Announcement of 2025 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. José G. Santi­este­ban (Exxon­Mo­bil, retired) is the recip­i­ent of the 2025 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis. This award is spon­sored by Clari­ant and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2025 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM29 in Atlanta). 
 
The pur­pose of the Eugene J. Houdry 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 applications.

Dr. Santi­este­ban is rec­og­nized for his sci­en­tif­ic, tech­ni­cal, and lead­er­ship con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery, devel­op­ment, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of sev­er­al cat­alyt­ic process­es for the pro­duc­tion of clean fuels, high-per­for­mance lubri­cants, and petro­chem­i­cals. Along­side his Exxon­Mo­bil col­lab­o­ra­tors, José has demon­strat­ed that a detailed sci­en­tif­ic and engi­neer­ing under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic chem­istry, aligned with busi­ness needs, can serve as the foun­da­tion for cre­at­ing nov­el cat­alyt­ic tech­nol­o­gy. His pri­ma­ry con­tri­bu­tions to indus­tri­al catal­y­sis focus on mol­e­c­u­lar­ly engi­neered zeo­lite-based cat­alyt­ic sys­tems with mul­ti­ple func­tion­al­i­ties. His research has cen­tered on tan­dem catal­y­sis, lead­ing to the devel­op­ment of cut­ting-edge cat­alyt­ic sys­tems. José’s efforts have empha­sized the strate­gic place­ment of active sites to achieve an opti­mal bal­ance of mass trans­port and com­plex reac­tion kinet­ics. The result­ing com­mer­cial cat­a­lysts are now wide­ly used in refiner­ies and petro­chem­i­cal plants. These cat­a­lysts have enhanced prod­uct selec­tiv­i­ty (for diesel, jet fuel, lubri­cants, and chem­i­cals), reduced ener­gy con­sump­tion, and low­ered the car­bon foot­print of var­i­ous refin­ing and petro­chem­i­cal processes.

José’s work has earned him numer­ous acco­lades; among them, he was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing in 2016 and received the Inno­va­tor Award from the Soci­ety of His­pan­ic Pro­fes­sion­al Engi­neers in 2018. Fol­low­ing his retire­ment from Exxon­Mo­bil in 2021, Dr. Santi­este­ban has con­tributed to sev­er­al Nation­al Research Coun­cil stud­ies, includ­ing Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing: Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties in the 21st Cen­tu­ry. He cur­rent­ly serves as a mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ing Board of the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, Engi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine and a Coun­cil Mem­ber and Board Trustee of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing (NAE).
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, NACS

Discover Atlanta at NAM29

Join Us in Atlanta, GA

 

Atlanta is a vibrant city with a rich his­to­ry and diverse cul­ture, often referred to as the “Cap­i­tal of the South”. Plan your stay for the 29th North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM29) sched­uled for June 8–13, 2025 and take advan­tage of all Atlanta has to offer out­side of the tech­ni­cal program!

Around Atlanta

Here’s a pre­view of some of the attrac­tions to catch when you vis­it (cour­tesy of Dis­cov­er Atlanta, https://discoveratlanta.com/):

  • Geor­gia Aquarium
    • With more than 11 mil­lion gal­lons of water, 10s of thou­sands of ani­mals and 500 species in more than 60 habi­tats, it’s the largest in the U.S.
    • Take a deep dive through the aquarium’s exhibits dur­ing the NAM29 Open­ing Recep­tion, sched­uled to be host­ed at the Geor­gia Aquarium!
  • Atlanta Bel­Lline
    • This 22-mile trail loops the city, con­nect­ing neigh­bor­hoods and show­cas­ing why Atlanta is “The City in the For­est.” With ever­chang­ing art­work, unique shops, live­ly bars and restau­rants, the Belt­Line is the best way to explore the city on foot, on wheels or with your family.
  • The Nation­al Cen­ter for Civ­il and Human Rights
    • The Nation­al Cen­ter for Civ­il and Human Rights in down­town Atlanta pays homage to the Amer­i­can civ­il rights move­ment, and it brings cur­rent glob­al human rights issues to the fore­front. The cen­ter is a per­fect start­ing point for explor­ing Atlanta’s his­to­ry in civ­il and human rights.
    • Did you know? Atlanta is one of only two cities in the world to lay claim to two Nobel Peace Prize win­ners – Mar­tin Luther King Jr., and Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter. See the medals on dis­play and learn about the lega­cies of both men at the Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Nation­al His­tor­i­cal Park and Jim­my Carter Pres­i­den­tial Library and Muse­um.
  • Learn more at https://discoveratlanta.com!

Stay up to date on news, updates, and dead­lines for the 29th North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM29). 29th North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM29) List­Serv | AIChE

Bruce Gates is the recipient of the 2025 NACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Bruce Gates of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis is the recip­i­ent of the 2025 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This award is joint­ly spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing and Clari­ant, and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2025 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM29 in Atlanta).
 
The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing by sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in addi­tion to tech­ni­cal accomplishments.
 
Prof. Gates is rec­og­nized as a states­man advo­cat­ing catal­y­sis around the world, known for men­tor­ing in acad­e­mia and indus­try, author­ing wide­ly used text­books, edit­ing influ­en­tial pub­li­ca­tions, serv­ing uni­ver­si­ties, insti­tutes, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies, and fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions between indus­try, nation­al lab­o­ra­to­ries, and acad­e­mia (rec­og­nized by the Mal­colm E. Pruitt Award in 2006). He served as vice-chair of the ICC 2020, co-chair of the NAM 2009, and chair of the 1990 Gor­don Research Con­fer­ence (GRC) on Catal­y­sis. He was on the DOE Basic Ener­gy Sci­ences Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee (for 14 years), on the GRC Coun­cil (for 8 years), and on the NACS Board of Direc­tors (for 24 years), where he led nom­i­nat­ing activ­i­ties fos­ter­ing mem­ber­ship of women and under-rep­re­sent­ed groups among NACS lead­er­ship. He co-found­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware’s Cen­ter for Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, and, more recent­ly, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia node of the Cen­ter for Ratio­nal Cat­a­lyst Syn­the­sis (NSF IUCRC). Dur­ing his five-decade-plus career, many of his for­mer stu­dents, post­docs, and mentees have attained influ­en­tial posi­tions, includ­ing a uni­ver­si­ty pres­i­den­cy, indus­try CEO and CTO posi­tions, and dis­tin­guished fac­ul­ty posi­tions world­wide. Some Gates mentees wrote a sum­ma­ry of the group’s research accom­plish­ments for ACS Catal­y­sis (2020, 10, 11912–11935).
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

In Memoriam: John R. Monnier (1948–2024)

Dr. John R. Mon­nier passed away on April 6, 2024 at the age of 76. John was Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na, which he joined in 2004 after retir­ing as a Tech­nol­o­gy Fel­low at the East­man Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny in Kingsport, Tennessee. 

John grad­u­at­ed with a bachelor’s degree in chem­istry from St. Ambrose Col­lege in Dav­en­port, Iowa, and a master’s in Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Mil­wau­kee with Prof. George W. Keulks in the area of cat­alyt­ic olefin epox­i­da­tion, in 1972. There­after, John began his pro­fes­sion­al career in the Cor­po­rate Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries of East­man Kodak Com­pa­ny in Rochester, NY. He returned to UW-Mil­wau­kee in 1976 on an aca­d­e­m­ic leave of absence and received his Ph.D. in Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis in 1978, again with Prof. Keulks. John resumed his work at East­man Kodak in Rochester, and trans­ferred in 1993 to East­man Chem­i­cal in Kingsport, where he worked until his retire­ment from industry.

Dr. Monnier’s study of the epox­i­da­tion of high­er olefins began in 1986, and cul­mi­nat­ed in his dis­cov­ery of a cat­a­lyst sys­tem which selec­tive­ly epox­i­dizes buta­di­ene to 3,4‑epoxybutene using mol­e­c­u­lar oxy­gen in the gas phase, which rep­re­sent­ed the first advance­ment of olefin epox­i­da­tion using mol­e­c­u­lar oxy­gen in more than 50 years. This work was rec­og­nized in 1988 with the C. E. K. Mees Award, giv­en annu­al­ly for the most out­stand­ing research con­duct­ed at Kodak Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries. In 1993, he was named Out­stand­ing Researcher for the North­east Ten­nessee Divi­sion of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Society. 

Com­mer­cial­ized in 1997, the epox­i­da­tion of buta­di­ene, and down­stream trans­for­ma­tion of epoxy­butene, uses sev­er­al nov­el cat­alyt­ic process­es, includ­ing the iso­mer­iza­tion reac­tions of epoxy­butene to 2,5‑dihydrofuran and 2,5‑dihydrofuran to 2,3‑dihydrofuran, as well as the remark­ably selec­tive hydro­gena­tion of epoxy­butene to epoxybu­tane. Mon­nier is either the sole or co-dis­cov­er­er of each of these reac­tions, for which he received more than 25 patents.

The acco­lades for Dr. Monnier’s research and devel­op­ment in epox­i­da­tion con­tin­ued in force. In 1998, he was named Out­stand­ing Indus­tri­al Inno­va­tor by the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. In 2000, Mon­nier received the Her­man Pines Award from the Chica­go Catal­y­sis Club. He was award­ed the 2002 Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, one of the four major bien­ni­al awards of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society. 

The pro­gres­sion of John’s phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty – he had mus­cu­lar dys­tro­phy – pre­cip­i­tat­ed a move from indus­try to acad­e­mia in 2004. At the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na in Colum­bia, SC, John excelled at the new call­ing of men­tor­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents, apply­ing his unpar­al­leled com­bi­na­tion of indus­tri­al rel­e­vance, prac­ti­cal knowl­edge, intense wit, and self-effac­ing humor. Though in a wheel­chair, John’s spir­it soared; com­ing down the hall­way his rau­cous voice was always heard before he was seen.

At USC, John con­tin­ued his work in epox­i­da­tion catal­y­sis, achiev­ing a new under­stand­ing of the elec­tron­ic role of alka­li pro­mot­ers. He devel­oped a new method to syn­the­size sup­port­ed bimetal­lic nanopar­ti­cles based on elec­tro­less depo­si­tion, a process he had seen employed at Kodak on bulk mate­ri­als, and he con­tin­ued to refine char­ac­ter­i­za­tion meth­ods includ­ing in-situ x‑ray dif­frac­tion and chemisorp­tion. John’s indus­tri­al back­ground and exper­tise in het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lyst prepa­ra­tion, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and eval­u­a­tion lent great cre­dence to USC’s NSF-sup­port­ed indus­tri­al con­sor­tium, the Cen­ter for Ratio­nal Cat­a­lyst Syn­the­sis (CeR­CaS). 

And the nation­al awards did not stop. In 2017, John received the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engineer’s Chem­i­cal and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Prac­tice Award, and most sig­nif­i­cant­ly in 2017, Pro­fes­sor Mon­nier was induct­ed into the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing. In 2022, John received the Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award from the Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Society.

In his twen­ty years at USC, Dr. Mon­nier advised twen­ty-two Ph.D. stu­dents and numer­ous vis­it­ing schol­ars, post­docs, and under­grad­u­ate stu­dents. These mentees and his aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al col­leagues and staff will remem­ber John with tremen­dous affec­tion as a bril­liant cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tist whose numer­ous accom­plish­ments and acco­lades were always exceed­ed by his humil­i­ty and his humanity.
 
JR Regal­b­u­to
April 11, 2024

Aleksey Yezerets is the recipient of the 2024 F. G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Alek­sey Yez­erets of Cum­mins is the recip­i­ent of the 2024 F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis. The award is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and spon­sored by the W. R. Grace & Co. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The recip­i­ent may be invit­ed to lec­ture at some of the local catal­y­sis clubs dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this award. 

Over his career at Cum­mins, Dr. Yez­erets has pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of nov­el and first-to-mar­ket cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies that are reduc­ing emis­sions in mil­lions of com­mer­cial vehi­cles world­wide. Every sys­tem rep­re­sents a tran­sient­ly oper­at­ed chem­i­cal plant that includes mul­ti­ple cat­alyt­ic reac­tors, sen­sors, and actu­a­tors, direct­ed by com­plex con­trol and diag­nos­tic sys­tems. Dr. Yez­erets and his team have focused their research on the under­stand­ing and advance­ment of the real-world per­for­mance, degra­da­tion, and recov­ery mech­a­nisms of NOx Stor­age and Reduc­tion, Selec­tive Cat­alyt­ic Reduc­tion, Methane-based three-way cat­a­lysts, and many aux­il­iary tech­nolo­gies. The result­ing cat­a­lyst oper­a­tion, regen­er­a­tion meth­ods, mod­els, diag­nos­tics, and con­trol algo­rithms have proven key to emis­sion com­pli­ance span­ning many years in the field, even at ele­vat­ed lev­els of con­t­a­m­i­nants often encoun­tered in glob­al appli­ca­tions. The hall­mark of Dr. Yez­erets’ research career has been his abil­i­ty to devel­op best-in-class applied sci­ence teams, and to build indus­tri­al, aca­d­e­m­ic, and nation­al lab part­ner­ships that address top­ics of a fun­da­men­tal nature to advance appli­ca­tion goals. He has impact­ed the broad­er field of catal­y­sis through an out­stand­ing record of pub­li­ca­tions, patents, and men­tor­ship. Today Dr. Yez­erets is expand­ing upon these achieve­ments by con­tribut­ing to indus­try decar­boniza­tion via elec­tri­fied, hydro­gen-pow­ered, and relat­ed technologies.
 
Congratulations!
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Travel Award for Attending the 18th ICC — Extended Deadline

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is excit­ed to announce sup­ple­men­tal fund­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for atten­dees of the 18th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis (18th ICC), sched­uled for July 14–19, 2024, in Lyon, France. This ini­tia­tive is gen­er­ous­ly sup­port­ed by fed­er­al agen­cies, includ­ing the NSF and DOE. Can­di­dates need to be cur­rent­ly enrolled in US research institutions.
 
Pur­pose of Funding:
These funds are allo­cat­ed to par­tial­ly reim­burse flight and reg­is­tra­tion expenses.
 
Pri­or­i­ty Candidates:
1. Fac­ul­ty mem­bers with­in their first four years of lad­der-rank appoint­ments, active­ly engaged in catal­y­sis research at U.S. institutions.
2. Post­doc­tor­al researchers and grad­u­ate stu­dents with­in U.S. insti­tu­tions who will present oral or poster con­tri­bu­tions at the 18th ICC.
 
Appli­ca­tion Dead­line Extend­ed to March 31st, 2024.
 
Call for Nominations:
We encour­age self-nom­i­na­tions of fac­ul­ty mem­bers, as well as nom­i­na­tions of eli­gi­ble post­docs and grad­u­ate stu­dents by their research advi­sors. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion in and con­tri­bu­tions to the 18th ICC are impor­tant for high­light­ing the research efforts from the US catal­y­sis community.
 
Please use the link below to sub­mit your application.
 
https://forms.gle/4C5V2Ctx7m2xdXuV6

Announcement of 2023 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Umit Ozkan of the Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by John­son Matthey and admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000, which will be pre­sent­ed at the award ban­quet at the NAM28 meet­ing. An addi­tion­al $4,500 is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ling expens­es in North Amer­i­ca. The awardee is expect­ed to lec­ture at many of the local catal­y­sis clubs.

The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis 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. The awardee is select­ed on the basis of his/her con­tri­bu­tions to the cat­alyt­ic lit­er­a­ture and the cur­rent time­li­ness of these research con­tri­bu­tions. The recip­i­ent may be invit­ed to (1) vis­it and lec­ture to each of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies with which mutu­al­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ments can be made and (2) pre­pare a review paper(s) for pub­li­ca­tion cov­er­ing these lec­tures. Pub­li­ca­tion will be in an appro­pri­ate periodical.

Pro­fes­sor Umit Ozkan is rec­og­nized for her pio­neer­ing work that bridged the het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and elec­tro­catal­y­sis fields.  Her group was the first to show that nitro­gen-doped car­bon nanos­truc­tures (CNx) had promis­ing oxy­gen reduc­tion reac­tion (ORR) activ­i­ty in acidic medi­um. Com­bin­ing spec­troscopy tech­niques, met­al-free syn­the­sis meth­ods, and probe mol­e­cules, they were able to iden­ti­fy the active sites and pro­vide a mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing of the ORR. Recent­ly, her group has also been explor­ing the use of CNx mate­ri­als as oxy­gen depo­lar­ized cath­ode elec­trodes as well as in bromine evo­lu­tion reac­tions. Ozkan also expand­ed her work to mid-tem­per­a­ture elec­tro­catal­y­sis in sol­id oxide elec­trolyt­ic cells for appli­ca­tions such as oxida­tive dehy­dro­gena­tion of low­er alka­nes or oxida­tive cou­pling of methane as well as co-elec­trol­y­sis of CO2 and H2O on per­ovskites. More recent­ly, they have been work­ing on mid-tem­per­a­ture elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic NH3 pro­duc­tion from N2 and H2O, pro­vid­ing a route for dis­trib­uted NH3 pro­duc­tion as an alter­na­tive to the Haber-Bosch process. Dr. Ozkan’s con­tri­bu­tions to het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis include stud­ies in oxi­da­tion catal­y­sis, envi­ron­men­tal catal­y­sis, hydro­gena­tion and hydrogenol­y­sis reac­tions as well as reform­ing reac­tions. In all of these stud­ies, her focus has been under­stand­ing the nature of active sites and tai­lor­ing the sur­face prop­er­ties to achieve desired cat­alyt­ic functions.

 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Johannes Lercher is the recipient of the 2023 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Johannes Lercher of TU München and PNNL is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The Award is spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny, and is admin­is­tered joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. Pro­fes­sor Lercher will give ple­nary lec­tures at the meet­ings of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM) and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EuropaCat). The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $6,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28 in Providence).

The Michel Boudart 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.

Pro­fes­sor Lercher is rec­og­nized for sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to define and quan­ti­fy the cen­ters that bind react­ing mol­e­cules, to char­ac­ter­ize the envi­ron­ment around these cen­ters, and to quan­ti­fy the impact that the sol­id and/or mobile envi­ron­ment has on the react­ing mol­e­cules. Address­ing this com­plex­i­ty required pio­neer­ing work in char­ac­ter­iz­ing “simul­ta­ne­ous­ly” the sol­id as well as mobile phase under con­di­tions rel­e­vant for the cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tion. The approach enabled, how­ev­er, to tie togeth­er under­stand­ing of the impact of liq­uid-sol­id inter­faces on the react­ing mol­e­cules and the addi­tion­al influ­ences by exter­nal elec­tric poten­tials. The pro­found analy­sis of the cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na at the micro­scop­ic lev­el, study­ing the influ­ence of short- and long-range inter­ac­tions between the reac­tant mol­e­cules and the sol­id cat­a­lysts has strong­ly influ­enced our way to under­stand how reac­tions occur on sol­id cat­a­lysts. The holis­tic approach link­ing advanced physic­o­chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­a­lysts and their action with detailed kinet­ic analy­ses has opened a new par­a­digm to catal­y­sis research.

Please join me in con­grat­u­lat­ing Pro­fes­sor Lercher!
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Announcement of 2023–2024 Paul H. Emmett Award Winners

I am pleased to announce the win­ners of the 2023–2024 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis. This award rec­og­nizes and encour­ages 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. The award win­ner must not have turned 46 on April 1st of the award year. The award is spon­sored by WR Grace & Co and man­aged by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28), sched­uled to be held on June 18–23, 2023, in Prov­i­dence. The awardees will also present a Ple­nary Lec­ture at the NAM meeting. 

The NACS Board has recent­ly approved to hon­or up to two Emmett awardees every two years. The two awardees for the 2023–2024 cycle are (list­ed alphabetically):

2023 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Aditya Bhan, Uni­ver­si­ty of Minnesota
2024 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Yuriy Román-Leshkov, Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Technology

Professor Aditya BhanPro­fes­sor Aditya Bhan and his group are rec­og­nized for bring­ing ana­lyt­i­cal for­malisms and detailed exper­i­men­ta­tion to elic­it kinet­ic and mech­a­nis­tic infor­ma­tion, ver­i­fied against ther­mo­dy­nam­ic mea­sure­ments and stric­tures, into hydro­car­bon reac­tion sys­tems of sig­nif­i­cant com­plex­i­ty and prac­ti­cal util­i­ty. His group has pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal insight into how and why cat­alyt­ic process­es occur, both as they form desired prod­ucts and as they lead to uns­e­lec­tive or deac­ti­vat­ing side paths for a num­ber of impor­tant indus­tri­al cat­alyt­ic process­es includ­ing methanol-to-hydro­car­bons catal­y­sis, non-oxida­tive and oxida­tive alka­ne con­ver­sion, par­tial oxi­da­tion of olefins, hydrodeoxy­gena­tion, and dehy­dra­tion. These stud­ies have brought con­cepts of chem­i­cal kinet­ics and ther­mo­dy­nam­ics to derive fun­da­men­tal insights into catal­y­sis on zeo­lites, car­bides, oxides, met­als, and MOFs. His group has brought new con­cepts and def­i­n­i­tions to the kinet­ic analy­sis of het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic sys­tems in devel­op­ing a kinet­ic descrip­tion of site ensem­bles on cat­alyt­ic sur­faces, in demon­strat­ing rate func­tions of an over­all reac­tion with many ele­men­tary steps can be writ­ten in a form anal­o­gous to the micro­scop­ic law of mass action, and in devel­op­ing math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els describ­ing rates and reversibil­i­ty in com­plex reac­tion networks.

Professor Yuriy Román-LeshkovPro­fes­sor Yuriy Román-Leshkov and his group com­bines cat­a­lyst syn­the­sis, kinet­ic stud­ies, and reac­tor design to study chem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions relat­ed to the sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of fuels and chem­i­cals. A dis­tinc­tive focus has been the design of reac­tive envi­ron­ments in sol­id cat­a­lysts to improve activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty by using elec­tric fields, con­fine­ment, and site coop­er­a­tiv­i­ty as means to con­trol reac­tion rates. His work on Lewis acid zeo­lites has improved our under­stand­ing of how the met­al cen­ter, intra­pore con­fine­ment of reactants/solvents, and frame­work polar­i­ty influ­ence rates for the con­ver­sion of bio-derived oxy­genates in the liq­uid phase. This includes trans­fer hydro­gena­tions, iso­mer­iza­tion-lac­toniza­tion sequences, and C‑C cou­pling reac­tions of car­bo­hy­drates, furan-deriv­a­tives, and keto-acids, to pro­duce a wide range of val­ue-added chem­i­cals. Yuriy has made impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the areas of sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuels and plas­tic waste decon­struc­tion through his work on selec­tive hydrodeoxy­gena­tion of lignin into aro­mat­ics and hydrogenol­y­sis of poly­olefinic plas­tic waste with earth-abun­dant cat­a­lysts. Last­ly, his col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts to bridge con­cepts in ther­mo- and elec­tro­catal­y­sis have result­ed in foun­da­tion­al insights into how inter­fa­cial elec­tric fields influ­ence ther­mo­chem­i­cal reac­tion rates even for sys­tems dis­con­nect­ed from exter­nal wiring.
 
Con­grat­u­la­tions to Pro­fes­sor Bhan and Pro­fes­sor Román-Leshkov!
 
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Stephen R. Schmidt is the recipient of the 2023 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Stephen R. Schmidt of W.R. Grace is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis. This award is spon­sored by Clari­ant and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28 in Providence). 

The pur­pose of the Eugene J. Houdry 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 applications.

Dr. Stephen R. Schmidt, Research Fel­low at W.R. Grace, has been with the com­pa­ny since 1985. The cen­ter­piece of Steve’s career has been acquir­ing lead­ing exper­tise in hydro­gena­tion catal­y­sis and apply­ing it to the devel­op­ment of new Raney® base met­al cat­a­lysts. These cat­a­lysts are crit­i­cal to the pro­duc­tion of large vol­ume chem­i­cals such as the diamine monomer of Nylon 6,6, toluene diamine monomer for polyurethanes, the diol monomer of elas­tane (i.e., Span­dex®) and sug­ar alco­hols. They are also robust in both fixed bed and slur­ry reac­tor appli­ca­tions. Steve has also con­tributed to the sci­ence of char­ac­ter­iz­ing the sur­faces of these unique cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, by devel­op­ing pro­to­cols for con­tend­ing with nascent hydro­gen asso­ci­at­ed with Raney® cat­a­lysts. He has also made ground-break­ing con­tri­bu­tions to mul­ti-metal­lic Raney® cat­a­lysts includ­ing pre­cious met­al-mod­i­fied Raney® cat­a­lysts and Fe-mod­i­fied Raney® cat­a­lysts. Steve’s career bridges across sev­er­al busi­ness units at Grace, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of high sur­face area sil­i­ca, alu­mi­na, rare earths, and sup­ports for poly­mer­iza­tion and auto­mo­tive exhaust cat­a­lysts. A hall­mark of Steve’s career is his col­lab­o­ra­tive approach that has facil­i­tat­ed the devel­op­ment of new tech­nol­o­gy for both the cat­a­lyst man­u­fac­tur­er and the pur­chas­er of his company’s cat­a­lyst products.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, NACS