Alex Bell awarded 2003 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

Pro­fes­sor Alex­is T. Bell has been award­ed the 2003 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Lec­ture­ship is spon­sored by John­son Matthey PLC’s Cat­a­lysts and Chem­i­cals Divi­sion and 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. His research activ­i­ties have led to more than 400 pub­li­ca­tions in the most pres­ti­gious jour­nals in catal­y­sis, chem­istry and chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing. Over many years he has applied cut­ting-edge spec­troscopy and the­o­ry to study sur­faces before and after cat­alyt­ic reac­tions.

His nom­i­na­tors offered some of the fol­low­ing remarks. His ear­li­er work with Pro­fes­sor Doros Theodor­ou pio­neered the appli­ca­tion of sta­tis­ti­cal mechan­ics and mol­e­c­u­lar dynam­ics for pre­dict­ing the adsorp­tion and dif­fu­sion of mol­e­cules in zeo­lites. This rep­re­sent­ed one of the first quan­ti­ta­tive appli­ca­tions of the­o­ret­i­cal meth­ods to sys­tems of direct cat­alyt­ic rel­e­vance. Lat­er his work with Pro­fes­sor Arup Chakraborty suc­ceed­ed in using quan­tum mechan­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions to deter­mine the sit­ing and sta­bil­i­ty of met­al cations exchanged into zeo­lites. In the area of Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, his ele­gant use of in situ infrared meth­ods, sur­face sci­ence tech­niques, and iso­topic switch meth­ods led to a mech­a­nis­tic pic­ture of “unprece­dent­ed clar­i­ty and rel­e­vance.” Rate con­stants for ele­men­tary steps and the iden­ti­ty and reac­tiv­i­ty of spe­cif­ic adsorbed inter­me­di­ates were mea­sured and ulti­mate­ly used to elu­ci­date the under­ly­ing struc­ture-func­tion rela­tions for chain growth as well as the oper­a­tive basis for wide­ly report­ed strong meta-sup­port­ed inter­ac­tions. His stud­ies have led to demon­stra­tion of a nov­el bifunc­tion­al mech­a­nism for methanol syn­the­sis and leads to strong effects of Lewis acid­i­ty and basic­i­ty of ZrO2 on activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty. He has also made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in the area of zeo­lite catal­y­sis by elu­ci­dat­ing the mech­a­nism of both the syn­the­sis and func­tion of these het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts.

Togeth­er with Pro­fes­sor Clay Rad­ke, the appli­ca­tion of NMR meth­ods led to the direct obser­va­tion of the struc­ture-direct­ing role of organ­ic and inor­gan­ic cations dur­ing syn­the­sis and to a clear mech­a­nis­tic pic­ture of their self-assem­bly in com­plex solu­tions and gels. A com­bi­na­tion of kinet­ic, infrared, iso­topic and the­o­ret­i­cal stud­ies also led to a clear­er mech­a­nis­tic and struc­tur­al pic­ture of the nature of exchanged cations in zeo­lites and their involve­ment in form­ing and sta­bi­liz­ing reac­tive inter­me­di­ates in the reduc­tion of NO by hydro­car­bons. In the area of met­al oxides, Alex pio­neered the use of Raman spec­troscopy for the struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of dis­persed struc­tures. His appli­ca­tions of these meth­ods to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of oxida­tive dehy­dro­gena­tion cat­a­lysts led to spe­cif­ic assign­ments of site reac­tiv­i­ty and to a com­pre­hen­sive pic­ture of the mech­a­nism and site require­ments for desired and unde­sired reac­tions of alka­nes on dis­persed oxides. More recent­ly, work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia, he has also explored the use of in situ UV-vis­i­ble and X‑ray absorp­tion spec­troscopy in mea­sur­ing the num­ber of active sites and reduced cen­ters dur­ing alka­ne oxi­da­tion reac­tions. Through­out all this work, Alex has repeat­ed­ly demon­strat­ed a nat­ur­al tal­ent that allows him to trans­late his research on cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms, and the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites for a wide range of chemistries into under­stand­able terms for his audi­ence.

The lec­ture­ship comes with an hon­o­rar­i­um and trav­el stipend that will allow him to vis­it many of the local clubs of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in order to stim­u­late both young and old minds to the mar­vels of catal­y­sis.
 
John N. Armor

Nominations sought for International Catalysis Award

Note — nom­i­na­tions are due before Sep­tem­ber 1, 2003 for the 2004 Award
 
The Inter­na­tion­al Catal­y­sis Award is spon­sored by the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. It will be award­ed once every four years, in the year before the next Inter­na­tion­al of Catal­y­sis, which occurs every leap year. It con­sists of a cer­tifi­cate and finan­cial reward, which will be pre­sent­ed to the recip­i­ent dur­ing the ICC fol­low­ing the award­ing year. The finan­cial remu­ner­a­tion shall be equal to ten times the reg­is­tra­tion fee of that Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress of Catal­y­sis.

The pur­pose of this Award is 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.

Selec­tion of the recip­i­ent 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. Selec­tion will be made with­out regard to nation­al­i­ty or affil­i­a­tion. The recip­i­ent must not have passed her/his 45th birth­day by May 1 of the award year. Posthu­mous awards will be made only when knowl­edge of the win­ner’s death is received after the announce­ment of the Inter­na­tion­al Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion.

Nom­i­na­tion of the award should be made before Sep­tem­ber 1 in the year pre­ced­ing an Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis (i.e. Sep­tem­ber 1, 2003 for the 13th ICC Award), 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 two let­ters of sup­port, should be sub­mit­ted in sev­en copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. 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. 13th ICC, July 11–16, 2004).

Johnson Matthey’s Catalysts and Chemicals Division to Support Burwell Lectureship

For sev­er­al years the Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis has both been spon­sored and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. I am pleased to announce that John­son Matthey PLC’s Cat­a­lysts and Chem­i­cals Divi­sion has now agreed to under­write the expens­es asso­ci­at­ed with this award. Sup­port for the Award will begin with the 2003 awardee. 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 is 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. This Lec­ture­ship is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. Up to an addi­tion­al $4,500 is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es asso­ci­at­ed with giv­ing lec­tures through­out North Amer­i­ca. More infor­ma­tion under Awards fold­er on the NACS Web site.

Nominations for the 2003 Robert Burwell Lectureship

Nom­i­na­tions will close on 15 Decem­ber 2002
 
The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is spon­sored 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.

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 Awardee will be made by with­out regard to age, sex, nation­al­i­ty or affil­i­a­tion.

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 for the Award must be received before 15 Decem­ber 2002 and should con­tain 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 doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in six copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Robert Bur­well Award should be addressed to
 
John Armor
Air Prod­ucts and Chem­i­cals, Inc
7201 Hamil­ton Blvd.
Allen­town, PA 18195 USA
 
Direct any ques­tions to John Armor: armorjn@apci.com
(orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on 9/30/02)

Seeking nominations for Chicago’s Herman Pines Award

2003 Herman Pines Award in Catalysis

 
The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is solic­it­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Her­man Pines Award for out­stand­ing research in the field of catal­y­sis. Her­man Pines was an out­stand­ing research sci­en­tist, and his work rev­o­lu­tion­ized the gen­er­al under­stand­ing of organ­ic chem­istry, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chem­istry of hydro­car­bons inter­act­ing with strong acids.

The award in his hon­or is spon­sored by UOP where Her­man began his indus­tri­al career in 1930 and amassed 145 US patents over a 23 year peri­od. The award is being co-spon­sored by the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go of which Pro­fes­sor Pines was a found­ing mem­ber. The award will be pre­sent­ed at the 2003 Spring Sym­po­sium of the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go. The recip­i­ent will receive a cash award of $1,000 and reim­burse­ment for trav­el and lodg­ing as a ple­nary speak­er at the Spring Sym­po­sium.

Past Herman Pines Award winners have been:

  • 1999 Pro­fes­sor Harold Kung, North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 2000 Dr. John Mon­nier, East­man Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny
  • 2001 Pro­fes­sor Lan­ny Schmidt, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta
  • 2002 Dr. James Brazdil, BP

The recip­i­ent will be cho­sen based on the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria: Impor­tance of catal­y­sis research com­plet­ed in the past five years. Alter­na­tion of the award between indus­tri­al and academic/national lab­o­ra­to­ry researchers.

Recip­i­ent must be a res­i­dent of North Amer­i­ca. For the award to be giv­en in 2003, nom­i­na­tions for AN ACADEMIC/NATIONAL LABORATORY RESEARCHER are sought by Jan­u­ary 31, 2003. Nom­i­na­tions should describe the spe­cif­ic work for which the nom­i­nee should be rec­og­nized. Please send your nom­i­na­tion either through Inter­net Nom­i­na­tion Form or direct­ly via reg­u­lar mail by the dead­line to:
 
Lar­ry Satek
6208 North Van Guilder Road
Fre­mont, IN 46737
satekwinery@voyager.net
(260) 495‑9463
 
The recip­i­ent will be noti­fied in Feb­ru­ary of 2003, and the award address will take place at the Spring Sym­po­sium in May of 2003.

Houdry Award to Avelino Corma

The 2003 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis to Pro­fes­sor Aveli­no Cor­ma Canos of the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Valen­cia, Spain. The award is spon­sored by Süd-Chemie, Inc. 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.

Pro­fes­sor Cor­ma is wide­ly rec­og­nized as a pro­lif­ic and ver­sa­tile con­trib­u­tor to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. In par­tic­u­lar, he has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the dis­cov­ery of new cat­a­lysts for the iso­mer­iza­tion of light, straight-run naph­tha now in com­mer­cial use, oth­ers for bot­toms upgrad­ing in FCC units, a cat­a­lyst for a com­mer­cial process for the selec­tive epox­i­da­tion of propy­lene, the devel­op­ment of weak­ly basic sol­id cat­a­lysts for selec­tive iso­mer­iza­tion of alpha olefins, and the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of cat­a­lysts for the iso­mer­iza­tion of beta pinene. His nom­i­na­tors com­ment­ed: a set of cat­a­lyst com­po­si­tions dis­closed in a patent for the iso­mer­iza­tion of light, straight-run naph­tha (US #5,057,471) is in cur­rent use in ten com­mer­cial units. These cat­a­lysts are based on H‑mordenite mate­ri­als with very low alu­minum con­tent and they show unprece­dent­ed sul­fur resis­tance. His group is also cred­it­ed with the dis­cov­ery and use of Al-con­tain­ing sepi­o­lite mate­ri­als as addi­tives for bot­toms upgrad­ing in FCC units. Fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful scale-up activ­i­ties, these cat­a­lysts are in cur­rent use in at least one FCC refin­ery unit.

A col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Cor­ma group and Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion has led to a com­mer­cial process for the selec­tive epox­i­da­tion of propy­lene to propy­lene oxide using cumene hydroper­ox­ide. The use of a zeolitic mate­r­i­al with large pores and a Si-O-Ti frame­work leads to unprece­dent­ed selec­tiv­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty. A com­mer­cial reac­tor using this tech­nol­o­gy is cur­rent­ly in start-up in Japan.

A joint project with Tagasako Cor­po­ra­tion and Acedesa led to the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts for the iso­mer­iza­tion of beta pinene to alpha pinene, as part of an over­all process for the syn­the­sis of a fam­i­ly of san­dal­wood-type fra­grances.
Pro­fes­sor Cor­ma’s group has also pio­neered the use of auto­mat­ed micro-activ­i­ty test units, whose design was patent­ed and licensed, and about 30 of these units have been placed in ser­vice.

Emmett Award to Francisco Zaera

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis to Pro­fes­sor Fran­cis­co Zaera of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at River­side, USA. The award is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace and Com­pa­ny. The Award is intend­ed to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions (under the age of 45) in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, pro­pos­al of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species.

Pro­fes­sor Zaera’s main inter­ests lie with the study of mech­a­nisms of sur­face reac­tions by using mod­ern sur­face-sen­si­tive tech­niques. He is not­ed for bridg­ing the knowl­edge on sur­face reac­tions with that of organometal­lic sys­tems and for his exten­sion of kinet­ic the­o­ries to reac­tions on sur­faces. His nom­i­na­tors com­ment­ed that he has placed par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on mak­ing a con­nec­tion between the atom­ic details of sur­face reac­tions and het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic process­es. While most sur­face kinet­ic con­cepts have been rec­og­nized for some time, Fran­cis­co is cred­it­ed with quan­ti­fy­ing the kinet­ic con­se­quences of these effects by a vari­ety of sur­face sci­ence tech­niques to ratio­nal­ize the rates observed in mod­el sys­tems and cor­re­late them with prac­ti­cal het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis rates.

He has been giv­en cred­it for unequiv­o­cal­ly estab­lish­ing that most hydro­car­bon pro­cess­ing cat­a­lysts are cov­ered with a car­bona­ceous lay­er dur­ing the cat­alyt­ic process. By per­form­ing iso­tope label­ing exper­i­ments and using vibra­tional spec­troscopy and mol­e­c­u­lar beam stud­ies, Pro­fes­sor Zaera deter­mined that those deposits are not direct inter­me­di­ates in hydro­gena­tion-dehy­dro­gena­tion steps, but rather an play an indi­rect role by tem­per­ing the high activ­i­ty of the met­al sur­faces and pro­vid­ing a reser­voir for the sur­face hydro­gen. He is also cred­it­ed with estab­lish­ing the promi­nence of hydride and reduc­tive elim­i­na­tion steps as the main con­ver­sion path­ways for alkyl frag­ments on tran­si­tion met­als. He has also shown how spe­cif­ic small changes in rel­a­tive rates among com­pet­ing reac­tions can account for vast dif­fer­ences in selec­tiv­i­ty observed among some Group VIII met­al cen­ters.

Nominations for 2003 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Davi­son Cat­a­lyst, a busi­ness unit of W. R. Grace & Co. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years, and it will be pre­sent­ed at the Can­cun meet­ing of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS). The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $3,000. An addi­tion­al $500 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 dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, pro­pos­al of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species. The award win­ner shall not have passed his/ her 45th birth­day on April 1 of the award year.

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 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 for the Award must be received by 30 Sep­tem­ber and should con­tain the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, a nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, a sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment about the par­tic­u­lar con­tri­bu­tion on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in six copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Emmett Award be must be received by on 30 Sep­tem­ber, 2002 and addressed to:
 
John Armor
Air Prod­ucts and Chem­i­cals, Inc
7201 Hamil­ton Blvd.
Allen­town, PA 18195 USA

Nominations for 2003 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, and it will be pre­sent­ed at the Can­cun meet­ing of The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS). The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $3,000. An addi­tion­al $500 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 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 for the Award must be received before 30 Sep­tem­ber 2002 and should con­tain the nom­i­nee’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions, accom­plish­ments, a nom­i­nat­ing let­ter, a sec­ond­ing let­ter and a biog­ra­phy of the nom­i­nee. A crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of pub­li­ca­tions and patents should be made as well as a state­ment of the par­tic­u­lar con­tri­bu­tion on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments should be sub­mit­ted in six copies to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety along with no more than two sec­ond­ing let­ters.

All nom­i­na­tion pack­ages for the Emmett Award must be received by on 30 Sep­tem­ber, 2002 and should be addressed to:
 
John Armor
Air Prod­ucts and Chem­i­cals, Inc
7201 Hamil­ton Blvd.
Allen­town, PA 18195 USA

Canadian Catalysis Awards to W. Piers and H. Kung

The Catal­y­sis Divi­sion of the Chem­i­cal Insti­tute of Cana­da announced that Pro­fes­sor War­ren Piers, Depart­ment of Chem­istry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary has been award­ed the 2002 Cana­di­an Catal­y­sis Lec­ture­ship Award. Pro­fes­sor Piers is not­ed for his work in syn­thet­ic organometal­lic chem­istry, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of new olefin poly­mer­iza­tion cat­a­lysts and co-cat­a­lysts, and the devel­op­ment of new cat­alyt­ic process­es using ear­ly tran­si­tion met­al organometal­lic com­pounds.

In addi­tion, Pro­fes­sor Harold Kung, Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty (Evanstown, Ill) has been award­ed the 2002 Cross-Cana­da Catal­y­sis Lec­ture­ship Award. Pro­fes­sor Kung is rec­og­nized for his work in the selec­tive oxi­da­tion of light alka­nes, NOx reduc­tion in an oxi­diz­ing atmos­phere, sup­port­ed Au catal­y­sis and hydro­car­bon crack­ing over acidic zeo­lites.