mea­sur­ing the dynam­ics of car­bon for­ma­tion dur­ing methane reac­tions at con­di­tions rel­e­vant to indus­tri­al prac­tice and for the elu­ci­da­tion of the kinet­ics and mech­a­nism of par­tial oxi­da­tion of light alka­nes. Through­out his career, Pro­fes­sor Hol­men has con­tributed to our under­stand­ing and prac­tice of the Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, specif­i­cal­ly by unrav­el­ing the com­plex effects of water on reac­tion rate and selec­tiv­i­ty and the role of Co crys­tal­lite size and of sup­ports on cat­a­lyst reac­tiv­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

The award con­sists of a plaque and a mon­e­tary prize, which will pre­sent­ed at the 9th Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium (NGCS) to be held in Lyon, France (May 30-June 3, 2010). Pro­fes­sor Hol­men will also present the Award Ple­nary Lec­ture dur­ing this meet­ing.

The selec­tion com­mit­tee for this Award con­sists of pre­vi­ous awardees togeth­er with sev­er­al mem­bers of the NGCS Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Board. Nom­i­na­tions are con­sid­ered from a broad cross-sec­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al mem­bers of the nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion com­mu­ni­ty.

The Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing (CRE) Divi­sion of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers (AIChE) is delight­ed to announce that Ros­tam J. Madon of BASF Cat­a­lysts, LLC has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the AIChE CRE Divi­sion Prac­tice Award for 2009. 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 are 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. The award con­sists of a plaque and cash award of $1,000 to be pre­sent­ed at the Divi­sion Recep­tion dur­ing the AIChE annu­al meet­ing in Nashville, Ten­nessee. A spe­cial ses­sion will be held in hon­or of the recip­i­ent at the annu­al meet­ing dur­ing which he will also present a lec­ture.

Ross Madon has made pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions of remark­able breadth and depth to the chem­istry and engi­neer­ing of cat­alyt­ic process­es. Ear­ly in his career, he guid­ed the field by address­ing arti­facts in kinet­ic data using meth­ods that are accept­ed today as defin­i­tive cri­te­ria for kinet­ic con­trol in catal­y­sis. In the process, he brought tran­si­tion state for­malisms for ther­mo­dy­nam­i­cal­ly non-ide­al sys­tems, first intro­duced by his advi­sor Michel Boudart, into the realm of prac­ti­cal catal­y­sis. His con­tri­bu­tions to cat­a­lyst design for Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis and cat­alyt­ic crack­ing, two of the most hydro­dy­nam­i­cal­ly, kinet­i­cal­ly, and mol­e­c­u­lar­ly com­plex reac­tion sys­tems known, illus­trate his unique abil­i­ty to con­tribute con­cepts and approach­es to sys­tems that oth­ers avoid or mere­ly mis­in­ter­pret because of their com­plex­i­ty. Ross Madon excels at the inter­face of chem­istry and engi­neer­ing and his achieve­ments bridge con­cep­tu­al advances with com­mer­cial cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies. Recent­ly, he elu­ci­dat­ed the mech­a­nism by which vana­di­um caus­es struc­tur­al degra­da­tion of FCC cat­a­lysts and used this under­stand­ing to min­i­mize its dele­te­ri­ous effect. His stud­ies have pro­vid­ed a def­i­nite assess­ment of the role of ZSM‑5 addi­tives in FCC to replace inac­cu­rate or phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal descrip­tions of such phe­nom­e­na. His kinet­ic treat­ments of FCC catal­y­sis brought fun­da­men­tal chem­i­cal insights into a sys­tem once con­sid­ered too com­plex for such rig­or. Ross then used the knowl­edge to go beyond its schol­ar­ly ele­gance and designed com­mer­cial FCC cat­a­lysts based on such prin­ci­ples. He is the coin­ven­tor and devel­op­er of the Redux­ion – Max­ol® fam­i­ly of FCC cat­a­lysts and of the Iso­Plus® and Ultri­um® fam­i­lies. He coin­vent­ed the Flex-Tec® resid crack­ing cat­a­lyst which has been wide­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly deployed in demand­ing resid cat crack­ing process­es. He has thrived in indus­tri­al set­tings, but his thought process and con­cep­tu­al approach is firm­ly plant­ed in the realm of thought­ful sci­ence. He has tack­led tru­ly dif­fi­cult prob­lems and tak­en them beyond where oth­ers could, with ele­gance and rig­or bal­anced by rel­e­vance and impact.

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Bruce Gates is the recip­i­ent of the 2009 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis. Since 1992 Bruce has been on the fac­ul­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis, where he has the title of Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing. His inter­ests include Catal­y­sis, Cat­alyt­ic Reac­tors, Chem­i­cal Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing, Mate­r­i­al Micro Struc­ture, and Sol-Gel Pro­cess­ing.

This award is spon­sored by John­son Matthey Cat­a­lysts Com­pa­ny and admin­is­tered by the Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um as well as a trav­el award to pro­vide the recip­i­ent with funds for vis­it­ing (until funds run out) any of the 14 local clubs com­pris­ing the Soci­ety. The award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms, and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species.

For almost 40 years he has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in three areas: the prepa­ra­tion and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of sur­face organometal­lic com­plex­es, catal­y­sis by strong sol­id acids, and the kinet­ics and reac­tion path­ways of hydropro­cess­ing catal­y­sis. In the catal­y­sis by strong sol­id acids, Bruce both expand­ed the appli­ca­tions and fur­thered under­stand­ing of under­ly­ing mech­a­nisms. More recent­ly, in a series of papers begin­ning in 1998, Bruce (with Bob Gras­sel­li and Hel­mut Knözinger) explained the sur­face chem­istry of tungstat­ed zir­co­nias with and with­out Pt, high­light­ing the role of sur­face reduc­tion to W5+ and –OH in gen­er­at­ing the active sites for alka­ne iso­mer­iza­tion. Bruce’s con­tri­bu­tions to hydropro­cess­ing catal­y­sis are equal­ly notable. His two review arti­cles great­ly assist­ed those requir­ing intro­duc­tion to the field; each has been cit­ed in excess of 375 times. The sci­en­tif­ic con­tri­bu­tion was his recog­ni­tion (with James Katzer and George Schuit) that com­plex hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion and hydro­gena­tion net­works could be under­stood in terms of a small num­ber of reac­tions whose rates could be quan­ti­fied using mod­el sub­strates. One sup­port­er remarked that Bruce’s work in met­al clus­ters rev­o­lu­tion­ized the field of sur­face organometal­lic catal­y­sis. Here also he has authored wide­ly read reviews, and sev­er­al influ­en­tial, exten­sive­ly cit­ed papers. Much of this recent work has tar­get­ed catal­y­sis by gold clus­ters or nanocrys­tals, work char­ac­ter­ized by mul­ti-tech­nique cor­re­la­tion of cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty to sur­face struc­ture, care­ful inter­pre­ta­tion of EXAFS data char­ac­ter­iz­ing sur­face coor­di­na­tion, and prop­er con­sid­er­a­tion of how the catal­y­sis alters the as-syn­the­sized mate­ri­als. Bruce was an ear­ly user and pro­po­nent of EXAFS and XANES in cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Many “nanoscience” papers in the lit­er­a­ture today fol­low along paths he pio­neered years ago.

Final­ly it should be not­ed that Bruce has edu­cat­ed two gen­er­a­tions of cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists and indus­tri­al prac­ti­tion­ers, through his wide­ly used teach­ing texts (“Chem­istry of Cat­alyt­ic Process­es” is a world­wide best sell­er), the many short cours­es he helped devel­op and teach (the one based on this book was taught for over 30 years at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware, and at many indus­tri­al research cen­ters) and not least through his men­tor­ing of over 130 grad­u­ate stu­dents, post­docs and vis­it­ing sci­en­tists. Bruce has been a tire­less cheer­leader for the field of catal­y­sis and in all his lec­tures strives for under­stand­ing, arous­ing curios­i­ty, and get­ting down to the essen­tials of a prob­lem. He has also been a very active mem­ber of the Board of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

Local clubs should con­tact Pro­fes­sor Gates [bcgates@ucdavis.edu] direct­ly about speak­ing engage­ments over the next two years. More infor­ma­tion on this award, the awards process, and pre­vi­ous awardees can be found inside the Awards fold­er on the NACS home page: www.nacatsoc.org.

Pro­fes­sor Aveli­no Cor­ma Canos has been select­ed for the 2009 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The award con­sists of a plaque and a mon­e­tary prize. 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 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 on the NACS home page www.nacatsoc.org. Pro­fes­sor Cor­ma will also be asked to give ple­nary lec­tures at the San Fran­cis­co NAM meet­ing in June 2009 and the EuropaCat 2009 meet­ing in Sala­man­ca, Spain.

Aveli­no Cor­ma has been a research pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­dad Politéc­ni­ca de Valen­cia since 1990 where he found­ed and is direc­tor of the Insti­tu­to de Tec­nolo­gia Quími­ca (UPV-CSIC) at Valen­cia. He is a world class leader in struc­tured nano­ma­te­ri­als and mol­e­c­u­lar sieves as cat­a­lysts, cov­er­ing aspects of syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and reac­tiv­i­ty in acid-base and redox catal­y­sis. He is rec­og­nized wide­ly for his unique abil­i­ty to com­bine state-of-the-art syn­thet­ic pro­to­cols with mod­ern the­o­ret­i­cal and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion meth­ods to design cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als for spe­cif­ic func­tions. Aveli­no has become one of the most pro­lif­ic and ver­sa­tile con­trib­u­tors to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. He has pub­lished near­ly 700 schol­ar­ly man­u­scripts in the lead­ing jour­nals of chem­istry and catal­y­sis, and he has been rec­og­nized among the fifty most high­ly cit­ed chemists for the last decade. Remark­ably, he has com­bined these schol­ar­ly con­tri­bu­tions with more than 100 patents cov­er­ing inven­tions of far-reach­ing impact to the indus­tri­al prac­tice of catal­y­sis, many of them licensed to indus­try and some in com­mer­cial prac­tice. In 2006 alone, he received four pres­ti­gious inter­na­tion­al awards in recog­ni­tion of his many and broad fun­da­men­tal and prac­ti­cal con­tri­bu­tions to the field. As one nom­i­na­tor described, “Pro­fes­sor Aveli­no Corma’s … work illus­trates the val­ue of fun­da­men­tal con­cepts in prac­ti­cal dis­cov­er­ies and the need to bring togeth­er exper­i­ment and the­o­ry, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of struc­ture and func­tion in com­plex inor­gan­ic solids, and indus­try and acad­e­mia as we seek to advance the sci­ence of catal­y­sis.” Anoth­er sup­port­er remarked, he is “one of the inter­na­tion­al­ly pre­em­i­nent schol­ars in the field of catal­y­sis today. His work has had immense impact on the sci­ence of this field and has also led to a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal appli­ca­tions, a very rare accom­plish­ment for any aca­d­e­m­ic inves­ti­ga­tor.”

Avelino’s grasp of con­cepts and of fun­da­men­tal needs has been illus­trat­ed in his recent attempts to syn­the­size and use well defined-sin­gle-iso­lat­ed sites to estab­lish struc­ture-func­tion rela­tions and to estab­lish the con­nec­tions among homo­ge­neous, enzy­mat­ic and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, a con­cep­tu­al frame­work that put for­ward in a sem­i­nal paper in Catal­y­sis Reviews, 46 (2004) 369 — 417. One of these approach­es involves the selec­tive attach­ment of organometal­lic com­plex­es onto tai­lored sub­strates that act not only as scaf­folds but also as active par­tic­i­pant in the acti­va­tion of reac­tants and in the sta­bi­liza­tion of tran­si­tion states. These mate­ri­als pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments over homo­ge­neous ver­sions of these active com­plex­es through the active par­tic­i­pa­tion of the inor­gan­ic scaf­folds, as shown in some of his recent pub­li­ca­tions, in which these con­cepts have been put into prac­tice (e.g. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 45, 3328 (2006); J. Catal. 224, 170 (2004); Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 46, 1536 (2007); Adv. Synth. Catal. 348, 1283 (2006)).
In anoth­er exam­ple of his many con­tri­bu­tions to catal­y­sis, he and his research group have not only addressed the design of new zeo­lites mate­ri­als for con­ven­tion­al reac­tions of hydro­car­bons, but also dis­cov­ered new chemistries and appli­ca­tions for these mate­ri­als in the syn­the­sis of petro­chem­i­cals, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and fine chem­i­cals. The ITQ-type mate­ri­als have become ubiq­ui­tous in the lit­er­a­ture; they rep­re­sent new cat­a­lyst com­po­si­tions, cur­rent­ly num­ber­ing about 50 and con­sist­ing most­ly of micro­p­orous solids, all dis­cov­ered with­in the Cor­ma research group. His nov­el cat­a­lysts for paraf­fin iso­mer­iza­tion are wide­ly used in prac­tice because of their unprece­dent­ed sul­fur resis­tance and high sta­bil­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty. His col­lab­o­ra­tions with indus­try have led to new zeo­lites with sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in cat­alyt­ic crack­ing because of their sta­bil­i­ty and desir­able prod­uct dis­tri­b­u­tions. Pro­fes­sor Cor­ma has pub­lished exten­sive­ly about applied aspects of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis relat­ed to refin­ing tech­nol­o­gy. These pub­li­ca­tions have recent­ly explored the kinet­ics of organosul­fur reac­tions dur­ing crack­ing reac­tions and the details of hydroi­so­mer­iza­tion catal­y­sis on acid and bifunc­tion­al cat­a­lysts, all of which are of crit­i­cal impor­tance in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, effi­cient ener­gy use and respon­si­ble man­age­ment of the envi­ron­ment.

His design of well struc­tured oxi­da­tion and hydro­gena­tion cat­a­lysts has lead to new cat­alyt­ic routes for the chemos­e­lec­tive of lac­tones (Nature, 412, 423 (2001); Chemos­e­lec­tive hydro­gena­tion of sub­sti­tut­ed nitroaro­mat­ics (Sci­ence 313, 332 (2006), Chemos­e­lec­tive syn­the­sis of azo­com­pounds (Sci­ence 322, 1661 (2008). He is now active­ly patent­ing and pub­lish­ing on well defined mul­ti­site sol­id cat­a­lysts for cas­cade reac­tions.

In addi­tion to his many out­stand­ing research accom­plish­ments, Avelino’s con­tin­ued lead­er­ship in the field has been rec­og­nized by numer­ous awards, includ­ing the Fran­cois Gault Award of the Euro­pean Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (2001), the Eugene Houdry Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (2002), the Don­ald Breck Award of the Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion (2004), and the Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis (2008).

It is my plea­sure to announce that Dr. Jef­frey S. Beck of Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny, Clin­ton, NJ (USA) is the 2009 Eugene J. Houdry Awardee. This award is spon­sored by Süd Chemie and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age 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 an hon­o­rar­i­um. Fur­ther details about this Award and its his­to­ry may be found in the Awards Fold­er of the NACS web­site, www.nacatsoc.org.

Among his many accom­plish­ments, Jeff was co-inven­tor of M41S, an entire­ly new class of meso­porous mol­e­c­u­lar sieves. M41S mate­ri­als rep­re­sent a break­through in ultra large pore mol­e­c­u­lar sieve tech­nol­o­gy. Uti­liz­ing strate­gies gleaned from sur­fac­tant chem­istry, Jeff demon­strat­ed how to manip­u­late the syn­the­sis of these mate­ri­als to tai­lor their pore size from 20 to 100 Å. He also demon­strat­ed that the inter­ac­tions between sur­fac­tant tem­plates and reac­tion con­di­tions in these sys­tems could be manip­u­lat­ed to pro­duce either zeolitic or meso­porous mate­ri­als, thus illus­trat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of either mol­e­c­u­lar or supramol­e­c­u­lar tem­plat­ing. Dis­cov­ery of these mate­ri­als is rec­og­nized as a major inno­va­tion through­out the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. These sil­i­cates are applic­a­ble to a wide range of appli­ca­tions in catal­y­sis, sep­a­ra­tions and as host/guest mate­ri­als. This work was award­ed the 1994 Don­ald W. Breck Award by the Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion.

Anoth­er major achieve­ment includes Jeff’s sem­i­nal work on prepar­ing ex-situ selec­ti­vat­ed cat­a­lysts which laid the ground­work for the Exxon­Mo­bil PxMaxsm process (selec­tive con­ver­sion of toluene to p‑xylene, the pre­cur­sor to terephathal­ic acid and poly­esters), which was recent­ly rec­og­nized with the ACS Heroes of Chem­istry Award. His research in the “mol­e­c­u­lar engi­neer­ing” of zeo­lites and the inter­play between reac­tion path­ways, kinet­ics, and mass trans­port in micro­p­orous mate­ri­als led to sev­er­al com­mer­cial process­es for the selec­tive pro­duc­tion of para-xylene. Jef­f’s fun­da­men­tal stud­ies enabled him to tai­lor the dif­fu­sion prop­er­ties of the cat­a­lyst by using nov­el nano-coat­ing tech­niques. He car­ried out detailed kinet­ic and mech­a­nis­tic stud­ies to design cat­a­lysts for selec­tive pro­duc­tion of para-xylene in Exxon­Mo­bil process­es such as PxMaxsm and XyMaxsm (award­ed the 2003 Thomas Alva Edi­son Patent Award by the Research and Devel­op­ment Coun­cil of New Jer­sey), and his find­ings also played a key role in the com­mer­cial man­u­fac­ture of these cat­a­lysts. These dis­cov­er­ies have been deployed world­wide in more than 20 com­mer­cial units for para-xylene pro­duc­tion, with oth­ers planned, and have been rec­og­nized not just by their rather sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic impact, but also for their envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits by reduc­ing the ener­gy required to pro­duce para-xylene and their soci­etal ben­e­fit in enabling the low­er cost pro­duc­tion of the key com­po­nent used in the pro­duc­tion of poly­eth­yl­enetereph­the­late (PET), one of the world’s most wide­ly used poly­mers.

In addi­tion, Jeff has authored or coau­thored 47 sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions, 58 exter­nal pre­sen­ta­tions, and 59 patents, which demon­strate his cre­ativ­i­ty in the broad research area of catal­y­sis. One sup­port­er com­ment­ed, “He inno­vates, imple­ments, and leads. Jeff’s impact on Exxon­Mo­bil through catal­y­sis has been tremen­dous, far exceed­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.”

Jeff has also played a key role in bring­ing to Exxon­Mo­bil new research tools to fur­ther increase capa­bil­i­ties to effi­cient­ly car­ry out research and devel­op­ment of nov­el cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies. He was a key mem­ber of the team that estab­lished a broad Exxon­Mo­bil-Symyx alliance in High-Through­put R&D (HT R&D). With Jeff lead­ing the effort, these new HT R&D tools, along with advanced mod­el­ing efforts, are suc­cess­ful­ly being imple­ment­ed at Exxon­Mo­bil and have yield­ed inno­va­tions that have been com­mer­cial­ized in the refin­ing and lubri­cant areas.

Jeff’s cur­rent role at Exxon­Mo­bil is man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Strate­gic Research of Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny, with over­ar­ch­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for upstream, down­stream, and chem­i­cals long range research for the entire Cor­po­ra­tion.
 
John Armor
Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

The Nobel Prize in Chem­istry for 2007 was award­ed for ground­break­ing stud­ies in sur­face chem­istry. The Award acknowl­edges the impact of Pro­fes­sor Ertl’s catal­y­sis relat­ed work upon the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try. Ger­hard Ertl has found­ed an exper­i­men­tal school of thought by show­ing how reli­able results can be attained in this dif­fi­cult area of research. His insights have pro­vid­ed the sci­en­tif­ic basis of mod­ern sur­face chem­istry, espe­cial­ly applied to catal­y­sis: his method­ol­o­gy is used in both aca­d­e­m­ic research and the indus­tri­al devel­op­ment of chem­i­cal process­es. The approach devel­oped by Ertl is based not least on his stud­ies of the Haber-Bosch process, in which nitro­gen is extract­ed from the air for inclu­sion in arti­fi­cial fer­til­iz­ers. This reac­tion, which func­tions using an iron sur­face as its cat­a­lyst, has enor­mous eco­nom­ic sig­nif­i­cance because the avail­abil­i­ty of nitro­gen for grow­ing plants is often restrict­ed. Ertl has also stud­ied the oxi­da­tion of car­bon monox­ide on plat­inum, a reac­tion that takes place in the cat­a­lyst of cars to clean exhaust emis­sions.
 
Cred­its to http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2007/press.html