In Memoriam: D. Wayne Goodman (1945–2012)

Pro­fes­sor D. Wayne Good­man

Pro­fes­sor D. Wayne Goodman

With great sad­ness, we report that Pro­fes­sor D. Wayne Good­man died on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, 2012 at the age of 66, after a lengthy and dif­fi­cult bat­tle with can­cer. His con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of catal­y­sis and to the peo­ple who worked in this field were many in num­ber and very deep in impact.

Wayne received his Ph.D. in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry in 1975 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas, Austin, under the super­vi­sion of M.J.S. Dewar, where his research includ­ed some of the ear­li­est mea­sure­ments and full analy­sis of the pho­to­elec­tron spec­tra of inor­gan­ic mol­e­cules. After com­plet­ing his Ph.D., Wayne won a NATO fel­low­ship, and then became an NRC Research Fel­low at the Nation­al Bureau of Stan­dards near Wash­ing­ton, DC. At the “Bureau” (now NIST), he worked under the super­vi­sion of two pio­neers in the field of sur­face sci­ence, Ted Madey and John Yates. Among sev­er­al impor­tant accom­plish­ments dur­ing his tenure there, Wayne pro­duced land­mark pub­li­ca­tions on the met­al-cat­alyzed CO metha­na­tion reac­tion. Using well-defined sin­gle crys­tal mod­el cat­a­lysts of Ni and Ru and a nov­el, UHV-attached ‘high’ pres­sure cat­alyt­ic reac­tor, his work pro­vid­ed con­clu­sive evi­dence that CO metha­na­tion is a struc­ture insen­si­tive reaction.

Wayne’s sci­en­tif­ic career took off in the 1980s; these were high­ly pro­duc­tive years that estab­lished him as a lead­ing fig­ure in sur­face sci­ence and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. At San­dia Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ries in Albu­querque, NM, he iden­ti­fied “long-range” effects of some sur­face mod­i­fiers giv­ing new per­spec­tives on phe­nom­e­na asso­ci­at­ed with poi­son­ing and pro­mo­tion of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions. Wayne also ini­ti­at­ed research efforts focused on the hydrogenol­y­sis of alka­nes, cyclo­hexa­ne dehy­dro­gena­tion, methanol syn­the­sis, CO oxi­da­tion, and NO reduc­tion. His fun­da­men­tal stud­ies con­tin­ued to explore links between sur­face struc­ture and sur­face reac­tiv­i­ty, help­ing to estab­lish an approach fol­lowed by many research groups in sub­se­quent years.

Wayne took a fac­ul­ty posi­tion in the Depart­ment of Chem­istry at Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty in 1988, where he remained, hold­ing the Robert A. Welch Foun­da­tion Chair at the time of his death. The aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment of Texas A&M added a new dimen­sion to Wayne’s life. It was a joy for him to teach gen­er­al chem­istry to under­grad­u­ates, and Prof. Goodman’s lec­tures became very pop­u­lar among the stu­dents. With­in a few short years, Wayne was also able to estab­lish one of the best lab­o­ra­to­ries for sur­face sci­ence in the Unit­ed States. In the ear­ly 1990s, fol­low­ing work he ini­ti­at­ed at San­dia, his group at A&M per­formed sys­tem­at­ic stud­ies of the phys­i­cal and chem­i­cal prop­er­ties of bimetal­lic sur­faces and strained met­al over­lay­ers. Clear cor­re­la­tions were found between the elec­tron­ic per­tur­ba­tions induced by bimetal­lic bond­ing and vari­a­tions in the chem­i­cal and cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty of the met­als. After mak­ing many impact­ful dis­cov­er­ies in this area, Wayne shift­ed his atten­tion to the chem­istry of oxide sur­faces and the inter­ac­tion of well-defined met­al nanopar­ti­cles with oxide sup­ports, where he elu­ci­dat­ed key aspects of par­ti­cle size effects in catal­y­sis. His group devel­oped mod­els of metal/oxide inter­faces that have become valu­able tools for imag­ing and imag­in­ing the struc­ture of sup­port­ed het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts. In the late 1990s, his stud­ies of catal­y­sis by sup­port­ed Au nanopar­ti­cles received wide recog­ni­tion, with many papers, cita­tions and invit­ed lec­tures all over the world. He also led ele­gant kinet­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic stud­ies of vinyl acetate syn­the­sis over met­al alloys, unrav­el­ing key phe­nom­e­na for the prepa­ra­tion of oxygenates.

Wayne pub­lished over 500 papers in sur­face sci­ence and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, with near­ly 24,000 cita­tions and an h‑index of 76. His work in these areas over the last 30 years has helped to trans­form catal­y­sis from a pri­mar­i­ly appli­ca­tions-ori­ent­ed dis­ci­pline to a high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed sci­en­tif­ic enter­prise. For these sci­en­tif­ic accom­plish­ments, Wayne received numer­ous awards and hon­ors. From the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, he received the Ipati­eff Prize in catal­y­sis (1983), the Kendall Award in Col­loid and Sur­face Chem­istry (1993), the Arthur W. Adam­son Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in Advance­ment of Sur­face Chem­istry (2002), and the Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis (2005). Wayne was a Robert Bur­well Lec­tur­er for the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (1997), and has been elect­ed as a fel­low of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry, the Insti­tute of Physics, and the Amer­i­can Vac­u­um Soci­ety. He served as an Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis, and as a mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­i­al Boards of Sur­face Sci­ence, Applied Sur­face Sci­ence, Lang­muir, Catal­y­sis Let­ters, Jour­nal of Mol­e­c­u­lar Catal­y­sis A, Chem­i­cal Physics Let­ters and the Jour­nal of Physics: Con­densed Mat­ter. He also men­tored a large num­ber of grad­u­ate stu­dents and postdocs.

Wayne is sur­vived by his love­ly and gra­cious wife of 44 years, Sandy, of Col­lege Sta­tion, TX; his son, Jac Good­man, son-in-law, Steven Teil­er, grand­son Eitan Teil­er Good­man of Wash­ing­ton, D.C.; his father, Grady Good­man; a broth­er, Garon Good­man; and a sis­ter, Mar­ca­lyn Price.

On a per­son­al note, we both attest to Wayne’s infec­tious enthu­si­asm for sci­ence and life, his nat­ur­al ten­den­cy to forge deep friend­ships with almost every­one he knew, his incred­i­ble sense of humor, and his deep com­mit­ment to his fam­i­ly, friends and insti­tu­tions. His suc­cess­ful efforts to reveal some of “Moth­er Nature’s” close­ly guard­ed secrets were an inspi­ra­tion to all who knew him. As impor­tant­ly, Wayne was a friend to all, who could always be count­ed on to enter­tain, enlight­en, sup­port, and debate. Along with anoth­er friend and col­league, Prof. Charles Mims (Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to), we were hon­ored to ded­i­cate our recent joint pub­li­ca­tion to Wayne in a spe­cial issue of the Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry C (Vol. 114, No. 40, 2010) pub­lished in hon­or of his 65th birth­day. Our acknowl­edg­ment to Wayne in our paper was as fol­lows: “We thank Wayne Good­man for his sci­en­tif­ic inspi­ra­tion, men­tor­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion, and for untold num­ber of good times that defy descrip­tion.” We will great­ly miss our friend and men­tor. We know this same sen­ti­ment will be shared by a large frac­tion of the mem­ber­ship of the NACS.

Wayne, thank you for all you did for us, old buddy!

Char­lie Camp­bell (Depart­ment of Chem­istry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Washington)
Chuck Peden (Insti­tute for Inte­grat­ed Catal­y­sis, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Laboratories)

Memo­r­i­al con­tri­bu­tions may be made to Hos­pice Bra­zos Val­ley at www.hospicebrazosvalley.org. Cards, let­ters and oth­er writ­ten forms of con­do­lences also may be addressed to the Good­man Fam­i­ly in care of the Depart­ment of Chem­istry, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, Col­lege Sta­tion, Texas 77843–3255.
 
Note: Some of the above mate­r­i­al was adapt­ed from the Pref­ace to the spe­cial issue of the Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry C (Vol. 114, No. 40, 2010) pub­lished in hon­or of Wayne Goodman’s 65th birth­day. The Pref­ace was authored by Michael Hen­der­son, Chuck Peden, Jose Rodriguez, Janos Szanyi, John Yates, and Fran­cis­co Zaera.

Thomas Degnan named the 2012 F.G. Ciapetta Lecturer

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas Deg­nan of Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing is the recip­i­ent of the F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Grace Davi­son oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2013 NAM in Louisville, KY. The recip­i­ent will present lec­tures at most of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this Lectureship. 

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

Tom Deg­nan is an inter­na­tion­al­ly-rec­og­nized leader in the chem­istry and appli­ca­tions of zeo­lite catal­y­sis. Through his pub­li­ca­tions and numer­ous lec­tures, he has pro­vid­ed many exam­ples of the val­ue of fun­da­men­tal sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts in the prac­ti­cal deploy­ment of cat­alyt­ic process­es. His record of schol­ar­ship stands along­side a remark­able list of more than 100 U.S. patents and his unique blend of cre­ativ­i­ty, lead­er­ship, and clar­i­ty of thought has made him not only a lead­ing indus­tri­al inven­tor, but also an ambas­sador of indus­tri­al catal­y­sis research in our com­mu­ni­ty at large.

Tom is specif­i­cal­ly rec­og­nized with the F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship for his con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery, devel­op­ment, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of mol­e­c­u­lar sieves as cat­a­lysts and for his key role in devel­op­ing their appli­ca­tions as cat­a­lysts in impor­tant large-scale indus­tri­al process­es. Through­out his indus­tri­al career, he has made sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of more than ten cat­alyt­ic process­es for the pro­duc­tion of high-per­for­mance lubri­cants, clean fuels, and petro­chem­i­cals. He led a research group that dis­cov­ered how active sites at zeo­lite crys­tal sur­faces show unique prop­er­ties in the alky­la­tion of aro­mat­ics and coined the term “sur­face pock­et” catal­y­sis to describe these inor­gan­ic enzyme-like cat­alyt­ic struc­tures. His fun­da­men­tal stud­ies of paraf­fin iso­mer­iza­tion on bifunc­tion­al shape-selec­tive cat­a­lysts demon­strat­ed the essen­tial inter­play between dif­fu­sion and reac­tion process­es and led to the dis­cov­ery of sev­er­al new cat­a­lysts for the syn­the­sis of high-qual­i­ty fuels and lubri­cants. His research vision and man­age­ment lead­er­ship also led to cat­alyt­ic process­es with unprece­dent­ed selec­tiv­i­ty for the pro­duc­tion of p‑xylenes.

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

Call for papers — The Life and Death of Catalysts (UPDATE)

Division of Petroleum Chemistry

American Chemical Society Symposium

 
August 28 – Sep­tem­ber 1, 2012, Den­ver, CO
242nd Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (ACS) Nation­al Meeting
Spon­sored by the ACS Petro­le­um Chem­istry Division
 

Call for Papers

 
Abstract/preprint sub­mis­sion due date: Novem­ber 30, 2011
 
Sym­po­sium will fea­ture invit­ed, review and con­tributed papers deal­ing with the acti­va­tion and deac­ti­va­tion of cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als. The top­ics will include but not be lim­it­ed to:

  • New mate­ri­als and cat­a­lyst compositions 
  • Com­bi­na­to­r­i­al approach­es for cat­a­lyst design and synthesis 
  • New meth­ods for cat­a­lyst evaluation 
  • Process mod­i­fi­ca­tions and developments 
  • Advanced meth­ods for cat­a­lyst characterization 
  • Mech­a­nisms and kinetics
  • The­o­ret­i­cal studies

Invited keynote speakers for this session include

  • Ajay Dalai, Uni­ver­si­ty of Saskatchewan
  • Ray Gorte, Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania
  • Haichao Liu, Peking University
  • Chun­shan Song, Penn State University
  • Alex Yez­erets, Cum­mins, Inc.

Sub­mis­sion of both an abstract and a preprint are required. Please do this on-line at http://abstracts.acs.org. Instruc­tions and preprint tem­plate are avail­able at http://petr.sites.acs.org
 

Organizers

 
Prof. Levi Thompson
The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engineering
ltt@umich.edu
 
Prof. S. Ted Oyama
The Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo/Virginia Tech
Chem­i­cal Engineering
oyama@vt.edu
ted_oyama@chemsys.t.u‑tokyo.ac.jp
 
Dr. Todd Gardner
Nation­al Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Laboratory
todd.gardner@netl.doe.gov
 
Pro­gram Chair
Dr. Todd Gardner
Nation­al Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Laboratory
todd.gardner@netl.doe.gov

15th International Congress on Catalysis

The 15th ICC is the catal­y­sis event in 2012! More than 2,000 par­tic­i­pants from all over the world will exchange new ideas and dis­cuss devel­op­ments in all areas of catal­y­sis. Ple­nary and keynote speak­ers will present overviews of recent devel­op­ments. The con­gress will be held at the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress Cen­tre in Munich, a world-class facil­i­ty offer­ing the flex­i­ble infra­struc­ture required to accom­mo­date audi­ences of any size. 

In four par­al­lel oral ses­sions and two gen­er­al poster ses­sions all rel­e­vant areas from fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing to cat­a­lyst design and nov­el process­es will be cov­ered. The ses­sions are com­ple­ment­ed by cross dis­ci­pli­nary ses­sions, orga­nized to share excit­ing new results at the bound­aries between estab­lished fields with­in catal­y­sis. Poster pre­sen­ters will be able to orga­nize up to four par­al­lel half-day work­shops to max­i­mize direct par­tic­i­pa­tion by the con­fer­ence atten­dees and to stim­u­late dis­cus­sions in more spe­cial­ized areas.

A social pro­gram rich in var­i­ous aspects of the local cul­ture will give you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet your col­leagues and friends in a more relaxed atmosphere.

On behalf of the Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee, I invite you to attend the 15th ICC in Munich and to con­tribute by pre­sent­ing your lat­est results and by shar­ing your find­ings with col­leagues in dis­cus­sions. The call for papers is open until Novem­ber 1. For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it the con­gress web­site www.icc2012.org.

I all look for­ward to your con­tri­bu­tion to the exit­ing sci­en­tif­ic pro­gram of the 15th ICC and to meet you in 2012 in Munich.
 
Johannes A. Lercher

Chair­man, Orga­niz­ing Committee
15th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catalysis

American Chemical Society National Awards for 2012

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety con­grat­u­lates three of our mem­bers that have been rec­og­nized with sig­nif­i­cant Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety Nation­al Awards for 2012. The award recip­i­ents are Dr. Thomas F. Deg­nan Jr, Exxon­Mo­bil, Pro­fes­sor James A. Dumesic Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Madi­son, and Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. Dr. Deg­nan has been named as win­ner of the 2012 ACS Award in Indus­tri­al Chem­istry spon­sored by the ACS Divi­sion of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment & Man­age­ment and the ACS Divi­sion of Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry. Pro­fes­sor Dumesic has been named win­ner of the 2012 George A. Olah Award in Hydro­car­bon or Petro­le­um Chem­istry spon­sored by the George A. Olah Award Endow­ment. Pro­fes­sor Igle­sia has been named win­ner of the 2012 Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis spon­sored by the Gabor A. and Judith K. Somor­jai Endow­ment Fund. All three recip­i­ents will be hon­ored at an Awards Cer­e­mo­ny on March 27, 2012 held in con­junc­tion with the 243rd ACS Nation­al Meet­ing in San Diego, CA.
 
Bruce Cook
Vice Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society 

Call for 2012 IACS Award Nominations

IACS will present two awards at the 15th ICC in Munich – the ICC Award and the Heinz Heine­mann Award. Please note that the dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is Jan­u­ary 15, 2012. All nom­i­na­tions should be sub­mit­ted to the Sec­re­tary of the IACS by email to the fol­low­ing address: muhler@techem.rub.de. The recip­i­ents of these awards will be select­ed by the IACS Awards Com­mit­tee, and it is planned to inform the recip­i­ents by March 15, 2012. Both recip­i­ents will be invit­ed to present a ple­nary pre­sen­ta­tion at the ICC in Munich.

International Catalysis Award

 
The Inter­na­tion­al Catal­y­sis Award will be giv­en to recog­nise and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions by a young per­son in the field of catal­y­sis, such as the dis­cov­ery of the sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment of a cat­alyt­ic process, or an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na. The recip­i­ent must not have passed her/his 45th birth­day by May 1 of the award year. The Award con­sists of a plaque and a check for $5,000.

Heinz Heinemann Award in Catalyst Science and Technology

 
The Heinz Heine­mann Award in Catal­y­sis will be giv­en to an indi­vid­ual or a group for sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to cat­a­lyst sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy achieved between Jan­u­ary 1, 2007, and Decem­ber 31, 2011. The Award con­sists of a plaque and a check for $5,000.

Nomination Procedure

 
Nom­i­na­tion of the award should be made before Jan­u­ary 15 in the year of an Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis (i.e. Jan­u­ary 15, 2012, for the awards made at the 15th ICC), and should include a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of the nom­i­nee’s pub­lished work, as well as a state­ment about the par­tic­u­lar con­tri­bu­tion on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tions should also include the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments and biog­ra­phy. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments, along with no more than four let­ters of sup­port, should be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cal­ly as a sin­gle PDF file to the Sec­re­tary of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (muhler@techem.rub.de).The recip­i­ent will be required to give a lec­ture on her/his research as part of the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis at which the award is con­ferred (i.e. 15th ICC, July 1–6, 2012 in Munich, Germany).

Selection of Award Recipients

 
Selec­tion of the award recip­i­ents will be made by an Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee com­posed of renowned sci­en­tists or engi­neers. This Com­mit­tee will be appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties, sub­se­quent to pro­pos­als from the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the win­ner’s death is received after the announce­ment of the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee’s decision.

Call for Nominations: The 2012 ACS Catalysis Lectureship for the Advancement of Catalytic Science

Co-spon­sored by the ACS Divi­sion of Catal­y­sis Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy and the ACS Pub­li­ca­tions jour­nal ACS Catal­y­sis, the annu­al ACS Catal­y­sis Lec­ture­ship for the Advance­ment of Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence will hon­or the con­tri­bu­tions of one indi­vid­ual or a col­lab­o­ra­tive team for ground­break­ing research that strength­ens con­nec­tions between catal­y­sis sub­dis­ci­plines and has a pro­found impact on catal­y­sis as a whole.

The inau­gur­al ACS Catal­y­sis Lec­ture­ship for the Advance­ment of Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence will be pre­sent­ed at the Fall 2012 ACS Nation­al Meet­ing in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­va­nia. The Lec­ture­ship award win­ner will receive $3000, plus trav­el and lodg­ing costs. In addi­tion, a sym­po­sium will be devel­oped to hon­or the recip­i­ent of the lectureship.

Nom­i­na­tors should include:

  1. Name and affil­i­a­tion of nominee
  2. Name and affil­i­a­tion of nominator
  3. Brief state­ment describ­ing the nominee’s accomplishments
  4. List of top pub­li­ca­tions rel­e­vant to the award

The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is Decem­ber 1, 2011. Send your nom­i­na­tions for the 2012 ACS Catal­y­sis Lec­ture­ship to Award.ACScatalysis@acs.org.

In Memoriam: Jean-Claude Volta (1946–2011)

Jean-Claude Vol­ta was born in Givors near Lyon, France on 3rd March 1946 and died in Lyon on 18th June 2011. He received a chem­i­cal engi­neer degree at the ‘‘Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Indus­trielle de Lyon’’ ESCIL, in 1968 and his ‘‘Doc­tor­at ès Sci­ences’’ in 1973 from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lyon.

His sci­en­tif­ic career was almost entire­ly at the “Insti­tut de Recherch­es sur la Catal­yse” IRC, CNRS in Villeur­banne (Lyon), now IRCELYON. His pas­sion for Brazil was quite intense. He col­lab­o­rat­ed in par­tic­u­lar with Pao­lo Gus­ta­vo Pries de Oliv­e­ria and Lucia Appel from INT (Insti­tu­to Nacional de Tec­nolo­gia) in Rio de Janeiro and worked there for one year.

He retired in March 2006 as “Directeur de Recherche au CNRS”, after being at the head of the Oxide group. Every­one will remem­ber him as an enthu­si­as­tic and bril­liant sci­en­tist who con­tributed enor­mous­ly to the sci­en­tif­ic and social life of the Insti­tute over 30 years.

He was award­ed the annu­al award by the Catal­y­sis divi­sion of the French Chem­i­cal Soci­ety in1984 for his major con­tri­bu­tion in ‘‘struc­ture sen­si­tiv­i­ty’’ of metal­lic oxides for cat­alyt­ic selec­tive oxi­da­tion of hydro­car­bons. His case study was MoO3 sin­gle crystals.

He has more than 150 pub­li­ca­tions and patents in the field of oxi­da­tion catal­y­sis in which he is world famous. His con­tri­bu­tion to VPO cat­a­lysts for butane oxi­da­tion to male­ic anhy­dride was impor­tant and out­stand­ing. He has devel­oped the spin echo map­ping tech­nique in MAS-NMR with Dr. Alain Tuel (IRCELYON), pio­neered in situ/Operando Raman stud­ies with analy­sis of reac­tants and prod­ucts by GC on line with Pro­fes­sor Ollier at Ecole Cen­trale de Lyon and HR-TEM with Pro­fes­sor Chris Kiely (Uni­ver­si­ty of Liv­er­pool, UK, now at Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty, USA).

Jean-Claude was a found­ing mem­ber of the Euro­pean CONCORDE (CO-ordi­na­tion of Nanos­truc­tured Cat­alyt­ic Oxides Research and Devel­op­ment) net­work and played a vital role in dis­cus­sions lead­ing to its for­ma­tion. A spe­cial issue of the Jour­nal Applied Catal­y­sis A was orga­nized by his friends and col­leagues who want­ed to express their recog­ni­tion to Jean-Claude Vol­ta on the occa­sion of his retire­ment and to cel­e­brate his con­tri­bu­tion to the field of struc­ture sen­si­tiv­i­ty and selec­tive oxi­da­tion in het­ero­ge­neous catalysis.

This note is essen­tial­ly based on the pref­ace of this spe­cial issue.
 
His friends
www.elsevier.com/locate/apcata
Applied Catal­y­sis A: Gen­er­al 325 (2007) 193

In Memoriam: John H. Sinfelt (1931–2011)

By LOUISE STORY
 
John H. Sin­felt, a chem­i­cal engi­neer whose research for an oil com­pa­ny helped lead to the intro­duc­tion of unlead­ed gaso­line and sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tions in air pol­lu­tion, died on May 28 in Mor­ris­town, N.J. He was 80.

The cause was com­pli­ca­tions of con­ges­tive heart fail­ure, his son, Klaus, said.

In the late 1960s and ’70s, the petro­le­um indus­try was under intense pres­sure to pro­duce gaso­line with­out lead, which con­tributed to air pol­lu­tion and posed sub­stan­tial health risks, par­tic­u­lar­ly to chil­dren. Lead was added to gaso­line to raise octane lev­els, which helped keep engines from knocking.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency issued reg­u­la­tions call­ing for a grad­ual reduc­tion in the lead con­tent of gaso­line in 1973.

Dr. Sin­felt was work­ing for the Stan­dard Oil Devel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (now Exxon Mobil Research and Engi­neer­ing), where he spe­cial­ized in devel­op­ing tech­niques to speed up chem­i­cal reac­tions. While the entire indus­try was pur­su­ing the goal, said Stu­art Soled, dis­tin­guished research asso­ciate at Exxon Mobil, it was Dr. Sin­felt who came up with a cat­alyt­ic process using a com­bi­na­tion of two met­als — plat­inum and irid­i­um —allow­ing refin­ers to inex­pen­sive­ly pro­duce high-octane gaso­line with­out adding lead.

He patent­ed that method, and his ideas became impor­tant in fur­ther research into chem­i­cal reac­tions, said Enrique Igle­sia, who worked with Dr. Sin­felt and who is now a pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

He was a fair­ly deep sci­en­tist, almost aca­d­e­m­ic in his nature, who made con­tri­bu­tions that oth­er peo­ple could fol­low,” Pro­fes­sor Igle­sia said.

For Dr. Sinfelt’s break­through, Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter pre­sent­ed him with the President’s Nation­al Medal of Sci­ence at a White House cer­e­mo­ny in 1980. The cita­tion rec­og­nized his work “lead­ing to the devel­op­ment of new cat­a­lyst sys­tems for the pro­duc­tion of low-lead gasoline.”

Dr. Sin­felt received more than 40 patents, and he was a mem­ber of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences and the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Arts and Sciences.

John Hen­ry Sin­felt was born on Feb. 18, 1931, in Mun­son, Pa. He grad­u­at­ed from Penn State and com­plet­ed his master’s and Ph.D. in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. In the mid-1950s he joined the Stan­dard Oil Devel­op­ment Company.

Besides his son, he is sur­vived by his wife, Muriel, and a broth­er, Fred­er­ick Seinfelt.

Dr. Sin­felt was pleased that he had helped improve the nation’s air qual­i­ty. “I can’t say he was an envi­ron­men­tal­ist, but he was very proud that the work he did helped the envi­ron­ment,” his son said.
 
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/business/10sinfelt.html?_r=2&hpw