The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is pleased to announce Dr. Daniel Resas­co as the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award, in recog­ni­tion of his many con­tri­bu­tions relat­ed to sup­port­ed met­al and sol­id acid catal­y­sis, hydro­car­bon con­ver­sion, nan­otube syn­the­sis, and bio­mass-derived com­pound upgrad­ing.

Prof. Resas­co obtained his PhD in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty in 1983 under the direc­tion of Gary Haller. While at Yale, he co-authored a sem­i­nal work explain­ing strong met­al-sup­port inter­ac­tions on Rh/TiO₂ cat­a­lysts that sub­se­quent­ly became a Cur­rent Con­tents Cita­tion Clas­sic. After grad­u­a­tion from Yale, he joined the chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing depart­ment of the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Mar del Pla­ta, Argenti­na, even­tu­al­ly serv­ing as depart­ment chair. In 1991 he returned to the US as Senior Sci­en­tist at the Sun Com­pa­ny, and in 1993 he joined the School of Chem­i­cal, Bio­log­i­cal and Mate­ri­als Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa where he is now the George Lynn Cross Research Pro­fes­sor and Dou­glas & Hil­da Bourne Chair of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing.

Prof. Resasco’s research in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis has always aimed at impor­tant appli­ca­tions, but has been strong­ly ground­ed in fun­da­men­tals of struc­ture-prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­a­lysts and mech­a­nisms. Ini­tial­ly, his research pro­gram exam­ined strong sol­id acid catal­y­sis and sup­port­ed met­al catal­y­sis for hydro­car­bon pro­cess­ing. In the late 90s, Resasco’s group began inves­ti­ga­tion of het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic syn­the­sis of sin­gle-wall car­bon nan­otubes, dis­cov­er­ing that care­ful con­trol of the cat­a­lyst nanos­truc­ture enabled unprece­dent­ed chi­ral selec­tiv­i­ty in the nan­otubes.

Their work led to the patent­ed CoMo­Cat process, capa­ble of scale­up to indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, and a spin­off com­pa­ny, South­West Nan­oTech­nolo­gies. More recent­ly, Resasco’s work on upgrad­ing of bio­mass-derived com­pounds led to the devel­op­ment of Janus nanopar­ti­cle cat­a­lysts which simul­ta­ne­ous­ly sta­bi­lize high inter­fa­cial area emul­sions and car­ry out upgrad­ing reac­tions in both the aque­ous and organ­ic phas­es. This work was ini­tial­ly report­ed in Sci­ence in Jan­u­ary, 2010.

Prof. Resas­co has authored well over 200 archival jour­nal arti­cles which have been cit­ed over 8,000 times, 32 indus­tri­al patents, and over 120 invit­ed lec­tures. From 2001 – 2007 Resas­co also served as asso­ciate edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis.

Prof. Resas­co will be hon­ored with a plaque an hon­o­rar­i­um ($1000) dur­ing his award pre­sen­ta­tion at the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadelphia’s month­ly meet­ings in the upcom­ing 2013–2014 sea­son.

The 7th World Con­gress on Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis aims to focus on the under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion phe­nom­e­na across time and length scales, tak­ing togeth­er the fun­da­men­tal phe­nom­e­na that is most often the focus of acad­e­mia with the process­es and appli­ca­tions that dri­ve indus­try. The ses­sion titled From Fun­da­men­tals to Appli­ca­tion includes exist­ing and nascent top­ics that bridge fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing to cur­rent and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. For exam­ple, materials/catalyst prepa­ra­tion and design top­ics address the mul­ti­func­tion­al nature inher­ent in oxi­da­tion process cat­a­lysts. Emerg­ing alter­na­tive or “green” oxi­dants can be used in both het­ero­ge­neous and homo­ge­neous process­es to ben­e­fit selec­tiv­i­ty. Chem­i­cal loop­ing process­es promise to elim­i­nate the pri­ma­ry source of nitro­gen oxides.

A new ses­sion for­mat is includ­ed with the goal of pre­sent­ing new ideas and method­olo­gies for decod­ing the com­plex­i­ty inher­ent in catal­y­sis and cat­alyt­ic process­es. Pre­sen­ters are encour­aged to dis­cuss excit­ing com­bi­na­tions of the­o­ry and exper­i­ment and the com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti­ple exper­i­men­tal tech­niques. Pre­sen­ta­tions will be sched­uled ear­ly in the pro­gram with a dis­cus­sion work­shop to gen­er­ate con­sen­sus on the cur­rent state and direc­tion of the field.

The oxida­tive cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions impor­tant to indus­try in a great sense dri­ve the fun­da­men­tal work dis­cussed above. The petro­chem­i­cal process­es focused on syn­gas generation/conversion, com­bus­tion, par­tial and selec­tive oxi­da­tion, amines and C1 chem­istry, along with process­es for bio­mass con­ver­sion to fuels will be pre­sent­ed. Fine chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­duc­tion that gen­er­al­ly employ homo­ge­neous oxi­da­tions are cov­ered among the subtopics of olefin and aro­mat­ic oxi­da­tion, epox­i­da­tion and the chem­istry of rad­i­cal species. Final­ly, the con­tri­bu­tion of catal­y­sis to envi­ron­men­tal tech­nolo­gies such as VOC oxi­da­tion, waste­water treat­ment and autoex­haust catal­y­sis will be pre­sent­ed.

The Con­gress begins with a full day on Sun­day, June 9th, and lasts through Wednes­day June 12th. It will be held in Saint Louis, Mis­souri on the cam­pus of Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. With Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty act­ing as host the Con­gress is made quite eco­nom­i­cal and many will find the reg­is­tra­tion prices cou­pled with the avail­abil­i­ty of cam­pus hous­ing a pleas­ant sur­prise. The Con­gress din­ner will be on Tues­day, June 11 and a group excur­sion to the top of the Gate­way Arch will take place on Wednes­day, June 12. For more infor­ma­tion about the 7th World Con­gress, vis­it www.7wcoc.org.

This year, for the sec­ond time, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS) will be using on-line bal­lot­ing as the only way to vote for Direc­tors-at-Large. We have con­tract­ed with a firm that is expe­ri­enced in on-line vot­ing to ensure the accu­racy and con­fi­den­tial­ity of the process. The elec­tions are sched­uled for March 18th to April 5th. You will be receiv­ing an email mes­sage on March 17th with your user­name, unique pass­word and a link to a restrict­ed vot­ing web­page. The sub­ject head­line is “NACS Elec­tions for Direc­tors-at-Large”. Please don’t delete this email until you cast your vote. If you have a prob­lem receiv­ing this email, then you need to con­tact Edrick Morales at edrickmorales@live.com.

The web log-in page will have instruc­tions on how to use your elec­tron­ic bal­lot with links to tech­ni­cal assis­tance in case you have dif­fi­cul­ty with the log-in and PDF doc­u­ments with the pro­posed amend­ments and revised ver­sion of the by-laws.

You can cast your vote start­ing on March 18th at 12:01 am. The vot­ing web­page will be held open to those mem­bers of NACS (includ­ing stu­dents) who reside with­in North Amer­i­ca. Back­ground infor­ma­tion for each can­di­date will be avail­able on the bal­lot site with a hyper­link asso­ci­at­ed to each candidate’s name. On the bal­lot web­site, you will be select­ing only six (6) or less mem­bers from the slate of 11 can­di­dates for the office of Direc­tor-at-Large and one vote to approve or not approve the amend­ments to the by-laws. The top six can­di­dates will be elect­ed to office if the amend­ments to the by-laws are approved; oth­er­wise, the top four (4) can­di­dates will be elect­ed.

Vot­ers will need to log back in and com­plete the bal­lot from scratch if they log-out or close the brows­er win­dow with­out sub­mit­ting their bal­lot. Your pass­word will be deac­ti­vat­ed after you record your vote.

The Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of the Cat­alyt­ic Soci­eties (EFCATS) Board announces the exten­sion of the dead­line for the appli­ca­tions of two EFCATS awards: the Young Researchers Award and the Applied Catal­y­sis Award. The new dead­line is April 15th 2013.

Young Researchers Award

 
The EFCATS Award aims to rec­og­nize indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis with empha­sis on the­o­ret­i­cal or exper­i­men­tal dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of new cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es, syn­the­sis and cat­alyt­ic func­tion of nov­el inor­gan­ic solids and com­plex­es, mech­a­nisms of reac­tions, deac­ti­va­tion phe­nom­e­na.

The can­di­dates for the award must have already shown the poten­tial for research inde­pen­dence and evi­dence of matu­ri­ty. Appli­cants should also be able to demon­strate a promis­ing track-record of ear­ly achieve­ments appro­pri­ate to their spe­cif­ic research field and career stage, includ­ing sig­nif­i­cant pub­li­ca­tions (as main author) in major inter­na­tion­al peer-reviewed mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals, or in the lead­ing inter­na­tion­al peer-reviewed jour­nals of catal­y­sis field. They may also demon­strate a record of invit­ed pre­sen­ta­tions in well-estab­lished inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences, grant­ed patents, awards, prizes etc.

Selec­tion of the Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent and vice-pres­i­dent of The Euro­pean fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. Selec­tion shall be made on the basis of excel­lence. The award win­ner must not have turned 41, March 1st of the award year. Thus, nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should indi­cate the date of birth of the nom­i­nee.

Nom­i­na­tions for the Award should prove the candidate’s excel­lence and will include:

• A pre­sen­ta­tion let­ter in which the mer­its of the can­di­date are detailed. The pre­sen­ta­tion let­ter should be pre­pared by the per­son propos­ing the can­di­date.
• Two fur­ther rec­om­men­da­tion let­ters.
• The candidate’s CV (high­light­ing a date of birth).

Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in one com­plete pack­age to the Pres­i­dent of EFCATS (Aveli­no Cor­ma at corma@itq.upv.es) before April 15, 2013.

Applied Catalysis Award

 
Selec­tion of the Award win­ner will be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists includ­ing a major­i­ty of cur­rent or pre­vi­ous indus­tri­al sci­en­tists appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent and vice-pres­i­dent of The Euro­pean fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties from names sug­gest­ed by mem­bers of the EFCATS board. Com­mit­tee mem­bers who are cur­rent or recent employ­ees of the com­pa­ny of any nom­i­nee shall abstain from vot­ing on that pro­pos­al. Selec­tion shall be made on the basis of excel­lence sci­en­tif­ic nov­el­ty, tech­ni­cal achieve­ments in devel­op­ment and scale-up, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team­work between sci­en­tists and engi­neers, with empha­sis on actu­al or poten­tial com­mer­cial appli­ca­tion.

Nom­i­na­tions for the Award should prove the candidate’s excel­lence and will include:

• A pre­sen­ta­tion let­ter in which the mer­its of the candidate(s) are indi­cat­ed (pre­pared by the per­son propos­ing the candidate(s)),
• A list of the achieve­ments of the candidate(s) con­firmed by the com­pa­ny apply­ing the new con­tri­bu­tion with­in a sup­port­ing let­ter.
• A detailed CV of the candidate(s).

Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in one com­plete pack­age to the Pres­i­dent of EFCATS (Aveli­no Cor­ma at corma@itq.upv.es) before April 15, 2013.

John N. Armor
Semi-retired con­sul­tant
 
Founder of a per­son­al, glob­al con­sult­ing busi­ness, GlobalCatalysis.com. My ded­i­cat­ed inter­ests in catal­y­sis con­tin­ue through occa­sion­al tech­ni­cal pub­li­ca­tions (such as Catal­y­sis Today 178 (2011) 8), invit­ed lec­tures, and atten­dance at major nation­al and inter­na­tion­al catal­y­sis focused meet­ings. I bring over 40 years of expe­ri­ence in catal­y­sis begin­ning with my under­grad­u­ate research at Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty and my PhD work at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. After receiv­ing my doc­tor­ate degree, I spent 4 years as an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, then joined Allied Chem­i­cal Corporation’s cen­tral research cen­ter for 11 years, and moved to Air Prod­ucts & Chem­i­cals to lead a catal­y­sis research cen­ter before retire­ment.

My past role with the NACS (8 years as Pres­i­dent and 7 years as Trea­sur­er) focused on bring­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty at large, estab­lish­ing our pop­u­lar web­site, return­ing excess pro­ceeds from our NAM meet­ings to the mem­ber­ship, strength­en­ing the finan­cial posi­tion of the NACS as well as the indi­vid­ual clubs, build­ing up the cor­pus to the Kei­th Hall Edu­ca­tion­al Fund, estab­lish­ing new ways to pro­vide edu­ca­tion­al assis­tance to the mem­ber­ship, and enhanc­ing the num­ber and iden­ti­ty of our pro­fes­sion­al Awards pro­gram.

Hav­ing stepped aside from a lead­er­ship role in the NACS for the last 4 years, I would like to rejoin the Board of Direc­tors and again work for the mem­ber­ship at large. I would like to con­tin­ue to serve as a resource to the Soci­ety by par­tic­i­pa­tion in Board activ­i­ties while men­tor­ing new gen­er­a­tions of our lead­ers, because I believe there is more that I can still con­tribute.
 

Jing­guang Chen
Thay­er Lind­s­ley Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty
 
Jing­guang Chen start­ed his career at the Exxon Cor­po­rate Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries before join­ing the fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware, serv­ing as the Claire LeClaire Pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy. In the past two decades he has been active­ly serv­ing the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing the Catal­y­sis Sec­re­tari­at of ACS, Chair of the Gor­don Research Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis, Kokes Chair for the Philadel­phia NAM, and co-founder and team leader of the Syn­chro­tron Catal­y­sis Con­sor­tium. He has served as the Direc­tor-at-Large of NACS since 2005. His recent con­tri­bu­tions as DAL includ­ed the appli­ca­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of trav­el grants to grad­u­ate stu­dents and young fac­ul­ty to the ICC meet­ing.

If re-elect­ed he would like to help estab­lish a more for­mal process in NACS in apply­ing and grant­i­ng trav­el assis­tance to catal­y­sis con­fer­ences.
 

Abhaya Datye
Dis­tin­guished Regents Pro­fes­sor
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing
Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co
 
Abhaya Datye has been on the fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co since 1984 and present­ly serves as the under­grad­u­ate advi­sor for chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and for­mer­ly served as Asso­ciate Chair. He serves as Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Micro­engi­neered Mate­ri­als, a strate­gic research cen­ter at UNM that reports to the Vice Pres­i­dent for Research.

Abhaya received his Ph.D. in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan in 1984. He has authored over 240 pub­li­ca­tions, 3 patents and has pre­sent­ed 120 invit­ed lec­tures around the world. He was the Chair of the Gor­don Research Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis in 2010. He served as the pro­gram co-chair for the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ing at Snow­bird, UT. He has been active­ly involved in the West­ern States Catal­y­sis Club, where he has served as pres­i­dent and as the Club rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the NAM board. As a Direc­tor at large for the Soci­ety, he plans to enhance the vis­i­bil­i­ty of catal­y­sis and to get new stu­dents, espe­cial­ly grad­u­ate and under­grad­u­ate stu­dents into the field.

His research group has pio­neered the devel­op­ment of elec­tron microscopy tools for the study of cat­a­lysts. Using mod­el cat­a­lysts, his group has shown metal/support inter­faces can be stud­ied at near atom­ic res­o­lu­tion. His cur­rent work involves the syn­the­sis of biore­new­able chem­i­cals, fun­da­men­tal stud­ies of cat­a­lyst sin­ter­ing, alco­hol reform­ing into H2 and syn­the­sis of nov­el nanos­truc­tured het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts, espe­cial­ly the sta­bi­liza­tion of iso­lat­ed sin­gle atoms on sup­ports. He leads the NSF Part­ner­ship for Inter­na­tion­al Research and Edu­ca­tion (PIRE) on Con­ver­sion of Bio­mass derived reac­tants into Fuels, Chem­i­cals and Mate­ri­als (a col­lab­o­ra­tion between fac­ul­ty and researchers in the US, Den­mark, Ger­many, Nether­lands and Fin­land).