Nominations are Open for the Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

The Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Süd-Chemie, Inc. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years, gen­er­al­ly at the North Amer­i­can meet­ing of The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, where the awardee will be asked to give a ple­nary lec­ture. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. An addi­tion­al $1,000 is avail­able for oth­er­wise unre­im­bursed trav­el expenses.

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.

Selec­tion of the Award win­ner wiil be made by a com­mit­tee of renowned sci­en­tists and engi­neers appoint­ed by the Pres­i­dent of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Selec­tion shall be made with­out regard for age, sex, nation­al­i­ty or affil­i­a­tion. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the awardee’s death is received after announce­ment of the Award Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion. Nom­i­na­tions for the Award should be made before 1 August, 2010 and should present the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments and biog­ra­phy. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cal­ly to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety in one com­plete pack­age along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by 1 August 2010.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages (one ELECTRONIC COPY) for the Houdry Award should be should be sent to Enrique Igle­sia, Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; at iglesia@berkeley.edu. Receipt of any nom­i­na­tion, will be con­firmed by an email mes­sage sent to any nominator.

In Memoriam: George W. Roberts

It is with great sad­ness that we announce the pass­ing of George W. Roberts, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing, North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty. George suc­cumbed from pan­cre­at­ic can­cer on 5 April 2010 in Raleigh, North Car­oli­na. He fought bold­ly to spare his fam­i­ly the excep­tion­al pain of this ordeal. 

Prof. Roberts made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in both the indus­tri­al and aca­d­e­m­ic aspects of catal­y­sis espe­cial­ly in under­stand­ing the behav­ior of cat­alyt­ic reac­tors (cat­alyt­ic reac­tion engi­neer­ing). He strong­ly encour­aged his stu­dents to study sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems fac­ing indus­tri­al needs which broad­ened their edu­ca­tion and pre­pared them for future careers. 

George was born in Newark, New Jer­sey. He received the B.ChE. degree from Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty in 1961 and the Sc.D. degree in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing in 1965 from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. His research advi­sor at MIT was Prof. Charles N. Sat­ter­field, a dis­tin­guished schol­ar in the field of catal­y­sis and the author of four books deal­ing with catal­y­sis and cat­alyt­ic process­es. From 1965 to 1969, Prof. Roberts was a Research Engi­neer and lat­er a Projects Super­vi­sor with the Rohm and Haas Com­pa­ny in Philadel­phia. He then joined the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty (St. Louis) as an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, where he found­ed and direct­ed the Chem­i­cal Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Lab­o­ra­to­ry. He received the Dis­tin­guished Fac­ul­ty Award from Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in 1971. 

Prof. Roberts joined Engel­hard in Men­lo Park, NJ in 1972 as Man­ag­er of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Research, and was respon­si­ble for lead­ing sev­er­al pro­grams that result­ed in the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es, In the mid-1970’s he head­ed a research team that devel­oped a new Pt/Re cat­a­lyst for naph­tha reform­ing with sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er sta­bil­i­ty than its com­mer­cial pre­de­ces­sor. His team also devel­oped an improved aro­mat­ic iso­mer­iza­tion cat­a­lyst for the pro­duc­tion of xylenes, based on mol­e­c­u­lar sieve tech­nol­o­gy. He then led a research effort in selec­tive hydro­gena­tion of var­i­ous streams derived from steam crack­ing of liq­ue­fied petro­le­um gas (LPG) and naph­tha. Two new process­es were com­mer­cial­ized. He led the devel­op­ment of a new, low-pol­lu­tion com­bus­tion process based on com­bin­ing cat­alyt­ic and homo­ge­neous (ther­mal) com­bus­tion. His group at Engel­hard devel­oped the cat­alyt­ic tech­nol­o­gy that result­ed in the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of selec­tive oxi­da­tion of CO in the pres­ence of H2 as a means for debug­ging ammo­nia plants. This process was suc­cess­ful­ly oper­at­ed in sev­er­al domes­tic ammo­nia plants begin­ning in the late-1970’s. More­over, the research lead­ing to this process pro­vid­ed a sound tech­ni­cal foun­da­tion for the renewed study of selec­tive oxi­da­tion of CO, as part of the pro­duc­tion of H2 for use in fuel cells being used today.

From 1977 to 1989, Prof. Roberts held var­i­ous posi­tions in tech­nol­o­gy man­age­ment at Air Prod­ucts and Chem­i­cals, Inc. in Allen­town, PA. His two most notable achieve­ments were lead­ing the teams that devel­oped and com­mer­cial­ized the COPETM process for debot­tle­neck­ing Claus sul­fur recov­ery plants and the LPMeO­HTM process for methanol syn­the­sis. The COPETM process was first com­mer­cial­ized by East­man Chem­i­cal at its coal gasi­fi­ca­tion facil­i­ty in Kingsport, TN. This process has been suc­cess­ful­ly used in a num­ber of Claus plants, and won the 1987 Kirk­patrick Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Achieve­ment Award from Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing magazine. 

In 1989, he joined North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty as Pro­fes­sor and Head of the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment. He stepped down as Depart­ment Head in 1994 to devote him­self to research and teach­ing. Prof. Roberts received an Out­stand­ing Teacher Award in 2001–2002 and the Alcoa Foun­da­tion Engi­neer­ing Research Award in 2006. Although he offi­cial­ly retired from the Uni­ver­si­ty in 2007, becom­ing Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, George con­tin­ued to be active in research and recent­ly pub­lished a text­book. Chem­i­cal Reac­tions and Chem­i­cal Reac­tors (John Wiley & Sons, 2008) is designed pri­mar­i­ly for the chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing (“kinet­ics”) course that is required in almost every chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing cur­ricu­lum, inter­na­tion­al­ly. Prof. Roberts’ book rec­og­nizes explic­it­ly that 80–90% of indus­tri­al reac­tions involve catal­y­sis, pri­mar­i­ly het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. There­fore, het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis is intro­duced very ear­ly, and the book con­tains exten­sive treat­ments of the fun­da­men­tals of cat­alyt­ic kinet­ics and the role of trans­port effects in het­ero­ge­neous catalysis. 

Prof. Roberts had more than 75 ref­er­eed jour­nal pub­li­ca­tions, 11 ref­er­eed chap­ters in books, and 20 issued US patents on top­ics such as cat­alyt­ic com­bus­tion, methanol syn­the­sis, hydro­gen gen­er­a­tion, and cat­alyt­ic poly­mer hydro­gena­tion. His most recent catal­y­sis research focused on three very nov­el and chal­leng­ing problems:

  1. Hydro­gena­tion of var­i­ous poly­mers with pre­cious met­al cat­a­lysts in order to cre­ate nov­el poly­mer­ic mate­ri­als that are dif­fi­cult to syn­the­size by poly­mer­iza­tion of the appro­pri­ate monomers.
  2. The direct reac­tion of car­bon diox­ide with methane to form acetic acid, and the direct reac­tion of car­bon diox­ide, methane and acety­lene to form vinyl acetate. This is a poten­tial­ly impor­tant approach to recy­cling car­bon diox­ide by using it as a car­bon source in chem­i­cal synthesis.
  3. Cat­alyt­ic reac­tions in super­crit­i­cal fluids.

George was a qui­et leader of our com­mu­ni­ty and will be great­ly missed. His con­tri­bu­tions will con­tin­ue to influ­ence new cat­alyt­ic research.
 
Pre­pared by Robert J. Far­rauto, BASF (bob.farrauto@basf.com) 10 April 2010
Sub­mit­ted by H. Hen­ry Lamb, NCSU (lamb@ncsu.edu) 22 April 2010

Henrik Topsøe Selected as Winner for 2010 Distinguished Researcher Award, ACS Division of Petroleum Chemistry

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. 

Support for Attendees to the 2010 Gordon Conference on Catalysis

We are pleased to announce that par­tial reg­is­tra­tion sup­port ($400), which will cov­er 50% of the reg­is­tra­tion fee, will be avail­able for grad­u­ate stu­dents, post-docs and ear­ly career fac­ul­ty. Approx­i­mate­ly 40–50 par­tic­i­pants will receive sup­port depend­ing on avail­able fund­ing. This sup­port is made pos­si­ble by grants from the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion — Catal­y­sis and Kinet­ics Pro­gram, Depart­ment of Ener­gy — Office of Sci­ence, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, and indus­try con­trib­u­tors (see the GRC web­site for an updat­ed list as this sup­port becomes available).

Request for sup­port should be sent by apply­ing to the con­fer­ence chair via email to datye@unm.edu and by ensur­ing that the fol­low­ing text appears in the sub­ject head­ing of your email GRC 2010 Catal­y­sis. Please sub­mit your appli­ca­tion before March 31, 2010, and include as an attach­ment one pdf doc­u­ment that includes a short one page CV, a state­ment of your research inter­ests, and one page let­ter of endorse­ment from your research advi­sor (for stu­dents and post-docs) or one page let­ter of cur­rent and pend­ing sup­port (in case of junior fac­ul­ty). Sup­port will be allo­cat­ed to one stu­dent or post-doc per research group (unless addi­tion­al sup­port becomes avail­able) and to junior fac­ul­ty who are at the ear­ly career stage (with min­i­mal extra­mur­al fund­ing). The par­tic­i­pants who receive sup­port are required to present a poster at the meet­ing. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence and trav­el sup­port can be obtained from Prof. Datye’s web site: http://www.unm.edu/~cmem/labs/catalysis/index.html

To attend the GRC, you must apply via the fol­low­ing web site: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=catalysis

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact the con­fer­ence organizers:
 
Abhaya K. Datye
Chair
Dis­tin­guished Professor
Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mexico
Albu­querque, NM, 87131–0001
505–277-0477
datye@unm.edu
 
Bruce Cook
Vice–Chair
Advanced Refin­ing Manager
BP Prod­ucts N.A.
Naperville, IL, 60563–8460
630–420-3833

In Memoriam: Jerzy Haber (1930–2010)

Pro­fes­sor Jerzy Haber (1930–2010), an out­stand­ing sci­en­tist, Leader and Tutor of many gen­er­a­tions of Pol­ish chemists, a remark­able organ­is­er of research, died on Jan­u­ary 1, 2010. He was an inter­na­tion­al­ly acclaimed spe­cial­ist in sol­id state chem­istry, catal­y­sis and sur­face phe­nom­e­na who cre­at­ed and direct­ed for many years the Insti­tute of Catal­y­sis and Sur­face Chem­istry of Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in Krakow.

Jerzy Haber was born on May 7, 1930 in Krakow and linked with this city his entire pro­fes­sion­al and pri­vate life. Here, in 1951, he grad­u­at­ed in chem­istry from the Fac­ul­ty of Math­e­mat­ics, Physics and Chem­istry of the Jagiel­lon­ian Uni­ver­si­ty. After grad­u­a­tion, he took posi­tion of a research assis­tant at the AGH Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy in Krakow, work­ing on physi­co-chem­i­cal prop­er­ties of tran­si­tion met­al oxides in the research group of Pro­fes­sor Adam Bielañs­ki. In his research, he demon­strat­ed a cor­re­la­tion between changes in their elec­tron prop­er­ties and cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty (A.Bielañski, J. Dereñ, J. Haber, Nature 179 (1957) 668). This was one of the first exper­i­men­tal con­fir­ma­tions of the elec­tron the­o­ry of catal­y­sis in the world. His doc­tor­al the­sis ‘A rela­tion­ship between the elec­tric con­duc­tiv­i­ty of a work­ing cat­a­lyst and its cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty’, accom­plished at the age of 26, con­cerned the same subject.
In 1960–1961, he stayed as a post­doc­tor­al fel­low at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol, where he under­took with Pro­fes­sor F. S. Stone a pio­neer­ing at that time research on the inter­pre­ta­tion of pho­toad­sorp­tion and pho­to­catal­y­sis on the basis of the crys­tal field the­o­ry, the results of which have been quot­ed until today in the text­books and mono­graphs (J. Haber, F.S. Stone, Trans. Fara­day Soc. 59 (1963) 19).

On his return to Poland, he con­tin­ued his work at the AGH Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy until 1968 first as a research fel­low and then as an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor. He was an excel­lent lec­tur­er. His lec­tures on phys­i­cal chem­istry attract­ed crowds of stu­dents of var­i­ous depart­ments of the university.

In 1968, he was appoint­ed direc­tor of an inde­pen­dent Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Catal­y­sis and Sur­face Chem­istry of Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences (since 1978, the Insti­tute). The Insti­tute was Jerzy Haber’s life accom­plish­ment. He mas­ter­mind­ed the con­cept of cre­at­ing a plat­form for a mutu­al exchange of ideas and research in the entire area of the phys­i­cal chem­istry of gas-sol­id, gas-liq­uid and sol­id-sol­id inter­faces. He stood behind the spec­tac­u­lar devel­op­ment of the Insti­tute which start­ed in a few rent­ed premis­es with 28 mem­bers of staff, includ­ing just 5 in catal­y­sis sen­su stricte, and attained dur­ing 30 years its own impres­sive build­ing, unique research equip­ment and almost 100 mem­bers of staff, includ­ing 15 pro­fes­sors and asso­ci­at­ed pro­fes­sors, spe­cial­is­ing in diverse aspects of catal­y­sis, sur­face chem­istry and col­loids. In spite of dif­fi­cult times of polit­i­cal­ly divid­ed Europe, the Insti­tute has become an ele­ment in the inter­na­tion­al research net­work, a place of free flow of ideas, open to con­tacts with the entire world, a true cen­tre of excel­lence in its area.

At the Insti­tute, Jerzy Haber ini­ti­at­ed and devel­oped broad research, both fun­da­men­tal and applied, in diverse areas of het­ero­ge­neous and homoge­nous catal­y­sis, as well as sol­id state chem­istry applied to catal­y­sis. In par­tic­u­lar, his research con­cerned oxide sys­tems – cat­a­lysts of the selec­tive oxi­da­tion process­es, as well as zeo­lites, cat­a­lysts based on met­al­lo-organ­ic com­plex­es, and cat­a­lysts used in the envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, to men­tion just the most impor­tant research directions.

The inves­ti­ga­tions have led to the for­mu­la­tion of a the­o­ry of cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion of hydro­car­bons and have intro­duced into the world lit­er­a­ture the con­cept of elec­trophilic and nucle­ophilic oxi­da­tion. The clas­si­fi­ca­tion revealed a cor­re­la­tion between the cat­alyt­ic prop­er­ties of tran­si­tion met­al oxides and their struc­ture, and has become foun­da­tion of the sci­ence-based selec­tion of the cat­a­lysts. Pro­fes­sor Haber demon­strat­ed that the abil­i­ty of oxides of tran­si­tion met­als of groups V – VII to add selec­tive­ly oxy­gen atoms to the hydro­car­bon chain of an organ­ic mol­e­cule is linked with the phe­nom­e­non of crys­tal shear­ing. Inves­ti­ga­tions of sin­gle-crys­tal oxide cat­a­lysts have led to a gen­er­al con­clu­sion that the con­sec­u­tive ele­men­tary steps of the cat­alyt­ic reac­tion may pro­ceed on dif­fer­ent crys­tal faces (struc­ture-sen­si­tive reactions).

Jerzy Haber was first in the world to ini­ti­ate research on the descrip­tion of ele­men­tary steps of the reac­tion of cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion of hydro­car­bons using quan­tum chem­i­cal meth­ods. They revealed that the reac­tion path depends on the ori­en­ta­tion of react­ing mol­e­cules one with respect to anoth­er and to the cat­a­lyst sur­face which under­goes restructuring.

The inves­ti­ga­tions on the homoge­nous reac­tions of hydro­car­bon oxi­da­tion with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of tran­si­tion met­al por­phyrins as mod­el cat­a­lysts, allowed reveal­ing role of the elec­tron struc­ture of tran­si­tion met­al ions as active cen­tres for these reac­tions, and for­mu­lat­ing the mech­a­nism of ini­ti­a­tion of the chain reac­tions and the chain devel­op­ment step.

Jerzy Haber was active­ly com­mit­ted to organ­is­ing research in Poland, among oth­er by coor­di­nat­ing the nation­al research pro­gramme in catal­y­sis. Since 1971 he was full pro­fes­sor in chem­i­cal sci­ences, since 1973 a cor­re­spond­ing mem­ber and since1983 a full mem­ber of the Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, since 1990 a mem­ber of the Pre­sid­i­um of the Acad­e­my, Pres­i­dent of the Krakow Branch of the Acad­e­my since 2003, a full mem­ber of the Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Arts and Sci­ences since 1991, the direc­tor of its Class of Math­e­mat­ics, Physics and Chem­istry, 1999–2008, a found­ing mem­ber of the Pol­ish Club of Catal­y­sis and its Pres­i­dent, 1992–2007, a mem­ber of Research Coun­cil to the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic, 1991–95, a mem­ber of the Cen­tral Com­mis­sion for Research Degrees, 1975–81 and 2000-06, and a mem­ber of the Nation­al Coun­cil of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, 1991–2002. For his research and admin­is­tra­tive activ­i­ty, he was award­ed among oth­ers the doc­tor­ate hon­oris causa by the Marie Curie-Sklodows­ka Uni­ver­si­ty in Lublin, the Research Prize of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Com­man­der Cross with Star of the Order of Polo­nia Restituta.

Excel­lent eru­di­tion, organ­i­sa­tion­al tal­ents, flu­en­cy in sev­er­al lan­guages, friend­ly atti­tude to all, final­ly ease in estab­lish­ing con­tacts and social skills made Jerzy Haber a val­ued mem­ber of many inter­na­tion­al bod­ies and a pop­u­lar lec­tur­er. He hold a num­ber of func­tions in inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions and organ­i­sa­tions: among oth­ers Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee of Reac­tiv­i­ty of Solids, 1976–84, Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Com­mis­sion on Col­loid and Sur­face Chem­istry Includ­ing Catal­y­sis IUPAC, 1977–87, Pres­i­dent of the Sub­com­mit­tee of Cat­a­lysts Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion IUPAC, 1978–90, Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil of Catal­y­sis, 1988–92 and Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties, 1997–99. The French Chem­i­cal Soci­ety award­ed him the Pierre et Marie Curie Prize and the Ger­man Soci­ety of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Biotech­nol­o­gy — the medal of Alwin Mit­tasch. He was doc­tor hon­oris causa of the Uni­ver­sité Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, mem­ber of the Acad­e­mia Euro­pea and the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ence of Ukraine. He received the Order of the Aca­d­e­m­ic Palms of the French Republic.

Jerzy Haber was wide­ly acclaimed in Poland and world­wide as author of sci­en­tif­ic papers: he pub­lished near­ly 530 orig­i­nal papers and 6 books, received more than 50 patents, pre­sent­ed 115 ple­nary and invit­ed lec­tures at inter­na­tion­al con­gress­es. He super­vised 30 doc­tor­al projects and was mem­ber of edi­to­r­i­al boards of many sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals, includ­ing the most impor­tant ones for his research area: Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis (1976–82), Catal­y­sis Reviews, Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing (1976–85), Reac­tion Kinet­ics and Catal­y­sis Let­ters (od 1976), Jour­nal of Chem­i­cal Tech­nol­o­gy and Biotech­nol­o­gy (since 1979), Pol­ish Jour­nal of Applied Chem­istry (since 1979), Revue de Chimie Minerale/European Jour­nal of Sol­id State Chemistry/Solid State Sci­ences (since 1980), Applied Catal­y­sis (1981–84), Bul­letin of the Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, Chem­i­cal Series (1981–2004), Reac­tiv­i­ty of Solids (1985–90), Catal­y­sis Let­ters (since 1987), Bul­letin des Sociétés Chim­iques Belges (1991–1997), Pol­ish Jour­nal of Chem­istry (1992–1996), Comptes Ren­dus de l’A­cad­e­mie de Sci­ences, Paris (since 1998).

Cit­i­zen of the world, invit­ed to con­gress­es and meet­ings to all cor­ners of the globe, vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor of the uni­ver­si­ties in Bel­gium, France, Japan and Cana­da, he remained dur­ing all his life close­ly linked to his native Poland and city of Krakow. Enthu­si­as­tic con­nois­seur of art and his­toric mon­u­ments, he ini­ti­at­ed at his Insti­tute mod­ern research on the dete­ri­o­ra­tion mech­a­nisms and pro­tec­tion of his­toric objects and sup­port­ed the activ­i­ties of the Coun­cil of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion in Krakow. A reg­u­lar con­cert- and art exhi­bi­tion-goer. From his trav­els all over the world, he was return­ing to his beau­ti­ful house in Krakow, gar­den, dogs, exquis­ite library, col­lec­tion of prints and maps, with a pro­fes­sion­al col­lec­tion of views of his city. Charm­ing host of social meet­ings, pos­sess­ing a rare tal­ent of lis­ten­ing to the oth­ers. He is sur­vived by his wife Han­na, an archi­tect and art-lover, a con­stant com­pan­ion in all his undertakings.
 
Writ­ten by friends
Feb­ru­ary 2010

Dr. Jeffrey T. Miller is the recipient of the NACS 2010 F.G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

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. 

Haren Gandhi has passed away

Haren Gand­hi, Hen­ry Ford Tech­ni­cal Fel­low, has passed away.
 
Details are includ­ed in Ford’s online news at http://www.at.ford.com/news/cn/Pages/FordMournsLossofResearchPioneer,ExemplaryRoleModel.aspx

David Thompson has passed away

The Gold Bul­letin edi­to­r­i­al com­mem­o­rat­ing Dr. David T. Thomp­son is avail­able at http://www.goldbulletin.org/assets/file/goldbulletin/downloads/editorial_4_42.pdf

Gary McVicker has passed away

Gary B. McVick­er passed away on Jan­u­ary 22, 2010 sur­round­ed by friends and fam­i­ly. The catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty has lost one of its lead­ers and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety one of his loy­al and thought­ful sup­port­ers. An obit­u­ary will appear here shortly.
 
Details are includ­ed in the local obit­u­ary: Hun­ter­don Coun­ty’s week­ly paper

Professor Nicholas Delgass is the recipient of the NACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

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.