Kenzi Tamaru — A “titan of mechanism” who initiated the in-situ study of catalysts

 
On July 22, 2020, the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty lost Ken­zi Tamaru, a pio­neer in elu­ci­dat­ing the mech­a­nisms of het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic reac­tions. His endur­ing lega­cy will be his insight that cat­a­lysts have to be stud­ied at reac­tion con­di­tions. This insight was the basis for the now wide­spread use of in situ and operan­do stud­ies in catalysis.

Ken­zi Tamaru was born in Kamaku­ra, Japan on Nov. 2, 1923, and was edu­cat­ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo, obtain­ing his B.S. in 1946, and his Ph.D. in 1950. In 1953 he was award­ed a Full­bright Fel­low­ship and went to work with Sir Hugh Tay­lor at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty where he stayed until 1956. In Prince­ton Ken­zi stud­ied the decom­po­si­tion of ger­mane and got the insight of the need to study cat­a­lysts at reac­tion con­di­tions. When he told Prof. Tay­lor of this con­cept he said “You are very ambi­tious”, repeat­ing it, “You are very ambi­tious”. On return­ing to Japan, Ken­zi start­ed research on adsorp­tion dur­ing catal­y­sis, first at Yoko­hama Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty, and then at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo. In Adv. Catal. 15 (1965) 65–90, he stat­ed “The state of the sur­face which cat­alyzes reac­tions is not that of the sur­face in the absence of reac­tants. The prop­er­ties of a cat­a­lyst sur­face to be stud­ied should be those in the work­ing state.” Today, the need to study cat­a­lysts at in situ con­di­tions is uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized and is applied reg­u­lar­ly using spec­tro­scop­ic and tran­sient tech­niques. Ken­zi Tamaru liked to tell his stu­dents, “You have a good head, so think care­ful­ly”. This think­ing was evi­dent in him at an ear­ly stage. His grade school teacher recalled that when stu­dents were asked to name some­thing that would not burn most stu­dents answered with things like stones or steel. Kenzi’s unique answer was “ash­es”. Ken­zi Tamaru’s appli­ca­tion of what he liked to call “the Tamaru Method”, includ­ed in situ stud­ies of MeOH decom­po­si­tion on ZnO and Cr₂O3, NH₃ decom­po­si­tion on W and Mo, and CO hydro­gena­tion on Ru, and the phe­nom­e­non of adsorp­tion-assist­ed des­orp­tion. Ken­zi had close friend­ships with many dis­tin­guished indi­vid­u­als in the field, notably Michel Boudart, Wolf­gang Sachtler, and Guo Xiex­i­an, with whom he shared a com­mon inter­est in chem­i­cal kinet­ics as well as per­son­al rela­tions. Ken­zi Tamaru held many impor­tant posi­tions includ­ing the pres­i­den­cies of the Japan Chem­i­cal Soci­ety in 1989–1990, and the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties in 1988–1992. He was rec­og­nized with many awards, includ­ing the Japan Chem­i­cal Soci­ety Award in 1974, the Pur­ple Agate in 1985, and the Japan Acad­e­my Award in 2000.

His pres­ence will be missed but his con­tri­bu­tions will endure. 

James F. Roth of Warmin­ster, PA, died on his 96th birth­day, Decem­ber 7, 2021.

Born in Rah­way, NJ, Jim was a mem­ber of the first grad­u­at­ing class of the Bronx High School of Sci­ence, grad­u­at­ing at age 15. He enlist­ed in the Navy at 17 and was sent to school at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and then Mid­ship­man School at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. While Jim was serv­ing as chief nav­i­ga­tor on LST 477 dur­ing the bat­tle of Iwo Jima, the ship was blast­ed with a 500 lb. bomb and hit by a Kamikaze plane.

After being dis­charged from the Navy with the rank of LTJG, Jim returned to col­lege, earn­ing a B.S. in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West Vir­ginia and a PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Maryland.

Dur­ing his career with Mon­san­to in St. Louis, MO, and Air Prod­ucts in Allen­town, PA, where he served as chief sci­en­tist and direc­tor of cor­po­rate research, Jim received recog­ni­tion for his achieve­ments as the prin­ci­pal inven­tor of process­es for the com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion of acetic acid and the pro­duc­tion of lin­ear olefins used to make biodegrad­able deter­gents. He received numer­ous awards, includ­ing the Kokes Award from Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty, the Houdry Award from the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca, and the Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry Award from the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. He received the first award ever giv­en by the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety for Achieve­ment in Indus­tri­al Chem­istry. He was induct­ed into the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing and was cit­ed by the Chem­i­cal Her­itage Foun­da­tion as one of the lead­ing Amer­i­can chemists of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Jim was the 1988 recip­i­ent of the Perkin Medal for his achieve­ments in cat­alyt­ic research, con­sid­ered the high­est recog­ni­tion for chem­i­cal achieve­ments in the U.S.

When he wasn’t work­ing, he and his wife Sharon (Mattes) Roth shared a 52-year adven­ture of world trav­el, sym­phonies, muse­ums, opera, and fine din­ing. They spent their first 18 years of retire­ment in Sara­so­ta, FL, and the next 14 years in inde­pen­dent senior adult com­mu­ni­ties in Dal­las, TX, and Warmin­ster, PA. Jim was lov­ing­ly cared for in his final year by his wife Sharon and care­giv­er Daion­na Combs.

He is sur­vived by his wife; daugh­ter, Sandy Free­man (Mick­ey) of Allen­town; sons Ed Roth (Sue) of New City, NY and Lar­ry Roth (Colleen) of St. Louis, MO; step-son Ladd Hirsch (Cindy), 10 grand­chil­dren; and 8 great-grand­chil­dren. He was pre­de­ceased by his step-daugh­ter, Lisa Phillips (Jim), and his sis­ter, Phyl­lis Davis.

To plant or send flow­ers to the fam­i­ly in mem­o­ry of James Roth, please vis­it our flower store.
 
Source: https://obits.delvalcremation.com/james-roth.

Pro­fes­sor W. Nicholas Del­gass passed away peace­ful­ly at home on August 17, 2021 after a long and coura­geous fight with can­cer to stay with us and to con­tin­ue to care for us for as long as he could. He was cared for by his lov­ing fam­i­ly, Bet­ty, his wife of 54 years, and their two sons, Michael and Leif. Nick was born and raised in the East Coast, grad­u­at­ing from Sta­ples High School in West­port, CT. He earned an under­grad­u­ate degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Math­e­mat­ics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan (1964) and a Ph.D. in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty (1969) and then com­plet­ed his post-doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley (1969). He start­ed his aca­d­e­m­ic career at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, from where he moved to Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty in 1974. Nick had a dis­tin­guished 38-year career in Purdue’s School of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, where he stayed active in research and men­tor­ing even after his retire­ment in 2012 as the Max­ine Spencer Nichols Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engineering.

Nick is rec­og­nized inter­na­tion­al­ly for his work in bring­ing togeth­er new ana­lyt­i­cal tools, cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion meth­ods, cat­a­lyst chem­istry and design, and reac­tion engi­neer­ing into the analy­sis of chem­i­cal reac­tion sys­tems and their mech­a­nisms. Nick Del­gass was the con­sum­mate teacher and schol­ar, with a unique com­bi­na­tion of wis­dom, vision, gen­eros­i­ty, and kind­ness that cre­at­ed a mag­net­ic per­son­al­i­ty, allow­ing him to serve as the nucle­us of the cen­ter of excel­lence in catal­y­sis research at Pur­due and more recent­ly as the inspi­ra­tion and gen­e­sis of the NSF Cen­ter for Inno­v­a­tive and Strate­gic Trans­for­ma­tion of Alka­ne Resources. Few researchers have impact­ed the field so broad­ly. Nick’s career start­ed with sem­i­nal work in the appli­ca­tion of Möss­bauer spec­troscopy to cat­alyt­ic reac­tion sys­tems, in stud­ies that pro­vid­ed unprece­dent­ed insights into the struc­ture and func­tion of iron-con­tain­ing cat­a­lysts for C1 con­ver­sion, then and now the enabling tech­nol­o­gy for val­oriz­ing nat­ur­al gas resources. His focus remained through­out on a quest for the con­tin­u­ous dis­cov­ery of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion sys­tems of sig­nif­i­cant impor­tance in prac­tice. He is wide­ly regard­ed as an intel­lec­tu­al leader in catal­y­sis for his advances in epox­i­da­tion, hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion, NOx con­ver­sion, and bio­mass hydrodeoxy­gena­tion cat­a­lysts. His decade-long work on NOx traps and on cat­alyt­ic strate­gies for NOx mit­i­ga­tion using Cu/zeolite cat­a­lysts has great­ly influ­enced the design and prac­tice of NOx abate­ment strate­gies that are ubiq­ui­tous today in diesel efflu­ent aftertreat­ment. Nick’s imag­i­na­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty led him to pro­pose and imple­ment the nov­el con­cept of Dis­cov­ery Infor­mat­ics, which inte­grates high through­put exper­i­men­ta­tion with micro­ki­net­ic mod­els into a tar­get­ed search for cat­a­lysts designed for spe­cif­ic reac­tiv­i­ty and selectivity. 

Nick Del­gass served the pro­fes­sion admirably and with great impact for more than four decades. He served as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis, the flag­ship archival jour­nal of the field. His teach­ing and men­tor­ing at Pur­due are tru­ly leg­endary. He won vir­tu­al­ly every teach­ing award at Pur­due, was induct­ed into the Pur­due Book of Great Teach­ers, and received the inau­gur­al Engi­neer­ing Men­tor­ing Excel­lence Award. His research awards include the 2013 Her­man Pines Award in Catal­y­sis, Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go; 2012 R.H. Wil­helm Award in Chem­i­cal Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing, AICHE; 2011 (Inau­gur­al) Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; 2006 Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award, Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York; 1985 Giuseppe Par­ra­vano Memo­r­i­al Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Research, Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; 1990 AT&T Foun­da­tion Award, ASEE; 2007 Pur­due Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing Team Award.

Nick was a tru­ly gen­tle man, unmatched in his grace, thought­ful­ness, and sin­cere con­cern for oth­ers. He brought these per­son­al qual­i­ties togeth­er with a superb intel­lect and with an uncom­pro­mis­ing pen­chant for rig­or, pre­ci­sion, and schol­ar­ship. He men­tored not only his stu­dents but every­one who was touched by inter­ac­tions with him. Nick grad­u­at­ed more than 61 PhD stu­dents and he was very proud of all of them. Bet­ty and Nick were also the con­sum­mate hosts to so many stu­dents and friends; they brought them togeth­er with­in their home with their warmth and hos­pi­tal­i­ty, with Nick often clad in his sig­na­ture tuxe­do to match his broad smile. His hon­esty, humil­i­ty, and enthu­si­asm set the bench­mark from which so many of us have learned. He lis­tened to every­one with respect; he nev­er preached. His gen­er­ous spir­it, keen intel­lect, and above all his kind­ness will remain the ever­last­ing lega­cy of one of the lead­ing fig­ures in our dis­ci­pline. To many in the chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing and catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ties, at Pur­due and every­where, Nick Del­gass was also a dear friend.
 
Pre­pared by Fabio H. Ribeiro, Enrique Igle­sia, and Raja­mani Gounder.

The pre­mier award of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Chem­istry, the Fara­day Medal and Lec­ture­ship, insti­tut­ed in 1869, is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly, and the first recip­i­ent was the emi­nent French chemist, Jean-Bap­tiste Dumas (1800–1884), who was a pro­fes­sor at the École Poly­tech­nique, Paris, before becom­ing that country’s Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Com­merce and lat­er Mas­ter of the French Mint. In the inter­ven­ing years oth­er notable recip­i­ents include Mendeleev, Niels Bohr, Lords Rayleigh and Ruther­ford, Her­mann von Helmholtz, Sir Cyril Hin­shel­wood and Sir Robert Robin­son. The sec­ond French­man to earn this acco­lade (in 2014) was Michel Che, Pro­fes­sor and Direc­tor of the Lab­o­ra­toire de Réac­tiv­ité de Sur­face at the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­sité-CNRS, Paris.

His research cov­ered the reac­tiv­i­ty of sol­id sur­faces inves­ti­gat­ed from a mol­e­c­u­lar stand­point based on the com­bined use of tran­si­tion met­al com­plex­es, spe­cif­ic iso­topes and phys­i­cal tech­niques, notably elec­tron spin res­o­nance. His work, which led to more than 450 pub­li­ca­tions, a two-vol­ume book (Char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of Sol­id Mate­ri­als and Het­ero­ge­neous Cat­a­lysts: From Struc­ture to Sur­face Reac­tiv­i­ty, 2012, Wiley) and 5 patents, has con­tributed to improve our under­stand­ing of the ele­men­tary steps that occur at the sol­id-liq­uid (gas) inter­faces and to bridge the gap between homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous catalyses.

Michel Che was born in Lyon in Decem­ber 1941. After a chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing degree award­ed by the École Supérieure de Chimie Indus­trielle de Lyon (ESCIL, now CPE­Ly­on), he joined the Insti­tut de Recherch­es sur la Catal­yse, CNRS lab­o­ra­to­ry in Villeur­banne (sub­urb of Lyon), where he received his doc­tor­ate for his work on tita­nia (TiO2).

He then worked with the flam­boy­ant Russ­ian-Amer­i­can col­loid chemist, John Tarke­vich at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty (1969–71). He also worked at the UK Atom­ic Ener­gy Research Estab­lish­ment (1972–1982) before return­ing to Lyon, and lat­er to Paris, where he became a Pro­fes­sor (1975).

Michel Che was Pres­i­dent of the Catal­y­sis Divi­sion of the Société Chim­ique de France and Vice-Pres­i­dent of this soci­ety (2007–2009). He was Pres­i­dent and founder of the high­ly suc­cess­ful Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EFCATS) 1993–1995, cre­at­ing the bien­ni­al EuropaCat con­gress­es, lat­er he became Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (IACS) 2000–2004. He received many nation­al awards in France, includ­ing the prix-fran­co-chi­nois de la SCF-Chi­nese Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (2018); in Italy (lau­réat du prix de la Soci­età Chim­i­ca Ital­iana (SCI) 2017; in Nether­lands (J. H. Van’t Hoff); in Poland (Sklodows­ka-Curie and P. Curie lec­ture­ships); in Ger­many (Von-Hum­bold-Gay Lus­sac award, GDCh-Wit­tig lec­ture­ships); in Japan (Japan­ese Soci­ety for the Pro­mo­tion of Sci­ence lec­ture­ship); in Chi­na (Gold Medal of the Chi­nese Acad­e­my of Sci­ence, Friend­ship award and Inter­na­tion­al Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Coop­er­a­tion Award, 2008); and Europe (François Gault EFCATS lec­ture­ship). His works earned him sev­er­al hon­orary doc­tor­ates and fel­low­ships (Ger­many Acad­e­my of Sci­ence Leopold­ina; Acad­e­mia Europaea; Hun­gar­i­an Acad­e­my of Sci­ences; Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Art and Sci­ences; Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of Fuzhou Uni­ver­si­ty 2018).

Proud of his Chi­nese ori­gins – his father emi­grat­ed to France as a young engi­neer – Michel Che was excep­tion­al­ly pop­u­lar in the P. R. of Chi­na, and was one of the first Euro­pean sci­en­tists to be invit­ed there in 1977. He was Chair­man of the Aca­d­e­m­ic Com­mit­tee of the State Key Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Catal­y­sis in Dalian (the first state key lab­o­ra­to­ry in the catal­y­sis field in Chi­na) dur­ing 2006–2014. As a Chair­man of that com­mit­tee, he facil­i­tat­ed the progress of many young Chi­nese to pro­mote inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tions. For his great con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ment of Chi­na, par­tic­u­lar­ly that between France and Chi­na, he was award­ed the Inter­na­tion­al Coop­er­a­tion Award of Chi­na pre­sent­ed at the Great Hall of the Peo­ple by the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic, the high­est hon­our for for­eign scientists.

Michel Che was a mem­ber of the Sci­en­tif­ic Com­mit­tee of the Insti­tut Français du Pét­role (IFP, now IFPEN) for more than 30 years. He was a mem­ber for many years of a selec­tion com­mit­tee for new­ly recruitable sci­en­tists at Osa­ka Pre­fec­ture Uni­ver­si­ty in Japan, where he was also a Vis­it­ing Professor.

His links with the UK were par­tic­u­lar­ly strong. As well as serv­ing, for many years, as Chair­man of the Exter­nal Advi­so­ry Board of the Cardiff Catal­y­sis Cen­tre, he was par­tic­u­lar­ly fond of vis­it­ing the Davy Fara­day Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion of Great Britain, Lon­don, where he pre­sent­ed many sem­i­nars and inter­act­ed with its Director.

Michel Che was a charm­ing, high­ly cul­tured and com­pas­sion­ate human being, admired and loved by an enor­mous fam­i­ly of world-renowned fel­low sci­en­tists. Dis­cus­sions with him remind­ed one of how a first-rate sci­en­tist should behave – with great human decen­cy towards oth­ers, friends and strangers alike. He was proud of the phe­nom­e­nal con­tri­bu­tions made by French sci­en­tists (espe­cial­ly Sabati­er) to mod­ern sci­ence, and he also rejoiced in the antiq­ui­ty of Chi­na and the exper­tise of Chi­nese philoso­phers through­out the ages. He lived an extra­or­di­nary active life. Among the thou­sands of sci­en­tists he encoun­tered through­out the world, he nev­er made an ene­my – only friends, who rejoiced being in his com­pa­ny. He died, of pan­cre­at­ic can­cer, in a Paris hos­pi­tal after a short ill­ness on 7 August 2019.
 
Michel Che
Born Lyon, 29 Decem­ber 1941
Mar­ried Danielle (née Rey­naud) at the City Hall on 7 July 1964 (offi­cial) and in the Church on 8 July 1964 (reli­gious).
Four Chil­dren: Patrick, Brigitte, Cather­ine, Didier
Died Paris, 7 August 2019
 
(Pre­pared by John Meurig Thomas FRS FREng FRSE)

It is with great sad­ness that I write to share with you the pass­ing of Burtron H. “Burt” Davis on Sep­tem­ber 28th.

Burt Davis was an out­stand­ing sci­en­tist and intel­lect hold­ing pro­lif­ic schol­ar­ly track records, and con­stant source of humor­ous tales for decades. He had a hob­by of col­lect­ing research on the great­est sci­en­tists of our time, includ­ing his men­tor Dr. Paul Emmett. He is irre­place­able, and will be missed by many of us. Please keep his fam­i­ly, friends, and col­leagues in your thoughts.

Burt Davis, an inves­ti­ga­tor, Asso­ciate Direc­tor and Inter­im Direc­tor of Cen­ter for Applied Ener­gy Research, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ken­tucky, enjoyed a high­ly suc­cess­ful career of research and schol­ar­ship, being wide­ly rec­og­nized as the ulti­mate author­i­ty on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis. He held numer­ous offices and mem­ber­ships in sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al soci­eties, includ­ing the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (ACS), the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, TriS­tate Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers, and the Mate­ri­als Research Soci­ety. He authored/­co-authored over 850 pub­li­ca­tions and received four Else­vi­er most-cit­ed author awards. Burt was award­ed the pres­ti­gious Hen­ry H. Storch Award in Fuel Sci­ence in 2002 by ACS for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in catal­y­sis, Fischer−Tropsch syn­the­sis, and coal con­ver­sion research. In 2011, he became an ACS Fel­low. In 2013, he earned ACS’s Ener­gy and Fuels Division’s Dis­tin­guished Researcher Award in Petro­le­um Chem­istry. In 2014, he was pre­sent­ed to the Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice award by the NACS, and the “Dis­tin­guished West Vir­gin­ian Award” by then-Gov­er­nor Earl Ray Tomblin.

Burt Davis received his B.S. degree in chem­istry from West Vir­ginia Uni­ver­si­ty, M.S. from St. Joseph’s Uni­ver­si­ty while he was work­ing at Atlantic Refin­ing, and PhD from Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da. He worked under Paul Emmett as a post-doc­tor­ate researcher on catal­y­sis at the John Hop­kins University. 

He worked at Mobil for four years, where he dis­cov­ered a plat­inum-10 cat­a­lyst for con­vert­ing gaso­line from low-octane to high-octane. After sev­en years of teach­ing at Potomac State Col­lege as an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry, Davis fol­lowed his great pas­sion for research, and start­ed work­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kentucky’s Cen­ter for Applied Ener­gy where he was respon­si­ble for catal­y­sis, Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch Syn­the­sis and direct coal liq­ue­fac­tion research. He cre­at­ed a pro­gram that involved both aca­d­e­m­ic research and coop­er­a­tive research with indus­try. He has devel­oped a lab­o­ra­to­ry with exten­sive capa­bil­i­ty in use the of radioac­tive and sta­ble iso­topes in reac­tion mech­a­nism stud­ies and mate­ri­als char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and devel­oped research pro­grams in Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch Syn­the­sis, sur­face sci­ence stud­ies, het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, mate­ri­als sci­ence, organ­ic analy­sis, 1/4 ton per day direct coal liq­ue­fac­tion pilot plant oper­a­tion, liq­ue­fac­tion mech­a­nis­tic stud­ies, clean gaso­line reform­ing with superacid cat­a­lysts, and upgrad­ing naphthas.

A Funer­al ser­vice for Burt Davis will be held on Tues­day, Octo­ber 2, 2018 at John­son’s Funer­al Home at 4:00 pm. Funer­al Ser­vice Infor­ma­tion: www.johnsonsfuneralhome.com/book-of-memories/3619109/Davis-Burtron/service-details.php

Frank Stone’s death on March 5th deprived the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty of an elder states­man, famed for stud­ies of catal­y­sis and sol­id-state chem­istry. Born in 1925 in Bris­tol, Eng­land, and edu­cat­ed at Queen Elizabeth’s Hos­pi­tal School, Bris­tol, he excelled in Clas­sics and Sci­ences, but pre­ferred the lat­ter, study­ing Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bris­tol; grad­u­at­ing with first class hon­ours in 1945.

He under­took post­grad­u­ate research with Pro­fes­sor W. E. Gar­ner, link­ing the cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ties of bina­ry inor­gan­ic oxides with their semi-con­duct­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics. There­after, he pro­ceed­ed to post-doc­tor­al stud­ies in pho­to­chem­istry at Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, USA, with the dis­tin­guished phys­i­cal chemist, Hugh S. Tay­lor. Return­ing to Bris­tol, he inves­ti­gat­ed het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic reac­tions through adsorp­tion calorime­try. The impor­tance of the “elec­tron­ic fac­tor” to het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis led Stone to dop­ing bina­ry oxides with the alter-valent ions, and to mea­sur­ing the mag­net­ic prop­er­ties of ternary oxides. Endur­ing asso­ci­a­tions were estab­lished with Ital­ian and Span­ish research groups; notably with Alessan­dro Cimi­no, a con­tem­po­rary at Prince­ton, at the Uni­ver­si­ties of Peru­gia and Rome, assess­ing spe­cif­ic cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ties of iso­lat­ed sur­face ion­ic sites; and with co-work­ers of J. F. Gar­cia de la Ban­da (CSIC, Madrid), who worked pre­vi­ous­ly with Gar­ner, to study the crack­ing of hydro­car­bons on tran­si­tion met­al-doped zeo­lites. Between 1955–65, Frank Stone pio­neered research on het­ero­ge­neous pho­to­catal­y­sis on fine­ly-divid­ed oxides, sol­id-state reac­tions for spinel for­ma­tion, and adsorp­tion on sup­port­ed metal­lic particles.

He became Euro­pean Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis in 1970, a task at which he excelled for 26 years, in which his lit­er­ary acu­men and facil­i­ty with for­eign lan­guages earned him huge respect, espe­cial­ly from non-Eng­lish-speak­ing authors, who were grate­ful to him for his tact­ful sug­ges­tions for improv­ing manuscripts.

In 1972 Frank Stone became Pro­fes­sor of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bath, where, with Adri­ano Zecchi­na and Edoar­do Gar­rone of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Turin, he applied UV-Vis­i­ble Dif­fuse Reflectance- and Infra-Red Spec­tro­scopies to oxide sur­faces of alka­line-earth ele­ments, iden­ti­fy­ing 3‑, 4‑, and 5‑fold coor­di­nat­ed adsorp­tion sites, and reveal­ing a pink oligomer­ic form of adsorbed car­bon monox­ide. In lat­er years he held the posi­tion of Pro-Vice-Chan­cel­lor. Frank Stone was an out­stand­ing lec­tur­er. He authored more than 120 sci­en­tif­ic papers; many have with­stood the “wear of time”. He was a found­ing- com­mit­tee mem­ber of the tri­en­ni­al Ride­al Con­fer­ence Series, and was a reg­u­lar attendee until 2011/12.

He met his future wife, Joan, also a stu­dent, in wartime Bris­tol. They became vol­un­teer fire-watch­ers, study­ing by day and ful­fill­ing their night-time duties from the rooftops of the Uni­ver­si­ty build­ings. A fam­i­ly man, who enjoyed gar­den­ing, cycling, and trav­el. He took many camp­ing hol­i­days across Europe, a prac­tice con­tin­ued until late in life and held annu­al sum­mer camps for his research group in the Welsh Moun­tains or on Exmoor. He was a reg­u­lar­ly-attend­ing mem­ber of the Bris­tol Sci­en­tif­ic Soci­ety until short­ly before his death.
 
Roger I. Bickley
Brad­ford, West York­shire, UK 

Pro­fes­sor Kozo Tan­abe passed away on April 24, 2018 at the age of 91.

Kozo Tan­abe was born on May 7, 1926 in Take­da, Oita pre­fec­ture, Japan. He stud­ied Chem­istry at Hokkai­do Uni­ver­si­ty and grad­u­at­ed in 1951. He joined the Research Insti­tute of Catal­y­sis, Hokkai­do Uni­ver­si­ty and received a PhD in 1956. He remained on the fac­ul­ty of the Research Insti­tute of Catal­y­sis and was pro­mot­ed to Pro­fes­sor in 1960. In 1965, he moved to the Depart­ment of Chem­istry at Hokkai­do Uni­ver­si­ty, where he retired to become Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus in 1990.

Pro­fes­sor Tan­abe car­ried out ear­ly sem­i­nal work in acid-base catal­y­sis by solids and dis­cov­ered the essen­tial role of acid-base pairs in con­fer­ring unique reac­tiv­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty by sta­bi­liz­ing inter­me­di­ates through con­cert­ed inter­ac­tions. He was a pro­lif­ic and high­ly-cit­ed author with more than 300 research pub­li­ca­tion and 10 books. Among these, the book enti­tled “Sol­id Acids and Bases” set the fun­da­men­tal under­pin­nings for the inter­pre­ta­tion of the reac­tiv­i­ty of oxides and mixed oxides in cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and for the ben­e­fits of an appro­pri­ate bal­ance in strength between the acid and base active centers.

His achieve­ments were rec­og­nized with many dis­tinc­tions, among them sev­er­al awards from the Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Japan and the Japan Insti­tute of Petro­le­um. He was award­ed the Medal with Pur­ple Rib­bon and the Order of the Sacred Trea­sure. Pro­fes­sor Tan­abe served as Pres­i­dent of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Japan and as Vice pres­i­dent of the Chem­i­cal Soci­ety of Japan. His pro­found influ­ence on the field led to the cre­ation of the “Kozo Tan­abe Prize for Acid-Base Catal­y­sis” in his hon­or; this prize is stew­ard­ed by the Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board of the Inter­na­tion­al Acid-Base Catal­y­sis Symposium.

Pro­fes­sor Tan­abe was a teacher and men­tor for many gen­er­a­tions of catal­y­sis sci­en­tists at Hokkai­do Uni­ver­si­ty and in the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty at-large. He is also remem­bered as a hum­ble and gen­tle schol­ar whose vast wis­dom and knowl­edge he was always so will­ing to share.
 
(Pre­pared by Hideshi Hat­tori, Johannes Lercher, and Enrique Igle­sia)

Robert Gras­sel­li obtained his bach­e­lor degree from Har­vard in 1952, after win­ing a schol­ar­ship from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty in Graz, Aus­tria. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Case-West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, Cleve­land, from where he pro­ceed­ed to Sohio as a research sci­en­tist. After leav­ing Sohio he worked at the US Office of Naval Research, Wash­ing­ton, where he was Direc­tor of Chem­i­cal Research, and then at Mobil Cor­po­ra­tion. From 1996 to 2006 he was Guest Pro­fes­sor of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich and, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Adjunct Full Pro­fes­sor in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Cen­ter for Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware at Newark. Lat­er he became Dis­tin­guished Affil­i­at­ed Pro­fes­sor at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich (2006–2018).

Dr. Robert A. Gras­sel­li was a high­ly accom­plished and inno­v­a­tive indus­tri­al chemist, renowned for his sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to the design, devel­op­ment, and com­mer­cial exploita­tion of nov­el sol­id catal­y­sis. Inven­tor in 160 U.S. patents, he was instru­men­tal in devel­op­ing a fun­da­men­tal­ly new method of pro­duc­ing the poly­mer pre­cur­sor, acry­loni­trile. The key inno­va­tion in this one-step process was the use micro­crys­talline bis­muth molyb­date; the process was so effec­tive that, after its adop­tion world­wide, a 50-fold increase of acry­loni­trile pro­duc­tion was achieved.

Dr. Robert Gras­sel­li was elect­ed to the US Nation­al Acad­e­my of Engi­neer­ing (1995); induct­ed into the US Nation­al Hall of Fame for Engi­neer­ing, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (1988); was a recip­i­ent of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety E. N. Mor­ley Medal (1999); and the E. V. Mur­phee Award for Indus­tri­al and Engi­neer­ing Chem­istry in 1984. He also shared the Dis­tin­guished Award in Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis from the World Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in Berlin (2001); and he received a doc­tor­ate, hon­oris causa, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bologna. He was award­ed the pres­ti­gious Alexan­der von Hum­boldt Prize in1995.

Dr. Gras­sel­li com­bined the best of the Amer­i­can opti­mism and ‘can-do’ spir­it with the old-world Euro­pean cul­tur­al depth and charm of the con­ti­nent of his birth. He read exten­sive­ly; he loved music and was an ardent sup­port­er of the Vien­na Phillar­mon­ic. He had a pas­sion for ski­ing and for trav­el to far-away places. He loved gar­den­ing, unusu­al flo­ra, and mod­ern art. For the last twen­ty years of his life, he and his wife, Dr. Eva-Maria Hauck, spent their time in their two homes, one in Chadds Ford, Penn­syl­va­nia, the oth­er in Munich. He will always be remem­bered for his ethu­si­am for sci­ence that led him through­out his life to bring friends togeth­er in discussion.
 
(Pre­pared by Doug But­trey, William God­dard III, and Raul Lobo)

The catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty mourns the loss of one of its for­ma­tive and most influ­en­tial fig­ures, Pro­fes­sor Dr. Wolf­gang Max Hugo Sachtler, who passed away on Jan­u­ary 8, 2017. Born on Novem­ber 8, 1924 in Delitzsch, Ger­many, Pro­fes­sor Sachtler received his PhD from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty Braun­schweig (Brunswick), Ger­many in 1952, in the area of sur­face sci­ence. Upon grad­u­a­tion, he joined the Roy­al Dutch Shell Lab­o­ra­to­ry in Ams­ter­dam where he stayed until retire­ment as Direc­tor of Fun­da­men­tal Research in 1983. From 1963–84, he held a joint appoint­ment as Pro­fes­sor at the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty in Lei­den. He was par­tic­u­lar­ly known for his insight­ful appli­ca­tion of sur­face sci­ence con­cepts to catal­y­sis. While at Shell and Lei­den, he advanced the con­cept of rela­tion­ship between met­al-oxy­gen bond ener­gy and the selec­tiv­i­ty for par­tial oxi­da­tion prod­ucts in hydro­car­bon oxi­da­tions, ini­ti­at­ed insight­ful dis­cus­sions on whether mol­e­c­u­lar or atom­ic oxy­gen is nec­es­sary for selec­tive epox­i­da­tion of eth­yl­ene, applied ther­mo­dy­nam­ics and exper­i­men­tal mea­sure­ments to met­al alloys to account for the effects of the sur­face com­po­si­tions of alloys to their bind­ing of adsor­bates, and pro­mot­ed the descrip­tion of bimetal­lic catal­y­sis in terms of ensem­ble and lig­and effects.
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Pro­fes­sor Khi-Rui Tsai, a promi­nent pro­fes­sor of Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty and a mem­ber of Chi­nese Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, passed away peace­ful­ly on Octo­ber 3rd 2016 in Xia­men at his age of 104.

Pro­fes­sor Tsai is a famous phys­i­cal chemist and catal­y­sis sci­en­tist. He is a pio­neer of coor­di­na­tion catal­y­sis and mol­e­c­u­lar catal­y­sis in Chi­na. In 1960s, he devel­oped the­o­ret­i­cal con­cepts of catal­y­sis by coor­di­na­tion acti­va­tion, and applied the prin­ci­ples of coor­di­na­tion catal­y­sis to cor­re­late sev­er­al types of homo­ge­neous catal­y­sis, het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and met­al­lo-enzyme catal­y­sis sys­tems. In 1970s, he and Prof. Jia-Xi Lu pro­posed inde­pen­dent­ly, from dif­fer­ent approach­es, essen­tial­ly sim­i­lar clus­ter-struc­tur­al mod­els of Mo-nitro­ge­nase active cen­ters and mul­ti-nuclear coor­di­na­tion acti­va­tion of var­i­ous types of known sub­strates of nitro­ge­nase. Pro­fes­sor Tsai led a team at Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty with an aim to bridge the gap between enzyme catal­y­sis and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis since 1970s. He and his co-work­ers sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly car­ried out com­par­a­tive stud­ies on the mod­els of active cen­ters and reac­tion mech­a­nisms for nitro­ge­nase enzymes and for het­ero­ge­neous ammo­nia-syn­the­sis cat­a­lysts. The team also stud­ied the effects of ion­ic pro­mot­ers in N2 hydro­gena­tion to ammo­nia and CO hydro­gena­tion to methanol and ethanol. Pro­fes­sor Tsai pro­posed a unique mech­a­nism for the direct con­ver­sion of syn­gas to ethanol. Up to 1997, Pro­fes­sor Tsai pub­lished more than 200 research arti­cles. He got three times the State Nat­ur­al Sci­ence Award owing to his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to catal­y­sis sci­ence. In 1999, he was award­ed the He-Liang-He-Li Foun­da­tion Award for Progress in Sci­ence and Technology.

In addi­tion to the sci­en­tif­ic activ­i­ty, Pro­fes­sor Tsai also served as a mem­ber of the 3rd nation­al com­mit­tee of the Chi­nese People’s Polit­i­cal Con­sul­ta­tive Con­fer­ence, the deputy to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Nation­al People’s Con­gress and a mem­ber of the Aca­d­e­m­ic Degree Com­mis­sion of the State Coun­cil. He was the vice pres­i­dent of Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty and the direc­tor of the Sci­en­tif­ic Aca­d­e­m­ic Com­mit­tee of Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty. Pro­fes­sor Tsai also served as a coun­cil mem­ber of Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (IACS). Pro­fes­sor Tsai is also a big edu­ca­tor. He was a remark­able ambas­sador for Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty and a shin­ing exam­ple of what all edu­ca­tors should aspire to be. He imbued his stu­dents with firm ideals and beliefs, pro­vid­ed them with a strong moral com­pass, guid­ed them using his incred­i­ble wealth of knowl­edge, and treat­ed them all with benevolence.

Pro­fes­sor Tsai’s pass­ing is a mas­sive loss not only to Xia­men Uni­ver­si­ty but also to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in Chi­na. Pro­fes­sor Tsai will be great­ly missed by his fam­i­ly, friends, col­leagues, stu­dents and those who work in catal­y­sis field.