The NACS web­site now con­tains a new sub-fold­er, Past NAM meet­ings. This con­tains abstracts and pro­gram con­tent from the past NAM meet­ings (18th in Can­cun in 2003, 19th in Philadel­phia 2005, and 20th in Hous­ton in 2007).

The F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace & Com­pa­ny and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Soci­ety admin­is­ters this Lec­ture­ship. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. Trav­el expens­es are pro­vid­ed through a trav­el escrow fund, admin­is­tered by the NACS, to be used on a “as need­ed basis” for the recip­i­ents from acad­e­mia or indus­tri­al com­pa­nies (with $100 Mil­lion annu­al sales; up to $3,000. for employ­ees of larg­er com­pa­nies). 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. The awardee will be 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 vis­it and lec­ture to each of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies with which mutu­al­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ments can be made. Selec­tion of the awardee will be made with­out regard to age, sex, nation­al­i­ty, or affil­i­a­tion. The nom­i­na­tion should con­tain a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of can­di­date’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments (nom­i­na­tion let­ter, CV, jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, and no more than 2 sec­ond­ing let­ters) in one com­plete pack­age should be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cal­ly to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety. Nom­i­na­tions for the 2008 Cia­pet­ta Award will close on Novem­ber 1, 2007.All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Cia­pet­ta Award should be should be sent to John Armor, Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; at jnagcat@verizon.net . Receipt of any nom­i­na­tion, will be con­firmed by an email mes­sage sent to each nominator. 

The Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers has asked the NACS to remind mem­bers about the approach­ing May 1, 2007 dead­line for the AIChE Prac­tice Award. This award is not con­nect­ed to any NACS awards, nor does it involve par­tic­i­pa­tion by the NACS. The Prac­tice Award requires AIChE mem­ber­ship for nominees.

Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Prac­tice Award
 
Descrip­tion: This award rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who have made pioneering
con­tri­bu­tions to indus­tri­al prac­tice of catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal reaction
engi­neer­ing. The can­di­date must have made impor­tant and specific
tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions, ver­i­fi­able by means of well-documented
evi­den­tial mate­ri­als, to the inven­tion, devel­op­ment, design or
imple­men­ta­tion of indus­tri­al prod­ucts, cat­a­lysts or process­es through
inge­nious and cre­ative appli­ca­tion of chem­i­cal reac­tion engineering
and/or catal­y­sis con­cepts. Awardees will be select­ed based on their
con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive catal­y­sis or
reac­tion engi­neer­ing solu­tions to tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems, and/or
com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new prod­ucts and process­es. Can­di­date must be an
AIChE mem­ber. Can­di­dates may be from acad­e­mia, nation­al labs, or
industry.

 
Dead­line: May 1, 2007
Pro­ce­dure: Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages should include a 2‑page (max­i­mum) double
spaced nom­i­na­tion state­ment, a 2‑page CV, and up to four supporting
let­ters. Sub­mit the nom­i­na­tion elec­tron­i­cal­ly to Phillip E. Savage,
Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan (psavage@umich.edu).
Award: A plaque and cash award of $1,000
Pre­sen­ta­tion: The award is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly at the Divi­sion Recep­tion or Din­ner. The recip­i­ent is also invit­ed to give a spe­cial lec­ture at the AIChE Annu­al Meeting.

 
Past Recip­i­ents

• 2006 Lar­ry Smith
• 2005 Robert Farrauto
• 2004 Stephen B. Jaffe
• 2003 Israel Wachs
• 2002 Teh C. Ho
• 2001 Thomas R. Keane
• 2000 L. Hegedus

The Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

 
The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by John­son Matthey Cat­a­lysts Divi­sion and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. 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 award 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 will be 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.

Selec­tion of the Award win­ner will 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. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages should indi­cate the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, a nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, a sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of can­di­date’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar contribution(s) on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Award must be received by on 1 April 1 2007. 

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages (one ELECTRONIC COPY) for the Bur­well Award should be sent to John Armor, Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; at jnagcat@verizon.net . Receipt of any nom­i­na­tion, will be con­firmed by an email mes­sage sent to each nominator.

Pro­fes­sor Alex­is Bell has been select­ed for the 2007 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize. The 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. The Award selec­tion process empha­sizes accom­plish­ments and con­tri­bu­tions pub­lished with­in the five pre­ced­ing years. Can­di­dates are nom­i­nat­ed with­out any restric­tion of nation­al ori­gin, thus reflect­ing the inter­na­tion­al scope of the career and con­tri­bu­tions of Michel Boudart.

Alex Bell has been Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, since 1967. He is a world-class leader in exper­i­men­tal as well as the­o­ret­i­cal aspects of catal­y­sis and has made a num­ber of last­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the elu­ci­da­tion of reac­tion mech­a­nism, the devel­op­ment of struc­ture prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships, nov­el meth­ods for chem­i­cal syn­the­sis, and the devel­op­ment and appli­ca­tion of the­o­ret­i­cal meth­ods for cat­alyt­ic sys­tems. He has ele­gant­ly demon­strat­ed how detailed char­ac­ter­i­za­tion cou­pled with well-defined kinet­ic stud­ies and the­o­ry can be used to help iden­ti­fy active sites and elu­ci­date the con­trol­ling reac­tion mech­a­nisms for a num­ber of impor­tant cat­alyt­ic reac­tions over com­plex met­al, met­al oxide and zeo­lite cat­a­lysts. His detailed efforts have pro­vid­ed unique insights into the con­trol­ling chem­istry for N2O decom­po­si­tion over Fe-ZSM 5, methanol syn­the­sis from CO and CO2 over Cu/ZrO2, the dehy­dro­gena­tion and selec­tive oxi­da­tion of alka­nes over vana­di­um oxides as well as oth­er impor­tant cat­alyt­ic sys­tems. He has demon­strat­ed how the com­bi­na­tion of the­o­ry and exper­i­ment can be exploit­ed to estab­lish the nature of the active sites and thus tai­lor the design of new mate­ri­als. Alex rec­og­nized the val­ue of in situ meth­ods ear­ly in his career and has had great impact on the devel­op­ment of spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods in catalysis. 

Although exper­i­men­tal meth­ods have been fun­da­men­tal to Alex’ suc­cess, he was one of the first to real­ize that the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of plau­si­ble reac­tion inter­me­di­ates can­not always be made by exper­i­men­tal tech­niques. Alex and his group have devel­oped a nov­el bias­ing tran­si­tion state search algo­rithm that can sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fy mul­ti­ple path­ways, thus elim­i­nat­ing the need for expert intu­ition. The suc­cess of this approach was demon­strat­ed for a wide range of dif­fer­ent reac­tion sys­tems and in par­tic­u­lar for reac­tion paths where oth­er known search strate­gies have failed. In the iso­la­tion of actu­al tran­si­tion states, a nov­el “string” math­e­mat­i­cal method was devel­oped that presents a major improve­ment to the cur­rent­ly-used nudged-elas­tic band and con­ju­gate gra­di­ent meth­ods. The meth­ods have been incor­po­rat­ed into the QChem com­mer­cial soft­ware code and when used to mod­el cat­alyt­ic sys­tems will have a last­ing impact on homo­ge­neous, het­ero­ge­neous and biocatalysis. 

In addi­tion to his out­stand­ing research accom­plish­ments, Alex is a leader in edu­cat­ing stu­dents and advanc­ing the field of catal­y­sis and reac­tion engi­neer­ing. He is the Edi­tor in Chief of Catal­y­sis Reviews and is on the edi­to­r­i­al board of many impor­tant jour­nals in catal­y­sis. He has been involved in the orga­ni­za­tion of many events for the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis, where he is the cur­rent Pres­i­dent. In these lead­er­ship posi­tions, and as a spokesman for catal­y­sis in the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing, Alex has had great impact in guid­ing and focus­ing the field of catal­y­sis and in help­ing to set and main­tain the stan­dards need­ed to keep it thriving. 

Alex will give a ple­nary lec­ture at the 2007 North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS) meet­ing in Hous­ton as well as at the meet­ing of the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EFCATS) in Turku, Fin­land. The Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny and is admin­is­tered joint­ly by the NACS and the EFCATS. The Award is pre­sent­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years. More infor­ma­tion on this award and the award process can be found in the Awards fold­er on the NACS home page www.nacatsoc.org.