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.

Steve Ittel receives 2002 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

Dr. Steven D. Ittel of DuPont was awarded the 2002 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award during the organization’s annual Spring Symposium, held May 23, 2002 at the University of Delaware. Dr. Ittel is highly regarded for his exploratory research and technology development in the field of organometallic-complex catalysis.

Gabor Somorjai named University Professor and receives National Metal of Science

Gabor Somorjai, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley (USA) has been named University Professor. He becomes only the 23rd individual in the entire University of California system to be honored with this prestigious title. Previous holders of this distinction include Glenn T. Seaborg and Melvin Calvin.

Gabor was also among a group of 15 recipients of the US National Metal of Science. This is the highest award for science and is presented by President Bush. As Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation, said in 1998 “These are superstars in their respective fields. They’ve contributed a lifetime of stunning discoveries. We can only recognize them once with a science medal, but we applaud them daily for their continual contributions to humankind, to the reservoir of scientific knowledge and for the impact they have on the students they mentor and educate along the way.”

2002 Catalysis Award of the Canadian Institute for Chemistry to Professor Michael Baird

CANADIAN CATALYSIS AWARD: The 2002 Catalysis Award of the Canadian Institute for Chemistry has been given to Professor Michael Baird of Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario. Sponsored by the Canadian Catalysis Foundation, this prize is given in even-numbered years to a researcher who has contributed to the advancement of catalysis in Canada. Michael Baird is an organometallic chemist who combines research in fundamental organo transition metal chemistry with applications to organic syntheses and catalysis. Most recently, Professor Baird has been exploring the utilization of metallocene-like organometallic compounds as homogeneous catalysts/initiators for olefin polymerization, which show interesting solvent-specifc stereochemical behavior, and a wide range of polymerization pathways for various monomer systems.

Call for papers: High throughput screening

High-Throughput Experimentation in Heterogeneous Catalysis: Synthesis, Surface Characterization and Performance Evaluation

2002 Fall ACS Meeting, August 18–22, 2002 Boston, MA

Call For Papers

Combinatorial techniques, which revolutionized the search for new drug molecules in the 1990s, have recently showed promise for the rapid development of functional inorganic materials, such as heterogeneous catalysts. This session will highlight recent developments in combinatorial heterogeneous catalysis. Both fundamental and applied studies will be included. Topics to be covered in the session include emerging methodologies for high-throughput automated catalyst synthesis and structural characterization, catalyst evaluation by kinetic screening employing mass-selective and spectroscopic techniques, data-handling and optimization routines which direct the search towards the global maximum of catalytic performance.

Submit abstracts via Online Abstract Submittal System at www.acs.org/meetings.
Abstracts due date is April 15, 2002.

Please contact one of the following organizers for inquires and submissions:

Anne M. Gaffney
Rohm and Haas Co.
P.O. Box 904
727 Norristown Road
Spring House, PA 19477–0904
Tel: 215–619-5260
Fax: 215–619-1625
AGaffney@RohmHaas.com

Vadim Guliants
University of Cincinnati
Dept. of Chem. Eng.
678 ERC (ML 171)
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221–0171
Tel: 513–556-0203
Fax: 513–556-3473
vguliant@alpha.che.uc.edu

Israel E. Wachs
Lehigh University
Dept. Chem. Eng.
Bethlehem, PA 18015
Tel: 610–758-4274
Fax: 610–758-5057
iew0@Lehigh.EDU

John Monnier awarded F. G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

Dr. John Monnier [jmonnier@eastman.com] of Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport, TN has been awarded the 2002 F.G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis. This is one of 4 major awards for technical excellence the North American Catalysis Society provides every 2 years, and this award is cosponsored by the Davison Chemical Division of W.R. Grace & Company and The North American Catalysis Society. Dr. Monnier is being recognized for his pioneering work in catalysis research and process development on the epoxidation of butadiene and other non-allylic olefins with supported silver catalysts. This research has led to the identification of over 100 new applications for epoxybutene and its derivatives. In 1996, Eastman Chemical brought on line a 3 million lbs/yr plant to supply 5 new epoxybutene derivatives to the pharmaceutical and agricultural markets.

The Society administers this Lectureship. It is awarded biennially in even numbered years, and the Award consists of a plaque and an honorarium of $5,000. An additional $4,500 is available from the Society to cover traveling expenses. The honorarium is provided completely by Davison. Dr. Monnier is 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.

Israel Wachs receives 2001 Clean Air Excellence Award

Professor Israel Wachs of Lehigh University’s Chemical Engineering Department has received a 2001 Clean Air Excellence Award. The EPA 2001 Clean Air Excellence Awards program honors outstanding, innovative efforts that help to make progress in achieving cleaner air. The research, sponsored by Georgia-Pacific Corp., has provided the pulp industry with a potentially profitable and innovative third alternative method of processing their waste gases. Using a new process and catalyst developed at Lehigh, the methyl alcohol and mercaptans can be converted to formaldehyde, a building-block chemical used for the adhesives, which find application in the plywood industry. [See www.pollutionengineering.com or N. Moretti’s article in Pollution Engineering, Jan. 2002, pp 24–28]. The waste gases are simply processed through a plant, which is similar in design to a conventional formaldehyde plant that utilizes commercial-grade methyl alcohol as a feed material. The novel environmentally benign process was conceptually developed and experimentally proven on a laboratory scale (see US Patent Nos. 5,907,066 and 6,198,005 B1 to I.E. Wachs/Lehigh University). The pilot plant studies were performed at Georgia-Pacific’s Brunswick, GA pulp mill on the real industrial waste streams.

The Clean Air Excellence Awards [http://www.epa.gov/oar/caaac/program.html] Program, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Air and Radiation, was established in 2000 at the recommendation of the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC). The CAAAC is a policy-level advisory group to the EPA. The Awards Program annually recognizes and honors outstanding, innovative efforts that help to make progress in achieving cleaner air.

The award criteria are: (1) the technology is commercially viable and can be widely applied, (2) the technology is cost-effective relative to other air pollution technologies that already exist and (3) the technology is developed at the prototype stage or beyond. In 2000, XononTM Cool Combustion System — Catalytica Combustion Systems, Inc. received an award for developing the XononTM Cool Combustion system to reduce nitrogen oxides by 90 percent. XononTM prevents the formation of nitrogen oxides before they can form and has been applied in Santa Clara, California in an industrial gas turbine.

In Memoriam: George C.A. Schuit (1910 – 2001)

George Schuit passed away peacefully on Sunday, December 9, 2001, at the blessed age of 91. He was a great scientist, an extremely friendly, generous, and inspiring person. After obtaining his PhD at the University of Leiden in 1938, George worked for 25 years at the Shell laboratories in Amsterdam, where he developed into one the pioneers of Dutch catalysis, and a leader of international stature. His research interests ranged from homogeneous to heterogeneous catalysis, from theoretical chemistry to spectroscopy, and from the molecular detail to the industrial application.

In 1961 he was appointed at the Eindhoven University of Technology to the chair of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, as the first professor in catalysis in the Netherlands. He supervised 22 PhD students and many more Masters students. His major fields of research were selective oxidation, hydrodesulfurization, and nitrogen fixation. Beginning in the early 1970’s, George began to spend a significant fraction of his time at the University of Delaware, and after his retirement from Eindhoven in 1976, he strengthened his commitment to Delaware, where he was influential in the start-up of a fledgling catalysis program that led to the establishment of the university’s Center for Catalytic Science and Technology in 1978. In Delaware, George collaborated extensively in research with numerous faculty and students, helped to start a short course, and worked with Jim Katzer and Bruce Gates to write the textbook “Chemistry of Catalytic Processes.” An annual lectureship in George’s honor was established in 1985; for many years, George was the honored guest at this lecture.

In the course of the eighties George and his wife returned to The Netherlands where they settled in Nuenen, just outside Eindhoven. In these years he came regularly to seminars and symposia in the University, but hardly in the laboratory. Modest as he was, he did not want to be in anyone’s way. We would have loved to see him more often to benefit from his experience and perspectives!

In 1989 Rutger van Santen — after Roel Prins, the second successor in Catalysis, who proceeded George at Eindhoven – founded an institute of catalysis, which served as the nucleation point for the Netherlands Institute of Catalysis Research (NIOK). The Eindhoven branch became the Schuit Institute of Catalysis, employing approximately 100 scientists and students and featuring twice per year the Schuit Lecture in Catalysis, with prominent speakers from all over the world. The major specialization of the Schuit Institute is the molecular description of catalysis aided by spectroscopy and theory, which is the field in George Schuit was a pioneer. This theme is also strongly in evidence in the work of the Delaware center. We are proud that George’s name is forever connected with catalysis research at Eindhoven and Delaware.

We will remember him as a pioneer of our profession, a great scientist of international caliber, and a wonderful and warm person, and an intellectual leader in catalysis.

Bruce Gates and Hans Niemantsverdriet