James C. Stevens, a research fel­low at Dow Chem­i­cal in Freeport, Texas, is the recip­i­ent of the ACS award in Indus­tri­al Chem­istry for dis­cov­ery and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment of cat­a­lysts used in the poly­olefin pro­duc­tion. This award rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to chem­i­cal research in the indus­tri­al context.

His work on designed lig­ands for tita­ni­um- and zir­co­ni­um-based cat­a­lysts led to the dis­cov­ery of the “sin­gle-site, con­strained-geom­e­try cat­a­lyst sys­tem” in the late 1980s. Stevens and his col­leagues refined the tech­nol­o­gy, trans­form­ing it “from a lab curios­i­ty to a com­mer­cial real­i­ty” for the pro­duc­tion of poly­olefins. More recent­ly, his col­lab­o­ra­tion with Symyx Tech­nolo­gies led to the dis­cov­ery of a new class of hafni­um-based sin­gle-site cat­a­lysts for the poly­mer­iza­tion of propy­lene. Stevens holds 75 patents and his work have result­ed in com­mer­cial suc­cess for Dow. The cat­a­lysts he helped to devel­op are used in the pro­duc­tion of more than 1 bil­lion pounds of plas­tics and elas­tomers per year.

Tobin J. Marks, a catal­y­sis chem­istry pro­fes­sor at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, says Stevens is “the kind of superb indus­tri­al sci­en­tist and tech­nol­o­gist who comes along only once in a gen­er­a­tion.” Marks adds that Stevens’ work “has per­ma­nent­ly changed the face of mod­ern poly­mer­iza­tion sci­ence, and has led to a num­ber of mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar process­es that pro­duce clean­er, green­er, more recy­clable, and more pro­ces­si­ble poly­mer­ic mate­ri­als than ever believed pos­si­ble. More­over, due to Stevens’ inci­sive work, the inti­mate mech­a­nis­tic details of cat­a­lyst func­tion are under­stood at a lev­el nev­er before thought pos­si­ble for an indus­tri­al olefin-poly­mer­iza­tion catalyst.”
 
Past Recip­i­ents

• 1991 James F. Roth
• 1992 David R. Bryant
• 1993 Lar­ry F. Thompson
• 1994 Mar­i­on D. Francis
• 1995 Lynn H. Slaugh
• 1996 Gor­don W. Calundann
• 1997 Robert M. Sydansk
• 1998 William C. Drinkard, Jr.
• 1999 Madan M. Bhasin
• 2000 Gui­do Sartori
• 2001 Paul S. Anderson
• 2002 Bipin V. Vora
• 2003 Bruce E. Maryanoff
• 2004 Joseph C. Salamone
• 2005 Edwin A. Chandross
• 2006 James C. Stevens

James A. Dumesic, Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son, is the recip­i­ent of the Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis spon­sored by the Gabor A. & Judith K. Somor­jai Endow­ment Fund.

Prof. Dumesic research group is cur­rent­ly work­ing in the broad areas of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and sur­face sci­ence. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is giv­en to mea­sur­ing sur­face prop­er­ties under reac­tion con­di­tions and relat­ing these prop­er­ties to cat­a­lyst per­for­mance. In addi­tion, they use com­pu­ta­tion­al tech­niques such as quan­tum chem­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions and chem­i­cal reac­tor sim­u­la­tions to help them iden­ti­fy new cat­alyt­ic sys­tems for study.

This award rec­og­nizes out­stand­ing the­o­ret­i­cal, exper­i­men­tal, or devel­op­men­tal research result­ing in the advance­ment of under­stand­ing or appli­ca­tion of catal­y­sis. The award was estab­lished by the ACS Board of Direc­tors in 2002. It is sup­port­ed by the Gabor A. Somor­jai Endow­ment Fund. A pri­or ACS Award for Cre­ative Research in Homoge­nous or Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis spon­sored by the Shell Oil Foun­da­tion was estab­lished in 1997.
 
Past Recip­i­ents

• 1999 Sir John Meurig Thomas
• 2000 Gabor A. Somorjai
• 2001 Alex­is T. Bell
• 2002 Jack H. Lunsford
• 2003 Robert H. Grubbs
• 2004 Bruce C. Gates
• 2005 D. Wayne Goodman
• 2006 James A. Dumesic

It is my plea­sure to announce that Dr. Stu­art Soled of Exxon­Mo­bil Research & Engi­neer­ing Co. is the 2006 F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­tur­er. This award is spon­sored by Grace Davi­son Cat­a­lysts and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on indus­tri­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es and the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al impor­tance. The Award con­sists of a plaque, an hon­o­rar­i­um and addi­tion­al mon­ey is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es to vis­it many of the local clubs in North Amer­i­ca. The local clubs should con­tact Dr. Soled direct­ly (908–730-2577) to make trav­el arrangements.

Stu has a long and dis­tin­guished record in indus­tri­al research. His nom­i­na­tors cit­ed his many con­tri­bu­tions to the syn­the­sis, struc­tur­al and func­tion­al char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and use of cat­alyt­ic solids. Stu has made dis­cov­er­ies and fun­da­men­tal advances in bulk sol­id oxides, mol­e­c­u­lar oxide clus­ters, sul­fides, and car­bides applied to Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion, oxi­da­tion, and acid catal­y­sis. Most recent­ly, his work on nov­el, mixed met­al cat­a­lysts have had a dra­mat­ic impact on the desul­fu­r­iza­tion of diesel fuels. These Neb­u­la cat­a­lysts offer sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhanced activ­i­ty which allow refin­ers to retro­fit exist­ing hydrotreaters with lit­tle addi­tion­al cap­i­tal cost and to pro­duce a prod­uct which exceeds the gov­ern­men­tal­ly man­dat­ed clean fuels stan­dards around the world. Well over one mil­lion pounds of the Neb­u­la cat­a­lyst has been deployed through­out the world for the pro­duc­tion of ultra low sul­fur fuels.

Dr soled is prob­a­bly best know for his work in the area of sol­id acid­i­ty. His 1993 paper on the chem­istry of sul­fat­ed zir­co­nia has been cit­ed over 100 times in the last five years, and it pro­vides the defin­i­tive account of the struc­tur­al require­ments for iso­mer­iza­tion of larg­er alka­nes on these mate­ri­als. He con­tin­ued this work with the nov­el fam­i­ly of tungstat­ed zir­co­nias. Stu also led an effort in under­stand­ing aspects of Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis that are crit­i­cal com­po­nents of the AGC-21 process and led the gen­er­a­tion of a new gen­er­a­tion of more sta­ble catalysts.

Stu has been at Exxon­Mo­bil in Annan­dale, N.J. since 1979 where he is a senior mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal staff with the title of Dis­tin­guished Research Asso­ciate. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and his B.S. in Chem­istry from City Col­lege of New York (grad­u­at­ed Magna Cum Laude). He has received the 2003 NY Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award and the Thomas Alva Edi­son Patent Award in 2002 which is giv­en for prod­uct inno­va­tions and impor­tant sci­en­tif­ic break­throughs orig­i­nat­ing in the State of New Jersey.
 
John Armor
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Updat­ed: 12:08 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2005
 
STOCKHOLM, Swe­den — Amer­i­cans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chau­vin of France won the Nobel Prize in chem­istry Wednes­day for dis­cov­er­ies that let indus­try cre­ate drugs and advanced plas­tics in a more effi­cient and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly way.

The trio won the award for their devel­op­ment of the metathe­sis method in organ­ic syn­the­sis — a way to swap groups of atoms between mol­e­cules that the Roy­al Swedish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences likened to a dance in which cou­ples change partners.

The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is pleased to announce that the 2005 Her­man Pines Award in Catal­y­sis is pre­sent­ed to Pro­fes­sor Israel E. Wachs from Lehigh University.

The Her­man Pines Award is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly by the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go at its Spring Sym­po­sium 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. 

For­mal pre­sen­ta­tion of the award will take place at the 2005 Spring Sym­po­sium of the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go on Wednes­day, May 18, 2005, where Pro­fes­sor Wachs will present the keynote address.

The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York is pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Fabio Ribeiro of Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty is the 2005 recip­i­ent of the Soci­ety’s Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award, spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny. Pro­fes­sor Ribeiro is being rec­og­nized for his cre­ativ­i­ty and out­stand­ing accom­plish­ments in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. His work is broad­ly rec­og­nized and char­ac­ter­ized by com­plete atten­tion to detail, and care­ful exper­i­men­tal design to pre­cise­ly answer impor­tant ques­tions in catal­y­sis. This award rec­og­nizes Pro­fes­sor Ribeiro for his use of the com­bi­na­tion of struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, chem­i­cal kinet­ics, and ab ini­tio cal­cu­la­tions to under­stand cat­alyt­ic sys­tems at a fun­da­men­tal lev­el. Pro­fes­sor Ribeiro’s career is marked by suc­cess and achieve­ment at every stage includ­ing grad­u­ate and post grad­u­ate stud­ies with Michel Boudart and Gabor Somor­jai, indus­tri­al research at Cat­alyt­i­ca Incor­po­rat­ed, and fac­ul­ty appoint­ments at Worces­ter Poly­tech­nic and Pur­due­U­ni­ver­si­ty. In a rel­a­tive­ly short peri­od of time, Pro­fes­sor Ribeiro has pro­vid­ed key insights into numer­ous impor­tant and diverse cat­alyt­ic sys­tems, such as cat­alyt­ic com­bus­tion, hydrodechlo­ri­na­tion, hydro­car­bon rearrange­ment on alloy sur­faces, and prop­er­ties of oxy­gen-mod­i­fied tran­si­tion met­al carbides.

Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley has been award­ed the 2005 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis. The award is spon­sored by John­son Matthey Cat­a­lysts and admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis 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.

Enrique Iglesia’s work has cre­at­ed fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ries con­nect­ing the chem­istry of mate­ri­als, kinet­ics, in situ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and reac­tion-trans­port mod­els to under­stand indus­tri­al catal­y­sis and to design new cat­a­lysts. Exam­ples include oxide nanos­truc­tures as acid and oxi­da­tion cat­a­lysts and exchanged cations and met­al clus­ters for alka­ne con­ver­sion. Before mov­ing to his cur­rent posi­tion at Berke­ley, he spent about ten years at Exxon Research and Engi­neer­ing, where he made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in the area of Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis and alka­ne acti­va­tion. His con­tin­u­ous inter­est in indus­tri­al prob­lems is reflect­ed in his fil­ing of eight patents since join­ing Berke­ley. The main thrust of his work, how­ev­er, has been all along the under­stand­ing of struc­ture and func­tion in cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na. The scope of his work uses many tools to assem­ble and coa­lesce this knowl­edge. It starts with the syn­the­sis of active oxide domains or met­al clus­ters with­in porous mate­ri­als and is fol­lowed by detailed char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of atom­ic arrange­ments. The num­ber of these sites is count­ed, and in situ spec­tro­scop­ic tech­niques such as IR, Raman, UV-vis­i­ble and X‑ray absorp­tion are used to iden­ti­fy their local geo­met­ric and elec­tron­ic prop­er­ties. Final­ly, steady-state and tran­sient kinet­ic stud­ies, includ­ing exten­sive use of iso­topes, are com­bined with in situ spec­tro­scop­ic tech­niques to iden­ti­fy adsorbed inter­me­di­ates and ulti­mate­ly the iden­ti­ty and kinet­ic rel­e­vance of ele­men­tary steps. The qual­i­ty, quan­ti­ty, and impact of his fun­da­men­tal pub­li­ca­tions are very impres­sive. Enrique is a pop­u­lar lec­tur­er; he has been very active in the orga­ni­za­tion and oper­a­tion of many catal­y­sis meet­ings. He also serves our com­mu­ni­ty as the Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catalysis. 

The lec­ture­ship pro­vides an hon­o­rar­i­um and a trav­el stipend that will allow him to vis­it many of the local clubs of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Local clubs should con­tact Pro­fes­sor Igle­sia direct­ly [iglesia@cchem.berkeley.edu] about speak­ing arrange­ments over the next two years. More infor­ma­tion about this award, the awards process, and pre­vi­ous awardees are avail­able with­in the Awards fold­er on the NACS home page (www.nacatsoc.org).

The 2005 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis to Dr. Hen­rik Top­søe of the Hal­dor Top­søe Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries, Lyn­g­by, Den­mark. The award is spon­sored by Süd-Chemie, Inc., and admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. 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.

Hen­rik’s work and lead­er­ship have made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the under­stand­ing of hydrotreat­ing cat­a­lysts. Hen­rik has been an essen­tial con­trib­u­tor to many com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions on hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion and oth­er cat­a­lysts and one of the prin­ci­pal forces behind the posi­tion that Hal­dor Top­søe A/S holds in com­mer­cial deploy­ments in cat­a­lysts and process­es. “Hen­rik Topsøe’s work pro­vid­ed the con­cepts and defin­i­tive evi­dence for the CoMoS descrip­tion of the syn­er­gy between MoS2 struc­tures and Co and Ni pro­mot­ers.” “His pas­sion­ate efforts to bring state-of-the-art tools and con­cepts into the solu­tion of com­plex indus­tri­al prob­lems are with­out equal in the inter­na­tion­al catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty today.” With all this Hen­rik has been a pro­lif­ic indus­tri­al con­trib­u­tor to the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture. Also, “he has been a key intel­lec­tu­al and phys­i­cal moti­va­tion­al force behind the emer­gence of the aca­d­e­m­ic Dan­ish catal­y­sis community.”

Hen­rik will give a ple­nary lec­ture and be rec­og­nized at the Spring 2005 North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ing in Philadel­phia. 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

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Matthew Neu­rock has been selected
for the 2005 Paul H. Emmett Awardee in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize. The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions (under the age of 45) 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 Neurock’s inter­ests include com­pu­ta­tion­al het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, mol­e­c­u­lar mod­el­ing, and kinet­ics of com­plex reac­tion sys­tems. “Matt is rec­og­nized for his pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the­o­ret­i­cal meth­ods for the analy­sis and pre­dic­tion of cat­alyt­ic rates and selec­tiv­i­ties. Matt has devel­oped and applied the­o­ry and atom­ic-scale sim­u­la­tion in con­cert­ed and well-con­struct­ed efforts aimed at the elu­ci­da­tion of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms on met­al and oxide sur­faces and at under­stand­ing and design­ing active sites as they exist in real­is­tic and com­plex reac­tion envi­ron­ments. He and his group have brought ab ini­tio quan­tum mechan­i­cal meth­ods togeth­er with kinet­ic Monte Car­lo meth­ods to sim­u­late cat­alyt­ic per­for­mance and the effects of the explic­it reac­tion envi­ron­ment. His stud­ies have brought fun­da­men­tal insights into the roles of sur­face struc­ture, crys­tal­lite size, sur­face cov­er­age, alloy­ing, con­densed media, and tran­sient inter­me­di­ates.” Other’s remark that “Matt has been extreme­ly suc­cess­ful at apply­ing quan­tum chem­i­cal meth­ods to a broad range of prob­lems in sur­face chemistry.”

Matt will give a ple­nary lec­ture and be rec­og­nized at the Spring 2005 North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ing in Philadel­phia. The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace and Com­pa­ny. It is admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered 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

Enrique Igle­sia has received the 2005 George A. Olah Award in Hydro­car­bon Chem­istry from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. It will be pre­sent­ed at the 2005 ACS Meet­ing in San Diego in March 2005. The award is giv­en to rec­og­nize, encour­age, and stim­u­late out­stand­ing research achieve­ments in hydro­car­bon or petro­le­um chem­istry. The recip­i­ent must have accom­plished out­stand­ing research in the chem­istry of hydro­car­bons or of petro­le­um and its prod­ucts. Spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to the inde­pen­dence of thought and the orig­i­nal­i­ty shown. Enrique Igle­sia has brought togeth­er mech­a­nis­tic insights into sur­face reac­tions with detailed atom­ic-scale char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of inor­gan­ic solids to design advanced mate­ri­als for cat­alyt­ic hydro­car­bon conversions. 

Mark Davis of Cal­tech has receieved the E. V. Mur­phree Award in Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny and Exxon­Mo­bil Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny. This award is giv­en to stim­u­late fun­da­men­tal research in indus­tri­al and engi­neer­ing chem­istry, the devel­op­ment of chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing prin­ci­ples and their appli­ca­tion to indus­tri­al processes.

D. Wayne Good­man, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty will receive the 2005 Gabor A. Somor­jai Award for Cre­ative Research in Catal­y­sis spon­sored by the Gabor A. and Judith K. Somor­jai Endow­ment Fund. The award is to rec­og­nize out­stand­ing the­o­ret­i­cal, exper­i­men­tal, or devel­op­men­tal research result­ing in the advance­ment of under­stand­ing or appli­ca­tion of catalysis.

Israel Wachs of Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty was one of two sci­en­tists select­ed by the ACS Divi­sion of Col­loid & Sur­face Chem­istry as win­ners of its 2004 Lang­muir Lec­ture Awards. Israel has worked on the sur­face sci­ence of sup­port­ed met­al oxide cat­a­lysts, where an active 2‑D sur­face met­al oxide is dis­persed on an oxide sup­port sub­strate. He spoke on sol­id-vac­u­um or sol­id-gas inter­faces at the recent Philadel­phia ACS meet­ing in August 2004.