Pro­fes­sor Bert Weck­huy­sen of the Debye Insti­tute for Nano­ma­te­ri­als Sci­ence of Utrecht Uni­ver­si­ty (The Nether­lands) is the recip­i­ent of the 2011 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by the Grace Davi­son 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 22nd North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety to be held in Detroit, Michi­gan on June 5–10, 2011. Pro­fes­sor Weck­huy­sen will present a ple­nary lec­ture dur­ing this 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. 

Pro­fes­sor Weck­huy­sen is being rec­og­nized for his pio­neer­ing devel­op­ment and use of in-situ spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to probe solids at the microm­e­ter and nanome­ter scale dur­ing their acti­va­tion and their func­tion as cat­a­lysts. These stud­ies have led to fun­da­men­tal insights into the dis­tri­b­u­tion of active sites and the mech­a­nism of mol­e­c­u­lar dif­fu­sion and deac­ti­va­tion phe­nom­e­na in zeo­lite and Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch cat­a­lysts. Specif­i­cal­ly, spa­tial het­ero­geneities in activ­i­ty, selec­tiv­i­ty and cok­ing with­in indi­vid­ual ZSM‑5 zeo­lite crys­tals were detect­ed using a nov­el com­bi­na­tion of micro-spec­troscopy and rate data and inter­pret­ed in terms of com­plex but broad­ly applic­a­ble zeo­lite inter­growth mod­els direct­ly rel­e­vant to mol­e­c­u­lar dif­fu­sion and to meso­poros­i­ty gen­er­a­tion dur­ing syn­the­sis. In oth­er stud­ies, X‑ray microscopy com­bined with an in-situ reac­tor led to unprece­dent­ed details of nanoscale process­es involved in Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, espe­cial­ly as they per­tain to the dynam­ic evo­lu­tion and the cat­alyt­ic rel­e­vance of the var­i­ous inor­gan­ic and organ­ic phas­es formed dur­ing catalysis.

Harold Kung, pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal engi­neer­ing at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty’s McCormick School of Engi­neer­ing and Applied Sci­ence, will receive the 2011 Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Society.

The award rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing the­o­ret­i­cal, exper­i­men­tal, or devel­op­men­tal research result­ing in the advance­ment of under­stand­ing or appli­ca­tion of catal­y­sis, and the list of win­ners includes the great­est researchers in the field of catalysis.

Kung is a world leader in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis research and the devel­op­ment of nov­el mate­ri­als and process­es. He applies his exper­tise to the crit­i­cal areas of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, renew­able ener­gy and envi­ron­men­tal chemistry.

Cur­rent­ly Kung and his research group are focused on the syn­the­sis of nov­el nano­ma­te­ri­als for cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions to min­i­mize ener­gy con­sump­tion and envi­ron­men­tal impact and on new lithi­um-ion bat­tery tech­nolo­gies, such as new forms of elec­trodes for improved elec­tri­cal ener­gy storage.

Dur­ing his career Kung has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in var­i­ous areas of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, start­ing with sem­i­nal work that demon­strat­ed the rela­tion­ship between sur­face atom­ic struc­tures of an oxide and its chem­i­cal and cat­alyt­ic prop­er­ties. He has led the field in study­ing oxide-based cat­a­lysts for the removal of the atmos­pher­ic pol­lu­tant nitric oxide by reduc­tion with hydro­car­bons in an oxi­diz­ing atmos­phere. More recent­ly, Kung became the first to syn­the­size an inter­nal­ly func­tion­al­ized hol­low nanos­phere that can be used to trap and bind mol­e­cules and met­al complexes.

The award will be pre­sent­ed at the spring meet­ing of the ACS in 2011.
 
This arti­cle was repro­duced from www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/article_753.html.

Chun­shan Song, dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor of fuel sci­ence in the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Min­er­al Engi­neer­ing and Direc­tor of EMS Ener­gy Insti­tute at Penn State, received the Hen­ry H. Storch Award in Fuel Chem­istry from Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (ACS) at the 240th ACS nation­al meet­ing held in Boston, MA, dur­ing Aug 21–26, 2010. He received this pres­ti­gious award in recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to fuel sci­ence espe­cial­ly in the areas of clean fuels, catal­y­sis, and CO2 cap­ture and con­ver­sion research.

The Hen­ry H. Storch Award, co-spon­sored by the Divi­sion of Fuel Chem­istry of the ACS and Else­vi­er Ltd., is giv­en annu­al­ly to rec­og­nize an indi­vid­ual in the field of fuel sci­ence for an excep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion to the research on the chem­istry and uti­liza­tion of hydro­car­bon fuels. Spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion is giv­en to inno­va­tion and nov­el­ty in the use of fuels, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of fuels, and advances in fuel chem­istry that ben­e­fit the pub­lic wel­fare or the envi­ron­ment. The award is the high­est hon­or for research award­ed by the ACS Fuel Chem­istry Division.

Song was recent­ly named a Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Fuel Sci­ence by Penn State’s Office of the Pres­i­dent. He is also pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Penn State Insti­tutes of Ener­gy and the Envi­ron­ment. He received a BS in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing in 1982 from Dalian Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Chi­na, and a MS in 1986 and PhD in 1989 in applied chem­istry from Osa­ka Uni­ver­si­ty, Japan. He worked at the Research Cen­ter of Osa­ka Gas Com­pa­ny in Japan pri­or to join­ing Penn State in Nov 1989. 

Song is inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized for his orig­i­nal and inno­v­a­tive con­tri­bu­tions to clean fuels, catal­y­sis and CO2 cap­ture and con­ver­sion research. His ear­ly research at Penn State on cat­alyt­ic coal liq­ue­fac­tion and the effects of dry­ing coal on coal con­ver­sion at low tem­per­a­tures led to a new way of prepar­ing high­ly active dis­persed cat­a­lysts using water and sul­fide pre­cur­sor. Based on this dis­cov­ery, fur­ther fun­da­men­tal stud­ies using probe mol­e­cules result­ed in two patents for inven­tions on nano-sized ultra-high-sur­face met­al sul­fide cat­a­lysts that have been licensed to indus­try. From his efforts to make bet­ter use of coal-derived aro­mat­ics for val­ue-added chem­i­cals, he has designed shape-selec­tive alky­la­tion cat­a­lysts for syn­the­sis of pre­cur­sors for advanced poly­mers and engi­neer­ing mate­ri­als from naph­tha­lene, which have been patent­ed and licensed to indus­try. He has made major con­tri­bu­tions to the devel­op­ment of coal-based advanced ther­mal­ly sta­ble jet fuels through his work on fun­da­men­tal chem­istry con­cern­ing the effects of intrin­sic fuel com­po­si­tion and struc­ture on ther­mal degra­da­tion of jet fuels, and his work on mod­el com­pounds stud­ies relat­ed to sta­ble bicyclic struc­tures and hydroaro­mat­ics and their tai­lored pro­duc­tion through catal­y­sis. These devel­op­ments were part of the large, 20 year, U.S. gov­ern­ment-fund­ed jet fuel project led by Harold Schobert at Penn State, which has been scaled up to pilot plant pro­duc­tion. For ultra-clean fuels and fuel cells, Song and his group devised an inno­v­a­tive approach to selec­tive adsorp­tion for remov­ing sul­fur from liq­uid hydro­car­bon fuels over sol­id sur­face with­out using hydro­gen, which has also been licensed to indus­try and already used for mak­ing pro­to­type systems.

His group recent­ly devel­oped a nov­el approach to CO2 cap­ture by “mol­e­c­u­lar-bas­ket sor­bents” con­sist­ing of nanoporous matrix and func­tion­al poly­mers with supe­ri­or capac­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty. In addi­tion, his group devel­oped sul­fur-tol­er­ant and car­bon-resis­tant bimetal­lic and trimetal­lic cat­a­lysts for low-tem­per­a­ture steam reform­ing of liq­uid fuels and non-pyrophor­ic cat­a­lysts for oxy­gen-assist­ed water gas shift. He recent­ly pro­posed a new design con­cept of sul­fur-tol­er­ant noble met­al cat­a­lysts for low-tem­per­a­ture hydrotreat­ing and dearom­a­ti­za­tion for ultra clean fuels.

Song is an active leader in hydro­car­bon pro­cess­ing research and has been elect­ed as Chair of the Fuel Chem­istry and the Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sions of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety as well as Chair of the Advi­so­ry Board for the Inter­na­tion­al Pitts­burgh Coal Con­fer­ence. He has also served as chair or co-chair for over 35 inter­na­tion­al sym­posia, and is cur­rent­ly on eight research jour­nal advi­so­ry boards, includ­ing Ener­gy & Fuels, Catal­y­sis Today, Applied Catal­y­sis B: Envi­ron­men­tal, RSC Catal­y­sis series, Research on Chem­i­cal Inter­me­di­ates, Jour­nal of Fuel Chem­istry and Tech­nol­o­gy, Acta Petrolei Sini­ca, and Coal Con­ver­sion. In addi­tion, he serves on the sci­en­tif­ic advi­so­ry boards for sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence series and for sev­er­al R&D orga­ni­za­tions worldwide.

A pro­lif­ic author of many high-impact pub­li­ca­tions, Song has deliv­ered 40 ple­nary or keynote lec­tures at inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences and 190 invit­ed lec­tures world­wide. He has 170 ref­er­eed jour­nal arti­cles (which received over 4400 cita­tions), 6 ref­er­eed books, 25 book chap­ters, 11 spe­cial jour­nal issues, 20 patents and patent appli­ca­tions, and over 280 con­fer­ence papers. He has also received a num­ber of major awards, includ­ing the 2010 Class of ACS Fel­lows, the Ful­bright Dis­tin­guished Schol­ar from US-UK; the Her­man Pines Award for Out­stand­ing Research in Catal­y­sis from Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go in North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; the Chang Jiang Schol­ar from the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion of Chi­na; Most Cit­ed Authors in Catal­y­sis from Else­vi­er; Out­stand­ing Schol­ar Over­seas from the Chi­nese Acad­e­my of Sci­ences; the Dis­tin­guished Catal­y­sis Researcher Lec­ture­ship from Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry; the Robin­son Dis­tin­guished Lec­ture­ship from Uni­ver­si­ty of Alber­ta, Cana­da; the NEDO Fel­low­ship and AIST Fel­low­ship Awards from Japan; Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice Awards from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Society’s Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sion, and from the Annu­al Inter­na­tion­al Pitts­burgh Coal Con­fer­ence. With­in the Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, he has received the Wil­son Award for Excel­lence in Research, the Fac­ul­ty Men­tor­ing Award, Inven­tor Incen­tive Awards and the Mate­ri­als Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing Ser­vice Award. . In addi­tion, Song has held vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor­ships with Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don, Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris VI, Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty, Dalian Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Taiyuan Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy, Tian­jin Uni­ver­si­ty, and Dalian Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Physics as well as Insti­tute of Coal Chem­istry with­in Chi­nese Acad­e­my of Sciences. 

A Storch Award Sym­po­sium in Hon­or of Chun­shan Song was held at ACS Fall 2010 Nation­al Meet­ing in Boston dur­ing August 22–26, 2010. 

The Amer­i­ca Chem­i­cal Soci­ety has announced (pubs.acs.org/cen/fellows/) the elec­tion of 192 mem­bers to its 2010 ACS Fel­lows pro­gram for their out­stand­ing achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence, the pro­fes­sion, and ser­vice to the soci­ety. These fel­lows include the fol­low­ing mem­bers of our catal­y­sis community:

• Galen B. Fish­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan
• Cyn­thia M. Friend, Har­vard University
• Anne M. Gaffney, AMG Chem­istry & Catal­y­sis Consulting
• Enrique Igle­sia, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berkeley
• Bruce D. Kay, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Laboratory
• Robert J. Madix, Stan­ford University
• Chun­shan Song, Penn­syl­va­nia State University
• Kath­leen Tay­lor, Gen­er­al Motors (retired)
• Yong Wang, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Laboratory
• Joseph R. Zoeller, East­man Chem­i­cal Company

 
CONGRATULATIONS!

The Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sion of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety is pleased to announce that Dr. Hen­rik Top­søe has been select­ed as the win­ner of the 2010 Dis­tin­guished Researcher Award.

Hen­rik Top­søe is being rec­og­nized for his out­stand­ing research con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts. Hen­rik Top­søe is Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent at Hal­dor Top­søe A/S in Lyn­g­by, Den­mark. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing in 1972 from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. After a post­doc­tor­al stay at Stan­ford, he joined the Hal­dor Top­søe Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries in 1974. Here he start­ed the fun­da­men­tal catal­y­sis group and he has also been the man­ag­er of the catal­y­sis research depart­ment. Hen­rik Top­søe is adjunct pro­fes­sor at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­mark (DTH) and has for many years been pres­i­dent of the Dan­ish and Nordic Catal­y­sis Soci­eties and he is on the edi­to­r­i­al boards of sev­er­al catal­y­sis jour­nals. His awards include UOP Inter­na­tion­al lec­tur­er, Ford Dis­tin­guished lec­tures, Mason lec­tur­er and the 2003 Glenn Award from ACS Fuel Chem­istry Divi­sion. He was the first indus­tri­al researcher to be award­ed The Fran­cois Gault Lec­ture­ship from the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (2000). In 2005, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety award­ed Hen­rik Top­søe the Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis.

A cen­tral theme in the research of Hen­rik Top­søe has been the estab­lish­ment of a mol­e­c­u­lar basis for the design and pro­duc­tion of improved indus­tri­al cat­a­lysts. In order to achieve this goal, Hen­rik Top­søe and his col­leagues have over the years devel­oped many impor­tant nov­el mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques and approach­es. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis has been placed on under­stand­ing and devel­op­ing improved hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts, but many stud­ies were also devot­ed to ammo­nia syn­the­sis, methanol syn­the­sis and DeNOx cat­a­lysts. At the time Hen­rik Top­søe and his col­leagues start­ed their research on hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts, the cat­a­lyst sys­tems were poor­ly under­stood. Con­se­quent­ly, spe­cial efforts were devot­ed to the devel­op­ment of new tools and in situ approach­es which could pro­vide the nec­es­sary atom­ic and mol­e­c­u­lar insight under rel­e­vant con­di­tions. The stud­ies were the first ones to reveal the nature of the active struc­tures, the so-called Co-Mo‑S fam­i­ly of pro­mot­ed struc­tures. Lat­er stud­ies have pro­vid­ed addi­tion­al atom­ic insight into these struc­tures and have elu­ci­dat­ed the fac­tors gov­ern­ing their pro­duc­tion and how their activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty may be enhanced based on the opti­miza­tion of sup­port inter­ac­tions and oth­er cat­a­lysts fea­tures. This insight has been used by the indus­try world­wide for the intro­duc­tion of many improved gen­er­a­tions of cat­a­lysts – the lat­est being the Top­søe BRIMTM tech­nol­o­gy for sev­er­al crit­i­cal refin­ing ser­vices includ­ing the pro­duc­tion of Ultra Low Sul­fur Diesel (ULSD). Hen­rik Top­søe has co-authored 180 pub­li­ca­tions, 3 books and has giv­en more than 140 invit­ed lectures. 

An ACS Sym­po­sium in Hon­or of Hen­rik Top­soe is being orga­nized by Prof. Chun­shan Song of Penn State on behalf of ACS Petro­le­um Chem­istry Divi­sion at the ACS Nation­al Meet­ing in Boston dur­ing August 22–26, 2010. 

Dr. Jef­frey T. Miller, cur­rent­ly Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis Group Leader at Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, is the recip­i­ent of the 2010 F.G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis Award spon­sored by the Grace Davi­son oper­at­ing seg­ment of W.R. Grace & Co. and The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The Award is pre­sent­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years and con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The award plaque will be pre­sent­ed at the clos­ing ban­quet dur­ing the 2011 Meet­ing of the North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Dr. Miller will present lec­tures at the reg­u­lar meet­ing of the affil­i­at­ed local clubs and soci­ety dur­ing 2010 and 2011. 

Dr. Miller is being rec­og­nized for his con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture and to the prac­tice of catal­y­sis. His ded­i­ca­tion and inten­si­ty in the pur­suit of knowl­edge has led to indus­tri­al appli­ca­tions of his inven­tions and to a large num­ber of sci­en­tif­ic papers. His excel­lent con­tri­bu­tions have advanced our knowl­edge of fun­da­men­tal cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, while his inter­ac­tions with acad­e­mia have enriched the edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence of many grad­u­ate students. 

His research at BP/Amoco led to the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al refin­ing and petro­chem­i­cal cat­a­lysts that remain in use. These include cat­a­lysts and process­es for upgrad­ing of high­ly aro­mat­ic feeds, for toluene dis­pro­por­tion­a­tion and transalky­la­tion reac­tions, and for con­ver­sion of waste chem­i­cals to high-val­ue aro­mat­ic chem­i­cals and fuel com­po­nents. Through his aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tions, he has con­tributed to our fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of acid-cat­alyzed hydro­car­bon crack­ing by zeo­lites and to the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and func­tion of met­al and alloy nanopar­ti­cles. He is wide­ly regard­ed as a leader in the appli­ca­tion of X‑ray absorp­tion meth­ods dur­ing catal­y­sis to probe syn­thet­ic path­ways, iden­ti­fy active sites, and deter­mine the dynam­ics of spe­cif­ic ele­men­tary steps with­in com­plex cat­alyt­ic sequences. Upon retire­ment from BP/Amoco, he joined Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry, where he con­tin­ues his research on future sources of ener­gy and his ped­a­gog­i­cal endeav­ors in the appli­ca­tion of X‑ray spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to the study of cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic chemistries. 

Pro­fes­sor W. Nicholas Del­gass (Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty) is the recip­i­ent of the inau­gur­al NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This Award will be 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. The award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($5,000) and a plaque. The lat­ter will be pre­sent­ed at the clos­ing ban­quet dur­ing the 2011 NAM in Detroit. 

The career of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass, over its four decades, exem­pli­fies this com­bi­na­tion of pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence of catal­y­sis, ded­i­ca­tion and rig­or in the edu­ca­tion of sci­en­tists and engi­neers, and ser­vice to oth­ers in the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. His research achieve­ments include the syn­the­sis of nov­el cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, the devel­op­ment of mod­ern spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods for cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and the use of rig­or­ous kinet­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods to elu­ci­date the mech­a­nism of com­plex cat­alyt­ic reac­tions on solids. He is lead­ing a team that is devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing mod­el-based approach­es for the design and effi­cient opti­miza­tion of new cat­a­lysts. Pro­fes­sor Del­gass has been a remark­ably gift­ed and ded­i­cat­ed teacher, both in the class­room and in the research lab­o­ra­to­ry. He has been rec­og­nized with the most pres­ti­gious teach­ing hon­ors on the Pur­due cam­pus. In his ser­vice to stu­dents and peers as Asso­ciate Head of the School of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, he has shown a true com­mit­ment to men­tor and edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion of chem­i­cal engi­neers. His pas­sion for men­tor­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents and young fac­ul­ty was rec­og­nized with the inau­gur­al Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing Men­tor­ing Excel­lence Award. Many among our catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty, in acad­e­mia and in indus­try, have been touched by his thought­ful advice. For many years, he was the zeal­ous guardian and gen­tle stew­ard of the archives of our dis­ci­pline, as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis. He has ded­i­cat­ed his time and efforts to the orga­ni­za­tion of the 11th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis and of numer­ous sym­posia at AIChE, ACS and Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ings. It is a fit­ting ges­ture of thanks that our com­mu­ni­ty has cho­sen to rec­og­nize the schol­ar­ship and ded­i­ca­tion of Pro­fes­sor Del­gass with this inau­gur­al award for service.

Pro­fes­sor Anders Hol­men (Nor­we­gian Uni­ver­si­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy) has been cho­sen as the recip­i­ent of the 2010 Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion. The Award is pre­sent­ed every three years dur­ing the Inter­na­tion­al Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium to rec­og­nize endur­ing and sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy for the con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas to valu­able prod­ucts. The pre­vi­ous award recip­i­ents are Jack Lunsford, Jens Ros­trup-Nielsen, Lan­ny Schmidt, Enrique Igle­sia, and David Trimm.

Pro­fes­sor Hol­men is being rec­og­nized for his achieve­ments in advanc­ing con­cepts and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions of direct and indi­rect routes for the effi­cient uti­liza­tion of nat­ur­al gas. He has con­tributed fun­da­men­tal con­cepts for the con­ver­sion of methane to acety­lene in high-tem­per­a­ture short-con­tact time reac­tors. His research group has devel­oped and used meth­ods for mea­sur­ing the dynam­ics of car­bon for­ma­tion dur­ing methane reac­tions at con­di­tions rel­e­vant to indus­tri­al prac­tice and for the elu­ci­da­tion of the kinet­ics and mech­a­nism of par­tial oxi­da­tion of light alka­nes. Through­out his career, Pro­fes­sor Hol­men has con­tributed to our under­stand­ing and prac­tice of the Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, specif­i­cal­ly by unrav­el­ing the com­plex effects of water on reac­tion rate and selec­tiv­i­ty and the role of Co crys­tal­lite size and of sup­ports on cat­a­lyst reac­tiv­i­ty and stability.

The award con­sists of a plaque and a mon­e­tary prize, which will pre­sent­ed at the 9th Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Sym­po­sium (NGCS) to be held in Lyon, France (May 30-June 3, 2010). Pro­fes­sor Hol­men will also present the Award Ple­nary Lec­ture dur­ing this meeting.

The selec­tion com­mit­tee for this Award con­sists of pre­vi­ous awardees togeth­er with sev­er­al mem­bers of the NGCS Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Board. Nom­i­na­tions are con­sid­ered from a broad cross-sec­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al mem­bers of the nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion community.

The Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing (CRE) Divi­sion of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers (AIChE) is delight­ed to announce that Ros­tam J. Madon of BASF Cat­a­lysts, LLC has been select­ed as the recip­i­ent of the AIChE CRE Divi­sion Prac­tice Award for 2009. This award rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who have made pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to indus­tri­al prac­tice of catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing. The can­di­date must have made impor­tant and spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions, ver­i­fi­able by means of well-doc­u­ment­ed evi­den­tial mate­ri­als, to the inven­tion, devel­op­ment, design or imple­men­ta­tion of indus­tri­al prod­ucts, cat­a­lysts or process­es through inge­nious and cre­ative appli­ca­tion of chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing and/or catal­y­sis con­cepts. Awardees are select­ed based on their con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive catal­y­sis or reac­tion engi­neer­ing solu­tions to tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems, and/or com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new prod­ucts and process­es. The award con­sists of a plaque and cash award of $1,000 to be pre­sent­ed at the Divi­sion Recep­tion dur­ing the AIChE annu­al meet­ing in Nashville, Ten­nessee. A spe­cial ses­sion will be held in hon­or of the recip­i­ent at the annu­al meet­ing dur­ing which he will also present a lecture.

Ross Madon has made pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions of remark­able breadth and depth to the chem­istry and engi­neer­ing of cat­alyt­ic process­es. Ear­ly in his career, he guid­ed the field by address­ing arti­facts in kinet­ic data using meth­ods that are accept­ed today as defin­i­tive cri­te­ria for kinet­ic con­trol in catal­y­sis. In the process, he brought tran­si­tion state for­malisms for ther­mo­dy­nam­i­cal­ly non-ide­al sys­tems, first intro­duced by his advi­sor Michel Boudart, into the realm of prac­ti­cal catal­y­sis. His con­tri­bu­tions to cat­a­lyst design for Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis and cat­alyt­ic crack­ing, two of the most hydro­dy­nam­i­cal­ly, kinet­i­cal­ly, and mol­e­c­u­lar­ly com­plex reac­tion sys­tems known, illus­trate his unique abil­i­ty to con­tribute con­cepts and approach­es to sys­tems that oth­ers avoid or mere­ly mis­in­ter­pret because of their com­plex­i­ty. Ross Madon excels at the inter­face of chem­istry and engi­neer­ing and his achieve­ments bridge con­cep­tu­al advances with com­mer­cial cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies. Recent­ly, he elu­ci­dat­ed the mech­a­nism by which vana­di­um caus­es struc­tur­al degra­da­tion of FCC cat­a­lysts and used this under­stand­ing to min­i­mize its dele­te­ri­ous effect. His stud­ies have pro­vid­ed a def­i­nite assess­ment of the role of ZSM‑5 addi­tives in FCC to replace inac­cu­rate or phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal descrip­tions of such phe­nom­e­na. His kinet­ic treat­ments of FCC catal­y­sis brought fun­da­men­tal chem­i­cal insights into a sys­tem once con­sid­ered too com­plex for such rig­or. Ross then used the knowl­edge to go beyond its schol­ar­ly ele­gance and designed com­mer­cial FCC cat­a­lysts based on such prin­ci­ples. He is the coin­ven­tor and devel­op­er of the Redux­ion – Max­ol® fam­i­ly of FCC cat­a­lysts and of the Iso­Plus® and Ultri­um® fam­i­lies. He coin­vent­ed the Flex-Tec® resid crack­ing cat­a­lyst which has been wide­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly deployed in demand­ing resid cat crack­ing process­es. He has thrived in indus­tri­al set­tings, but his thought process and con­cep­tu­al approach is firm­ly plant­ed in the realm of thought­ful sci­ence. He has tack­led tru­ly dif­fi­cult prob­lems and tak­en them beyond where oth­ers could, with ele­gance and rig­or bal­anced by rel­e­vance and impact.

The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety is pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Bruce Gates is the recip­i­ent of the 2009 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis. Since 1992 Bruce has been on the fac­ul­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis, where he has the title of Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing. His inter­ests include Catal­y­sis, Cat­alyt­ic Reac­tors, Chem­i­cal Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing, Mate­r­i­al Micro Struc­ture, and Sol-Gel Processing.

This award is spon­sored by John­son Matthey Cat­a­lysts Com­pa­ny and admin­is­tered by the Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um as well as a trav­el award to pro­vide the recip­i­ent with funds for vis­it­ing (until funds run out) any of the 14 local clubs com­pris­ing the Soci­ety. 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.

For almost 40 years he has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in three areas: the prepa­ra­tion and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of sur­face organometal­lic com­plex­es, catal­y­sis by strong sol­id acids, and the kinet­ics and reac­tion path­ways of hydropro­cess­ing catal­y­sis. In the catal­y­sis by strong sol­id acids, Bruce both expand­ed the appli­ca­tions and fur­thered under­stand­ing of under­ly­ing mech­a­nisms. More recent­ly, in a series of papers begin­ning in 1998, Bruce (with Bob Gras­sel­li and Hel­mut Knözinger) explained the sur­face chem­istry of tungstat­ed zir­co­nias with and with­out Pt, high­light­ing the role of sur­face reduc­tion to W5+ and –OH in gen­er­at­ing the active sites for alka­ne iso­mer­iza­tion. Bruce’s con­tri­bu­tions to hydropro­cess­ing catal­y­sis are equal­ly notable. His two review arti­cles great­ly assist­ed those requir­ing intro­duc­tion to the field; each has been cit­ed in excess of 375 times. The sci­en­tif­ic con­tri­bu­tion was his recog­ni­tion (with James Katzer and George Schuit) that com­plex hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion and hydro­gena­tion net­works could be under­stood in terms of a small num­ber of reac­tions whose rates could be quan­ti­fied using mod­el sub­strates. One sup­port­er remarked that Bruce’s work in met­al clus­ters rev­o­lu­tion­ized the field of sur­face organometal­lic catal­y­sis. Here also he has authored wide­ly read reviews, and sev­er­al influ­en­tial, exten­sive­ly cit­ed papers. Much of this recent work has tar­get­ed catal­y­sis by gold clus­ters or nanocrys­tals, work char­ac­ter­ized by mul­ti-tech­nique cor­re­la­tion of cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty to sur­face struc­ture, care­ful inter­pre­ta­tion of EXAFS data char­ac­ter­iz­ing sur­face coor­di­na­tion, and prop­er con­sid­er­a­tion of how the catal­y­sis alters the as-syn­the­sized mate­ri­als. Bruce was an ear­ly user and pro­po­nent of EXAFS and XANES in cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Many “nanoscience” papers in the lit­er­a­ture today fol­low along paths he pio­neered years ago.

Final­ly it should be not­ed that Bruce has edu­cat­ed two gen­er­a­tions of cat­alyt­ic sci­en­tists and indus­tri­al prac­ti­tion­ers, through his wide­ly used teach­ing texts (“Chem­istry of Cat­alyt­ic Process­es” is a world­wide best sell­er), the many short cours­es he helped devel­op and teach (the one based on this book was taught for over 30 years at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware, and at many indus­tri­al research cen­ters) and not least through his men­tor­ing of over 130 grad­u­ate stu­dents, post­docs and vis­it­ing sci­en­tists. Bruce has been a tire­less cheer­leader for the field of catal­y­sis and in all his lec­tures strives for under­stand­ing, arous­ing curios­i­ty, and get­ting down to the essen­tials of a prob­lem. He has also been a very active mem­ber of the Board of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society.

Local clubs should con­tact Pro­fes­sor Gates [bcgates@ucdavis.edu] direct­ly about speak­ing engage­ments over the next two years. More infor­ma­tion on this award, the awards process, and pre­vi­ous awardees can be found inside the Awards fold­er on the NACS home page: www.nacatsoc.org.