The South­west Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (SWCS) Award for Excel­lence in Applied Catal­y­sis will be pre­sent­ed at its Spring Sym­po­sium (April 25) to Dr. Heiko Wein­er, Prin­ci­pal R&D Chemist, Celanese. Heiko’s impor­tant work on the hydro­gena­tion of acetic acid to ethanol and eth­yl acetate has been applied com­mer­cial­ly in 2012 and a sec­ond com­mer­cial plant is expect­ed online soon. Heiko’s work was com­plet­ed at the Celanese Clear Lake, Texas office in the SWCS region, and fol­lowed the cat­a­lyst dis­cov­ery and devel­op­ment process from high through­put screen­ing, opti­miza­tion, scale-up and all the way through to com­mer­cial­iza­tion. The award includes a $1500 cash prize as well as an invi­ta­tion to present a keynote address at the 2015 SWCS Spring Sym­po­sium.