Hajo Freund of the Fritz Haber Institute has been selected as the recipient of the 2015 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis

HajoFreundWe are pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Hans Joachim Fre­und of the Fritz Haber Insti­tute is the recip­i­ent of the 2015 Michel Boudart for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny and admin­is­tered joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. The Award will be pre­sent­ed at the 24th North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (Pitts­burgh, June 2015) and at Europacat XII (Kazan, Rus­sia, August 2015).

This 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 the prac­tice of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. It is meant to rec­og­nize indi­vid­u­als who bring togeth­er the rig­or and the inter­na­tion­al impact that exem­pli­fied the accom­plish­ments and the career of Pro­fes­sor Michel Boudart.

Pro­fes­sor Hajo Fre­und is being specif­i­cal­ly rec­og­nized for his ground­break­ing exper­i­men­tal advances in under­stand­ing ele­men­tary steps of reac­tions on cat­alyt­ic sur­faces and for his stud­ies bridg­ing rel­e­vant catal­y­sis and sur­face reac­tions at sin­gle crys­tal sur­faces through the use of nov­el mod­el cat­a­lysts with well-con­trolled struc­tur­al fea­tures. His research group has syn­the­sized a broad range of rel­e­vant mate­ri­als, such as oxides of Al, Si, Ce, Ca, and V, use­ful as active mate­ri­als or sup­ports, with geo­met­ric and elec­tron­ic struc­tures, includ­ing sur­face defects, probed at the atom­ic lev­el using tun­nel­ing and atom­ic force microscopy tech­niques. His work has estab­lished the state-of-the-art in new tech­niques and instru­men­ta­tion and in the use of rel­e­vant mod­el sys­tems to estab­lish mech­a­nis­tic path­ways and struc­tur­al and elec­tron­ic require­ments in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. One exam­ple involves the first imple­men­ta­tion of elec­tron spin res­o­nance to sin­gle crys­tals, which has enabled the mon­i­tor­ing of the for­ma­tion and reac­tions of rad­i­cal species derived from adsor­bates and met­al nanopar­ti­cles on well-defined sur­faces. His stud­ies of sup­port­ed met­al nanopar­ti­cles (Pd, Au) have led to unprece­dent­ed insights into how sup­ports influ­ence the geo­met­ric and elec­tron­ic prop­er­ties and how dopants influ­ence the bind­ing prop­er­ties of such nanopar­ti­cles, even when dopants reside below sup­port sur­faces, through dopant-induced polarons that strong­ly influ­ence oxy­gen acti­va­tion. Recent­ly, his group suc­cess­ful­ly pre­pared hexag­o­nal SiO2 dou­ble lay­ers, which allowed the first direct obser­va­tion of the atom­ic struc­ture of amor­phous sil­i­ca using tun­nel­ing and atom­ic force microscopy and the syn­the­sis of a two-dimen­sion­al zeo­lite with bridg­ing hydrox­yl struc­tures, such as those present in chabazite frame­works.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety
 
Johannes Lercher
Pres­i­dent, Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties

Christophe COPÉRET is the recipient of the 2015 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis

Coperet_ChristopheWe are pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Christophe COPÉRET of the Depart­ment of Chem­istry and Applied Bio­sciences ETH Zürich is the recip­i­ent of the 2015 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Grace Cat­a­lyst Tech­nolo­gies oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 24th NAM meet­ing in Pitts­burgh. Pro­fes­sor COPÉRET will also present a ple­nary lec­ture dur­ing the con­fer­ence.

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial 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 rec­og­nizes the con­tri­bu­tions of Pro­fes­sor Christophe COPÉRET to the prepa­ra­tion of well-defined het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts through a mol­e­c­u­lar approach based on the con­trolled func­tion­al­iza­tion of sur­faces and the atom­ic descrip­tion of the sur­face species and active sites, in par­tic­u­lar via sol­id-state NMR spec­troscopy. This approach has allowed a detailed under­stand­ing of the struc­ture of active sites and of the reac­tion mech­a­nism of cat­alyt­ic process­es, such as olefin metathe­sis and poly­mer­iza­tion, there­by pro­vid­ing access to structure–activity rela­tion­ships and to ratio­nal cat­a­lyst design.
 
Enrique Igle­sia
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety
 
Bruce R. Cook
Vice Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

In Memoriam: Theodore A. Koch (1925 – 2014)

Theodore KochDr. Theodore A. Koch, 88, a retired DuPont research sci­en­tist passed away peace­ful­ly at his home in Wilm­ing­ton, Delaware on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2014.

A native of upstate New York, Koch stud­ied chem­istry at St. Michael’s Col­lege in Burling­ton, VT and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia in Philadel­phia, PA, earn­ing his Ph.D. in chem­istry in 1952. He joined the DuPont Co. ulti­mate­ly retir­ing from its Nylon busi­ness unit as a DuPont Fel­low after 48 years of ser­vice. An author­i­ty on het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts, Koch spent his entire career devel­op­ing chem­i­cal process­es and bring­ing them from the bench­top to com­mer­cial­iza­tion with marked cre­ativ­i­ty and tenac­i­ty.

Notable tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments in Koch’s career includ­ed devel­op­ing a new cat­a­lyst for nitrous oxide destruc­tion (an ozone-deple­tion byprod­uct from Nylon man­u­fac­ture), devel­op­ment of a new process for hydro­gen cyanide man­u­fac­ture and improve­ments to many poly­mer inter­me­di­ates process­es. Koch received the award for Excel­lence in Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy from the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia in 1994 and the Lavoisi­er Medal for Tech­ni­cal Excel­lence from the DuPont Co. in 1998. His exter­nal roles includ­ed adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware; pres­i­dent of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia; and mem­ber­ship in the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers, the Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. He held 29 patents and co-authored 18 jour­nal arti­cles and one text­book on catal­y­sis enti­tled, “Cat­a­lyst Man­u­fac­ture.”

Koch is sur­vived by his wife of 62 years, Anne, his five chil­dren, five grand­chil­dren and extend­ed fam­i­ly. His mem­o­ry lives on through the Theodore A. Koch Fund that will rec­og­nize and reward Delaware Val­ley achieve­ments in catal­y­sis research. Char­i­ta­ble dona­tions may be made to the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia, Ted Koch Fund, c/o Stephen Har­ris, Trea­sur­er, Ren­matix, 660 Allen­dale Road, King of Prus­sia, PA 19406.

Dr. Anne Gaffney is named the recipient of the 2015 Eugene J. Houdry Award of the North American Catalysis Society

Gaffney AnneAnne Gaffney is the recip­i­ent of the 2015 Eugene J. Houdry Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by Clari­ant. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. This award rec­og­nizes and encour­ages 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. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000, which will be pre­sent­ed at the 24th North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety to be held in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia on June 14–19, 2015. The Award Ple­nary lec­ture will also be pre­sent­ed dur­ing this meet­ing.

Anne Gaffney is being rec­og­nized for out­stand­ing achieve­ments in catal­y­sis as described below: (1) Devel­op­ment of improved rhodi­um based hydro­formy­la­tion cat­a­lyst for butane­di­ol (BDO) syn­the­sis from propy­lene oxide; (2) Devel­op­ment of mod­i­fied zeo­lite cat­a­lyst for Super­flex process for con­ver­sion of inex­pen­sive HC feeds such as naph­tha to valu­able light olefins which has been com­mer­cial­ized in 2007; (3) Devel­op­ment of Alky­Clean™ process and a new zeo­lite-based bimetal­lic cat­a­lyst for the alky­la­tion of C3-C5 olefins with isobu­tane, which has been com­mer­cial­ized in 2013. Her oth­er note­wor­thy achieve­ments include devel­op­ment of new cat­a­lysts based on pro­mot­ed lan­thanide oxides for methane con­ver­sion to eth­yl­ene by oxida­tive cou­pling; inven­tion of a new direct propy­lene oxide (PO) cat­a­lyst for the selec­tive oxi­da­tion of propy­lene with mol­e­c­u­lar oxy­gen; devel­op­ment of new cat­alyt­ic sys­tems for the par­tial oxi­da­tion of methane to syn­gas at the mil­lisec­ond con­tact time; inven­tion of new mixed met­al oxide cat­a­lysts for the selec­tive oxi­da­tion of propane to acrylic acid and the oxida­tive dehy­dro­gena­tion of alka­nes to olefins.

She received a Ph.D. in phys­i­cal organ­ic chem­istry from Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 1981, and a B.A. in chem­istry and math­e­mat­ics from Mount Holyoke Col­lege in 1976. Hav­ing worked at ARCO, DuPont, Rohm and Haas, and Lum­mus in var­i­ous R&D and lead­er­ship roles, she has been a most pro­lif­ic inven­tor and an author with 233 patent/patent appli­ca­tions and 94 pub­li­ca­tions (plus 2 book chap­ters and 2 books edit­ed) as well as 96 pre­sen­ta­tions or sem­i­nars. She has received many awards such as the ACS Award in Indus­tri­al Chem­istry in 2013, ACS Fel­low in 2010, the Trib­ute to Women in Indus­try Award in 2007, and the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award in 1999.

In Memoriam: Helmut Knözinger (1935–2014)

KnoezingerHel­mut Knözinger passed away at his home in Munich on Jan­u­ary 12, 2014, at age 78. The catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty los­es an active mem­ber of many years, a con­trib­u­tor of out­stand­ing sci­ence, leader in var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions, edi­tor of key pub­li­ca­tions, and part­ner in vibrant col­lab­o­ra­tions.

Knözinger stud­ied Physics at Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität München, with Phys­i­cal Chem­istry becom­ing his area of empha­sis dur­ing his time as a doc­tor­al stu­dent. His dis­ser­ta­tion (1961), which was super­vised by Georg-Maria Schwab, was his entrance into the field of catal­y­sis; he inves­ti­gat­ed the suit­abil­i­ty of the cat­alyt­ic decom­po­si­tion of methyl for­mate as a test reac­tion. He con­tin­ued on with the Habil­i­ta­tion (1967), the qual­i­fi­ca­tion for pro­fes­sor­ship with­in the Ger­man aca­d­e­m­ic sys­tem (Doc­tor of Sci­ences in oth­ers). The top­ic of the asso­ci­at­ed the­sis was the dehy­dra­tion of ethanol on alu­mi­na, a mate­r­i­al that would lat­er be the sub­ject of his per­haps most famous arti­cle. Knözinger held var­i­ous aca­d­e­m­ic posi­tions at Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ians-Uni­ver­sität München, with an inter­lude as a guest pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­dad Cen­tral de Cara­cas, Venezuela (1968/69), before he arrived at his final rank of pro­fes­sor (1980). He remained true to his alma mater until his offi­cial retire­ment in 2000, after which he kept an office and con­tin­ued to be active as a researcher and edi­tor.

Knözinger researched in many dif­fer­ent areas of catal­y­sis and excelled at devel­op­ing and apply­ing spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods for the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­a­lysts. Each of the class­es of mate­ri­als in his focus can be asso­ci­at­ed with meth­ods that he tai­lored for the pur­pose of their inves­ti­ga­tion. He made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of acid-base prop­er­ties of oxid­ic mate­ri­als, ana­lyz­ing the OH groups spec­tro­scop­i­cal­ly, and exten­sive­ly using car­bon monox­ide (CO) as a probe but also explor­ing much sought-for probe mol­e­cules for basic sur­face prop­er­ties. This work is doc­u­ment­ed in many orig­i­nal and review arti­cles, includ­ing those on alu­mi­na in Catal­y­sis Reviews-Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing in (with Rat­nasamy, 1978), on CO adsorp­tion in Mate­ri­als Chem­istry and Physics (with Zaki, 1987), on weak­ly inter­act­ing probes for zeo­lites in Jour­nal of the Chem­i­cal Soci­ety — Fara­day Trans­ac­tions (with Huber, 1998), and on acid-base char­ac­ter­i­za­tion in the Hand­book of Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis (2008). Relat­ing to his work on CO as a probe mol­e­cule, he also applied his skill in infrared spec­troscopy to sup­port­ed car­bonyl com­plex­es, of which he wrote in Ange­wandte Chemie Inter­na­tion­al Edi­tion (with Lamb and Gates, 1988). Oxides sup­port­ed on oth­er oxides was anoth­er focus area, with appli­ca­tions of the cat­a­lysts for exam­ple in hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion and selec­tive cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion. In addi­tion to probe mol­e­cule adsorp­tion and IR spec­troscopy — his forte, he applied Raman, UV-vis, and pho­to­elec­tron spec­troscopy. To inves­ti­gate the mech­a­nism of dis­per­sion of oxides on oth­er oxides, exper­i­ments to observe the trans­port were designed, and in a long-last­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Insti­tute for Plas­ma Physics in Garch­ing (a Max-Planck Insti­tute), thin film mod­el cat­a­lysts were inves­ti­gat­ed by sur­face sci­ence tech­niques such as ion scat­ter­ing and Auger elec­tron spec­troscopy. Exam­ples of this work are the arti­cles on molyb­de­na sup­port­ed on alu­mi­na in Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry (with Jeziorows­ki, 1978) or on sol­id-sol­id wet­ting in Sur­face Sci­ence in (with Leyr­er, Mar­graf, and Taglauer, 1988).

Knözinger’s work was rec­og­nized with nation­al and inter­na­tion­al awards, among them the Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship (1980), the Ipati­eff Lec­ture­ship (1988), the Max-Planck Research Award (1995), the Prix Gay Lus­sac Hum­boldt Prize (1997), and the Alwin Mit­tasch Medal of Dechema (1998). He became an hon­orary mem­ber of the Hun­gar­i­an Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in (1995), a mem­ber of the Acad­e­mia Europaea (2000), and an hon­orary pro­fes­sor of Nankai Uni­ver­si­ty, Tian­jin, Chi­na (2004). He was a mem­ber of chem­i­cal and catal­y­sis soci­eties, and helped orga­nize nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences on catal­y­sis. Notably, he was first a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis and then lat­er the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many in the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (1993–1999). He also act­ed as pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (1996–2000).

As edi­tor, Knözinger moved into the foot­steps of Schwab, who had edit­ed a hand­book of catal­y­sis. Togeth­er with Ertl and Weitkamp, Knözinger pub­lished the first edi­tion of the Hand­book of Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis with five vol­umes in 1997. Such was the suc­cess that a sec­ond edi­tion, with Schüth as addi­tion­al edi­tor and eight vol­umes, appeared in 2008. He served as an edi­tor of Advances in Catal­y­sis, in the years 1998 through 2011; under his reign, three vol­umes were ded­i­cat­ed to spec­tro­scop­ic analy­sis of the work­ing cat­a­lyst.

While Knözinger remained root­ed in Munich through­out his career, he cul­ti­vat­ed col­lab­o­ra­tions and exchange. He him­self was an avid trav­el­er and also a guest pro­fes­sor mul­ti­ple times, in Cara­cas, Xian­men, Evanston, Ams­ter­dam, and Paris. Researchers from around the world vis­it­ed his lab­o­ra­to­ry (their prove­nience was, in fact, tracked by pins in a wall map at the insti­tute), most­ly to per­form IR spec­tro­scop­ic exper­i­ments using his spe­cial­ly designed appa­ra­tus. Guests were treat­ed with gra­cious­ness and enjoyed Bavar­i­an hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

His con­stant inter­est in everybody’s research was man­i­fest in his dai­ly after­noon rounds through the labs with indi­vid­ual con­ver­sa­tions, his recep­tion of a knock at his office door, his overnight read­ing of man­u­scripts hand­ed to him. His reli­a­bil­i­ty and his self-dis­ci­pline were exem­plary. His advis­ing was nev­er force­ful, pro­mot­ing aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom and inde­pen­dence. A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of stu­dents achieved the doc­tor­al degree under his guid­ance and are tes­ta­ment to his skill as an advi­sor and men­tor. Knözinger was a gift­ed ath­lete in his youth and a moun­tain enthu­si­ast; he insti­gat­ed reg­u­lar group out­ings – hik­ing in sum­mer and ski­ing in win­ter. He cre­at­ed an atmos­phere of togeth­er­ness that let team spir­it and humor flour­ish and friend­ships be forged.

Knözinger was also a tal­ent­ed pho­tog­ra­ph­er and adhered to this pas­sion through­out his life – his cam­era accom­pa­nied him on most occa­sions. The var­i­ous pho­tographs dis­played in his office spoke of his skill, of his trav­els around the world, and his eye as an observ­er.

Hel­mut Knözinger’s pres­ence and his views will be missed.
 
Friederike Jentoft

In Memoriam: George Donald Blyholder (1931–2013)

Blyholder - BWGeorge Don­ald Bly­hold­er was born Jan­u­ary 10, 1931 in Eliz­a­beth, New Jer­sey but he grew up in Kansas City, Kansas and Chica­go, Illi­nois. He received his BA from Val­paraiso U., his BS from Pur­due U. in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and a Ph.D. in chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah. His the­sis was enti­tled “Kinet­ics of Graphite Oxi­da­tion” and a part of this was pub­lished with his advi­sor, the renowned kinetist Hen­ry Ery­ing. While a grad­u­ate stu­dent, he met and mar­ried Bet­ty Sue Con­rad. Fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion, he did post­doc­tor­al stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta and then at The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty with Prof. Paul H. Emmett. His work with Emmett involved the use of C‑14 labeled ketene to study the Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch reac­tion mech­a­nism. In 1959, he moved to Fayet­teville, Arkansas as a pro­fes­sor of chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Arkansas. There he was involved in pio­neer­ing research on the use of infrared spec­troscopy to study catal­y­sis. His pub­li­ca­tion “Mol­e­c­u­lar orbital view of chemisorbed car­bon monox­ide” in the Jour­nal of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry in 1964 has become a clas­sic pub­li­ca­tion with 719 cita­tions and prob­a­bly more where it is just referred to as the “Bly­hold­er Mod­el”. He retired in 1996, becom­ing an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor. He pub­lished more than 100 arti­cles in sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals with most in the area of sur­face sci­ence. His death at age 82 was on Febu­rary 24, 2013.

Dr. Burt Davis has been selected for the 2014 NACS Award for Distinguished Service

Burt_DavisDr. Burtron H. Davis has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the 2014 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The Award is 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. This award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. It is award­ed by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing and Clari­ant and will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the 2015 NAM in Pitts­burgh.

Dr. Davis is being rec­og­nized in par­tic­u­lar for his con­tri­bu­tion to indus­tri­al research prob­lems with a detailed under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tions. His work in iso­topic label­ing stud­ies has helped obtain in depth knowl­edge of reac­tion path­ways of indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant process­es and prob­ing cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms. Specif­i­cal­ly, Dr. Davis has focused on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch reac­tion mech­a­nisms and cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tions using cobalt, iron and ruthe­ni­um-based cat­a­lysts research­ing fun­da­men­tal ques­tions
with indus­try rel­e­vance. Dur­ing his five decade career, Dr. Davis has co-authored more than 500 peer reviewed pub­li­ca­tions and orga­nized numer­ous sym­posia in var­i­ous areas of catal­y­sis.

In ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, Dr. Davis has served the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in var­i­ous capac­i­ties includ­ing orga­niz­ing the 12th NAM in Lex­ing­ton and serv­ing as the Hon­orary Chair of the 23rd NAM in Louisville. For the past three decades Dr. Davis has func­tioned as a his­to­ri­an of the NACS and the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. His fore­sight, ded­i­ca­tion and efforts to archive and record the his­to­ry of the soci­ety and cat­alyt­ic sci­ence has led to an unprece­dent­ed NACS host­ed col­lec­tion of more than 1300 videos of con­fer­ence pre­sen­ta­tions and one on one inter­views. This col­lec­tion stands as a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion of Burt Davis to the preser­va­tion of the his­to­ry of catal­y­sis for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Parisian chemist wins prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry Prize

ChePro­fes­sor Michel Che, of the Uni­ver­sité Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6 & Insti­tut Uni­ver­si­taire de France, has been named the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry Fara­day Lec­ture­ship Prize win­ner for 2014.

The Fara­day Lec­ture­ship Prize is award­ed for excep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to phys­i­cal or the­o­ret­i­cal chem­istry.

Pro­fes­sor Che’s work has large­ly con­tributed to improve our under­stand­ing of the ele­men­tary process­es involved in laboratory/industrial catal­y­sis, and bridged the gap between homo- and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis.

His research con­cerns sur­face reac­tiv­i­ty with empha­sis on the func­tion­al­iza­tion of inor­gan­ic oxides and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. He pio­neered a mol­e­c­u­lar approach, based on tran­si­tion met­al com­plex­es tak­en as probes, spe­cif­ic iso­topes and phys­i­cal tech­niques. His work has led to the emer­gence of inter­fa­cial coor­di­na­tion chem­istry at the cross­roads of chem­istry.

Dr Robert Park­er, Chief Exec­u­tive of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry said: “Each year we present Prizes and Awards to chem­i­cal sci­en­tists who have made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion, be that in their area of research, in indus­try or acad­e­mia.

“We’re work­ing to shape the future of the chem­i­cal sci­ences for the ben­e­fit of sci­ence and human­i­ty and these Prizes and Awards give recog­ni­tion to true excel­lence.

“Our win­ners can be very proud to fol­low in the foot­steps of some of the most influ­en­tial and impor­tant chem­i­cal sci­en­tists in his­to­ry.”

An incred­i­ble 47 pre­vi­ous win­ners of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chemistry’s Awards have gone on to win Nobel Prizes for their pio­neer­ing work, includ­ing Har­ry Kro­to, Fred Sanger and Linus Paul­ing.

Indeed, one of the 2012 Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry Prize win­ners, Arieh Warshel, was award­ed the Nobel Prize in Chem­istry last year.
 
Reward­ing Excel­lence and Gain­ing Recog­ni­tion
The Roy­al Soci­ety of Chemistry’s Prizes and Awards recog­nise achieve­ments by indi­vid­u­als, teams and organ­i­sa­tions in advanc­ing the chem­i­cal sci­ences. We want to reward those under­tak­ing excel­lent work in the chem­i­cal sci­ences from across the world.

There are over 60 Prizes and Awards avail­able in the main port­fo­lio, cov­er­ing all areas of the chem­i­cal sci­ences. So whether you work in research, busi­ness, indus­try or edu­ca­tion, recog­ni­tion is open to every­one.

The Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry is the world’s lead­ing chem­istry com­mu­ni­ty, advanc­ing excel­lence in the chem­i­cal sci­ences. With over 49,000 mem­bers and a knowl­edge busi­ness that spans the globe, we are the UK’s pro­fes­sion­al body for chem­i­cal sci­en­tists; a not-for-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion with 170 years of his­to­ry and an inter­na­tion­al vision of the future. We pro­mote, sup­port and cel­e­brate chem­istry. We work to shape the future of the chem­i­cal sci­ences – for the ben­e­fit of sci­ence and human­i­ty.
 
More infor­ma­tion on Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry Prizes and Awards
http://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Awards/2014-RSC-Prizes-Awards.asp
Pro­fes­sor Che is award­ed “for pio­neer­ing a mol­e­c­u­lar approach to cat­a­lyst design by bridg­ing the gap between homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis through the new field of inter­fa­cial coor­di­na­tion chem­istry.”