The Nation­al Research Coun­cil’s Board on Chem­i­cal Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy has pub­lished a very inter­est­ing report enti­tled “Beyond the Mol­e­c­u­lar Fron­tier.” The full report can be read on their web site and por­tions can be copied at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309084776/html/. Here are some provoca­tive themes they iden­ti­fied, sev­er­al of which involve catal­y­sis.

• Learn how to syn­the­size and man­u­fac­ture any new sub­stance that can have sci­en­tif­ic or prac­ti­cal inter­est, using com­pact syn­thet­ic schemes and process­es with high selec­tiv­i­ty for the desired prod­uct, and with low ener­gy con­sump­tion and benign envi­ron­men­tal effects in the process. This goal will require con­tin­u­ing progress in the devel­op­ment of new meth­ods for syn­the­sis and man­u­fac­tur­ing. Human wel­fare will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from new sub­stances, includ­ing med­i­cines and spe­cial­ized mate­ri­als.
• Devel­op new mate­ri­als and mea­sure­ment devices that will pro­tect cit­i­zens against ter­ror­ism, acci­dent, crime, and dis­ease, in part by detect­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing dan­ger­ous sub­stances and organ­isms using meth­ods with high sen­si­tiv­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty. Rapid and reli­able detec­tion of dan­ger­ous dis­ease organ­isms, high­ly tox­ic chem­i­cals, and con­cealed explo­sives (includ­ing those in land mines) is the first impor­tant step in respond­ing to threats. The next impor­tant step for chemists and chem­i­cal engi­neers will be to devise meth­ods to deal with such threats, includ­ing those involved in ter­ror­ist or mil­i­tary attacks.
• Under­stand and con­trol how mol­e­cules react–over all time scales and the full range of mol­e­c­u­lar size. This fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing will let us design new reac­tions and man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es and will pro­vide fun­da­men­tal insights into the sci­ence of chem­istry. Major advances that will con­tribute to this goal over the next decades include the pre­dic­tive com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el­ing of mol­e­c­u­lar motions using large-scale par­al­lel pro­cess­ing arrays; the abil­i­ty to inves­ti­gate and manip­u­late indi­vid­ual mol­e­cules, not just col­lec­tions of mol­e­cules; and the gen­er­a­tion of ultra­fast elec­tron puls­es and opti­cal puls­es down to X‑ray wave­lengths, to observe mol­e­c­u­lar struc­tures dur­ing chem­i­cal reac­tions. This is but one area in which increased under­stand­ing will lead to a greater abil­i­ty to improve the prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of the chem­i­cal sci­ences.
• Learn how to design and pro­duce new sub­stances, mate­ri­als, and mol­e­c­u­lar devices with prop­er­ties that can be pre­dict­ed, tai­lored, and tuned before pro­duc­tion. This abil­i­ty would great­ly stream­line the search for new use­ful sub­stances, avoid­ing con­sid­er­able tri­al and error. Recent and pro­ject­ed advances in chem­i­cal the­o­ry and com­pu­ta­tion should make this pos­si­ble.

  Under­stand the chem­istry of liv­ing sys­tems in detail. Under­stand how var­i­ous dif­fer­ent pro­teins and nucle­ic acids and small bio­log­i­cal mol­e­cules assem­ble into chem­i­cal­ly defined func­tion­al com­plex­es, and indeed under­stand all the com­plex chem­i­cal inter­ac­tions among the var­i­ous com­po­nents of liv­ing cells. Explain­ing the process­es of life in chem­i­cal terms is one of the great chal­lenges con­tin­u­ing into the future, and the chem­istry behind thought and mem­o­ry is an espe­cial­ly excit­ing chal­lenge. This is an area in which great progress has been made, as biol­o­gy increas­ing­ly becomes a chem­i­cal sci­ence (and chem­istry increas­ing­ly becomes a life sci­ence).

• Devel­op med­i­cines and ther­a­pies that can cure cur­rent­ly untreat­able dis­eases. In spite of the great progress that has been made in the inven­tion of new med­i­cines by chemists, and new mate­ri­als and deliv­ery vehi­cles by engi­neers, the chal­lenges in these direc­tions are vast. New med­i­cines to deal with can­cer, viral dis­eases, and many oth­er mal­adies will enor­mous­ly improve human wel­fare.

  Devel­op self-assem­bly as a use­ful approach to the syn­the­sis and man­u­fac­tur­ing of com­plex sys­tems and mate­ri­als. Mix­tures of prop­er­ly designed chem­i­cal com­po­nents can orga­nize them­selves into com­plex assem­blies with struc­tures from the nanoscale to the macroscale, in a fash­ion sim­i­lar to bio­log­i­cal assem­bly. Tak­ing this method­ol­o­gy from the lab­o­ra­to­ry exper­i­men­ta­tion to the prac­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing are­na could rev­o­lu­tion­ize chem­i­cal pro­cess­ing.

• Under­stand the com­plex chem­istry of the earth, includ­ing land, sea, atmos­phere, and bios­phere, so we can main­tain its liv­abil­i­ty. This is a fun­da­men­tal chal­lenge to the nat­ur­al sci­ence of our field, and it is key to help­ing design poli­cies that will pre­vent envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. In addi­tion, chem­i­cal sci­en­tists will use this under­stand­ing to cre­ate new meth­ods to deal with pol­lu­tion and oth­er threats to our Earth.
• Devel­op unlim­it­ed and inex­pen­sive ener­gy (with new ways of ener­gy gen­er­a­tion, stor­age, and trans­porta­tion) to pave the way to a tru­ly sus­tain­able future. Our cur­rent ways of gen­er­at­ing and using ener­gy con­sume lim­it­ed resources and pro­duce envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems. There are very excit­ing prospects for fuel cells to per­mit an econ­o­my based on hydro­gen (gen­er­at­ed in var­i­ous ways) rather than fos­sil fuels, ways to har­ness the ener­gy of sun­light for our use, and super­con­duc­tors that will per­mit effi­cient ener­gy dis­tri­b­u­tion.
• Design and devel­op self-opti­miz­ing chem­i­cal sys­tems. Build­ing on the approach that allows opti­miza­tion of bio­log­i­cal sys­tems through evo­lu­tion, this would let a sys­tem pro­duce the opti­mal new sub­stance, and pro­duce it as a sin­gle prod­uct rather than as a mix­ture from which the desired com­po­nent must be iso­lat­ed and iden­ti­fied. Self-opti­miz­ing sys­tems would allow vision­ary chem­i­cal sci­en­tists to use this approach to make new med­i­cines, cat­a­lysts, and oth­er impor­tant chem­i­cal products–in part by com­bin­ing new approach­es to infor­mat­ics with rapid exper­i­men­tal screen­ing meth­ods.
• Rev­o­lu­tion­ize the design of chem­i­cal process­es to make them safe, com­pact, flex­i­ble, ener­gy effi­cient, envi­ron­men­tal­ly benign, and con­ducive to the rapid com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new prod­ucts. This points to the major goal of mod­ern chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing, in which many new fac­tors are impor­tant for an opti­mal man­u­fac­tur­ing process. Great progress has been made in devel­op­ing green chem­istry, but more is need­ed as we con­tin­ue to meet human needs with the pro­duc­tion of impor­tant chem­i­cal prod­ucts using process­es that are com­plete­ly harm­less to Earth and its inhab­i­tants.
• Com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly to the gen­er­al pub­lic the con­tri­bu­tions that chem­istry and chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing make to soci­ety. Chemists and chem­i­cal engi­neers need to learn how to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tive­ly to the gen­er­al public–both through the media and directly–to explain what chemists and chem­i­cal engi­neers do and to con­vey the goals and achieve­ments of the chem­i­cal sci­ences in pur­suit of a bet­ter world.
• Attract the best and the bright­est young stu­dents into the chem­i­cal sci­ences, to help meet these chal­lenges. They can con­tribute to crit­i­cal human needs while fol­low­ing excit­ing careers, work­ing on and beyond the mol­e­c­u­lar fron­tier.

The on-line reg­is­tra­tion is now avail­able for the Can­cun meet­ing.

The full tech­ni­cal pro­gram can be read on the Can­cun NAM web­site- click on any ses­sion num­ber in the table of week-long sym­posia.

Note there are two reg­is­tra­tion entries to fill in: the hotel and the meet­ing. You will need a cred­it card for both, although the hotel charge will not be made to your cred­it card unless you don’t can­cel in time.

Reg­is­ter on-line at http://www.18nam.org.

Can­cun is a pop­u­lar vaca­tion resort, so you should make your air­line reser­va­tions ear­ly in order to get the low­est fares. Flights on Amer­i­can car­ri­ers are sold on the basis of seat avail­abil­i­ty. As the plane fills up, the seats get more and more expen­sive. [My seat, pur­chased last month was ~$600. from Philadel­phia, a month lat­er it is now twice that.] Shop around and be flex­i­ble on dates in order to get the best air­fare.

From the East Coast of the USA there are non-stops on US Air­ways (from PHL), on Con­ti­nen­tal (from Newark), and on Unit­ed (from Mia­mi). Amer­i­can Air­lines and North­west also fly into Can­cun. Many trav­el agen­cies run group flights and some­times these can be quite cheap.

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).

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 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)

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.

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