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.

Prof. Anders Holmen is the recipient of the 2010 Award for Excellence in Natural Gas Conversion

Pro­fes­sor Anders Hol­men (Nor­we­gian Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy) has been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2010 Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion. The Award is pre­sent­ed every three years dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to rec­og­nize endur­ing and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy for the con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to valu­able prod­ucts. The pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents are Jack Lunsford, Jens Ros­trup-Nielsen, Lan­ny Schmidt, Enrique Igle­sia, and David Trimm.

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

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

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

ORCS Award Winners

The Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce its award win­ners, who will be hon­ored at the 23rd ORCS Con­fer­ence March 14–18, 2010 in Mon­terey, CA USA.

Dr. Hans-Ulrich Blaser of Solvias AG has been select­ed as the 2009 Paul Rylan­der Awardee for excel­lence in catal­y­sis, notably for impor­tant devel­op­ments in chemos­e­lec­tive and stere­os­e­lec­tive hydro­gena­tions, includ­ing the the syn­the­sis of (S)- metachlor.

Prof. Matthias Beller of Leib­niz Insti­tute for Catal­y­sis has been select­ed as the 2010 Paul Rylan­der Awardee for excel­lence in catal­y­sis based on his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions devel­op­ing and apply­ing nov­el homo­ge­neous cat­a­lysts to organ­ic syn­the­sis. His work on Pd-cat­alyzed cross-cou­pling, reduc­tive car­bony­la­tion and hydroaminomethy­la­tion, to name a few, have opened new con­cepts in the con­struc­tion of com­plex organ­ic mol­e­cules.

Dr. Steve Schmidt of W.R. Grace & Co. has been select­ed as the 2010 Mur­ray Raney Awardee for advance­ments in the tech­nol­o­gy of acti­vat­ed base met­al cat­a­lysts. His work on the devel­op­ment of plat­inum group met­al pro­mot­ed Raney® cat­a­lysts was notable for elu­ci­dat­ing fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties and also in iden­ti­fy­ing com­mer­cial­ly rel­e­vant appli­ca­tions.

Prof. Robert Augus­tine, Emer­i­tus Seton Hall Uni­ver­si­ty is the 2010 Rus­sell Malz Awardee for dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Prof. Augus­tine was part of the found­ing group estab­lish­ing ORCS, played a sig­nif­i­cant role in gov­er­nance of the Soci­ety serv­ing 20+ years on the Board and as the Chair of the 1986 con­fer­ence.

More infor­ma­tion about ORCS and its 23rd Con­fer­ence March 14–18, 2010 can be found at our web­site, www.orcs.org.

A note from your incoming President

I am hon­ored by this oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve our com­mu­ni­ty and in awe of the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that it presents.

I speak with the grate­ful voice of our com­mu­ni­ty in acknowl­edg­ing the ded­i­ca­tion and con­tri­bu­tions of the out­go­ing offi­cers: John Armor and Umit Ozkan and of the con­tin­u­ing offi­cers John Byrne and Edrick Morales. I also wel­come Bruce Cook, Hong-Xin Li, and C.Y. Chen as new offi­cers and thank them for their com­mit­ment to serve.

The youth, vig­or, and qual­i­ty evi­dent at our 21st NAM in San Fran­cis­co served to con­firm the intel­lec­tu­al and finan­cial health of our dis­ci­pline and of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Catal­y­sis con­tin­ues to serve as the enabling dis­ci­pline in ener­gy sup­ply and con­ver­sion, in the syn­the­sis of fuels and chem­i­cals, and in our thought­ful care for the envi­ron­ment; it remains an essen­tial con­trib­u­tor to qual­i­ty of life and to sus­tain­able growth in the world at large. As a dis­ci­pline, its vis­i­bil­i­ty and its sup­port research base con­tin­ue to grow, fueled by a com­bi­na­tion of intel­lec­tu­al advances, new con­cepts and tools, evolv­ing soci­etal needs, and a con­sis­tent track record of prac­ti­cal impact.

The Soci­ety remains in excel­lent finan­cial health. Its long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to serve the com­mu­ni­ty remains firm­ly entrenched with­in our very active local clubs and their ded­i­cat­ed lead­ers and mem­bers and amongst their coun­ter­parts in the nation­al orga­ni­za­tion. We are com­mit­ted to con­tin­ue to return to our mem­bers the ben­e­fits of their ded­i­ca­tion by grow­ing our sup­port for new gen­er­a­tions of researchers and ideas, so that they enter safe­ly and choose to stay. To bal­ance nov­el­ty with his­to­ry, we intend to expand our ini­tia­tives to pre­serve and pro­claim our her­itage and, in doing so, to rec­og­nize the con­tri­bu­tions of the intel­lec­tu­al forces that shaped the con­cepts and tools upon which we build our future as a catal­y­sis dis­ci­pline.
We encour­age your com­ments and sug­ges­tions, as well as your involve­ment in all activ­i­ties and ini­tia­tives of the Soci­ety. You can always reach me via email at iglesia@berkeley.edu.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety
Berke­ley, CA
20 Octo­ber 2009

Nominations open for Award for Excellence in Natural Gas Conversion — Deadline is November 1, 2009

The Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion is spon­sored by the Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Board and its Inter­na­tion­al Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The award has been pre­sent­ed just 5 times in the past twen­ty years, and rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who — in the eyes of their peers — have made note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tions in the field of nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion and the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies that are like­ly to play an impor­tant part in meet­ing the world’s chem­i­cal and fuel require­ments in the years ahead.

Please vis­it the award web page at ngbc.kma.net/index.asp?sid=54 for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion and the nom­i­na­tion process.

Gordon Conference on Catalysis – Program Announcement

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will be held at Col­by Sawyer Col­lege, NH from June 27, 2010 through July 2, 2010. The meet­ing chair is Abhaya Datye (datye@unm.edu) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co in Albu­querque, NM and the Vice-chair is Bruce Cook (Bruce.Cook2@bp.com) from BP Prod­ucts NA in Naperville, IL.

In 2010, the Catal­y­sis con­fer­ence will move to a new­ly-fur­bished con­fer­ence room with seat­ing for 150, a new poster ses­sion area that will allow 40 posters per ses­sion. The dorm rooms pro­vide sin­gle and dou­ble accom­mo­da­tions, free WIFI and the reg­is­tra­tion fee includes all meals and the famous lob­ster din­ner on Thurs­day night. After­noons are open to enjoy the New Eng­land ambiance with oppor­tu­ni­ties for hik­ing, sail­ing, golf and ten­nis to cre­ate an out­stand­ing con­fer­ence that will help you net­work with col­leagues, and make long last­ing con­nec­tions. Please vis­it the con­fer­ence web site for more details and to reg­is­ter for the meet­ing: www.grc.org/programs.aspx?year=2010&program=catalysis.

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will focus on sev­er­al areas that are of both fun­da­men­tal and prac­ti­cal impor­tance. The under­ly­ing theme is to high­light the role of catal­y­sis in meet­ing society’s needs for ener­gy and mate­ri­als. The con­fer­ence is orga­nized into 9 ses­sions:

  1. Alter­na­tive Feed­stocks For Chem­i­cals And Fuels
  2. Nov­el Cat­alyt­ic Mate­ri­als
  3. 3D Imag­ing Of Cat­a­lysts
  4. Spec­troscopy, With Spe­cial Empha­sis On Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis In The Liq­uid Phase
  5. Mol­e­c­u­lar Insights Through The­o­ry
  6. The Sci­ence Of Cat­a­lyst Syn­the­sis
  7. Design Of Cat­a­lysts For Excep­tion­al Sta­bil­i­ty
  8. Sur­face Sci­ence
  9. Future Per­spec­tives On Catal­y­sis

The themes and the speak­ers have been cho­sen to inter­weave aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al inter­est, as has been the very effec­tive tra­di­tion of this long run­ning con­fer­ence, and to illus­trate broad, fore­front con­cepts in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. By includ­ing senior sci­en­tists as dis­cus­sion lead­ers, we hope to add a diver­si­ty of per­spec­tive and enhance the lev­el of dis­cus­sions. A spe­cial effort was made to attract speak­ers and dis­cus­sion lead­ers from indus­try. Finan­cial sup­port will be avail­able for grad­u­ate stu­dents, post-docs and junior fac­ul­ty. Please vis­it the NACS web­site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 for more details.