NAM28 Housing & Social Events


 
Dear Catal­y­sis Researcher,
 
The 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing is less than two months away. Please secure your hotel accom­mo­da­tions at the Omni Prov­i­dence by May 26, 2023 using the book­ing link here.
 
Back by pop­u­lar demand, we have sev­er­al excit­ing social events!
 
Diver­si­ty Equi­ty & Inclu­sion Lun­cheon | Tues­day, June 20th | 12:00 PM — 1:00 PM
Cost: $30 per tick­et to include a boxed lunch with sliced apples, cook­ie, chips, and bev­er­age.
Make time in your itin­er­ary for a lun­cheon focused on cat­alyz­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion in our field. All atten­dees are encour­aged to join and will be held at the Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. This event is designed to cre­ate a safe and inclu­sive space for every­one to dis­cuss and enjoy a boxed lunch, regard­less of their back­ground or expe­ri­ences.
 
Prov­i­dence Ghost Tour | Tues­day, June 20th | 7:00 PM
Cost: $30 per tick­et.
Enjoy the spooky side of Providence’s his­to­ry and join us for an evening like no oth­er! Allow guides to lead you by lantern light for a 1 hour and 30 min­utes tour to Providence’s longest-lin­ger­ing res­i­dents. You will meet in front of the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 7:00 PM to walk over with your respec­tive groups for your tour to start prompt­ly at 7:30 PM.
 
Worces­ter Red Sox (WooSox) Base­ball Game | Wednes­day, June 21st | 6:45 PM
Cost: $50 per tick­et to include roundtrip shut­tle trans­porta­tion and a $2 food/merchandise vouch­er.
**Shut­tle Departs the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 5:00 PM
Come watch the Worces­ter Red Sox play the Lehigh Val­ley Iron­Pigs at Polar Park in Worces­ter, MA on Wednes­day, June 21 at 6:45 PM. The bus will depart from the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 5:00 PM and return around 10:30 PM that evening.
 
If you have already reg­is­tered, please fol­low the steps below.

  1. Log into your reg­is­tra­tion pro­file here by select­ing “Already Reg­is­tered”. You will be asked your email and reg­is­tra­tion con­fir­ma­tion num­ber
  2. After sign­ing in, you will reach a web­page that says “Con­grat­u­la­tions, you are now reg­is­tered!”. Scroll all the way to the bot­tom and select the but­ton that says “Mod­i­fy Reg­is­tra­tion”
  3. Con­tin­ue to select the “Next” but­ton at the bot­tom of each page until you reach the “Option­al Add-On Items” page. There you can select the tick­ets you want to pur­chase
  4. Pro­ceed to select “Next” until you reach the pay­ment page where you can pro­vide pay­ment for the option­al items added and hit sub­mit.

 
Sin­cere­ly,
 
The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee of the 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing
NAM28@meetingsolutionsinc.com

28th NAM Early Bird Registration Rates End April 7th


 
The 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing is just 80 days away. Reg­is­ter here to secure ear­ly bird reg­is­tra­tion rates by April 7, 2023. Take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to attend one of the pre­mier sci­en­tif­ic events in the field of catal­y­sis which pro­vides a forum for the dis­cus­sion of rel­e­vant tech­no­log­i­cal issues and state of the art research.  The meet­ing will focus on tech­no­log­i­cal chal­lenges, break­through dis­cov­er­ies, and state-of-the-art indus­tri­al research in catal­y­sis.
 
Don’t for­get to secure your hotel accom­mo­da­tions at the Omni by May 26, 2023.
 

Con­fer­ence Loca­tion
Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter
1 Sabin Street
Prov­i­dence, RI, 02903		 Hous­ing Loca­tion
Omni Prov­i­dence
1 West Exchange Street
Prov­i­dence, RI, 02903

 
Events to Attend at NAM28
 
NEW! Diver­si­ty Equi­ty & Inclu­sion Lun­cheon | Tues­day, June 20th from 12:00 PM — 1:00 PM
Cost: $30 per tick­et to include a boxed lunch with sliced apples, cook­ie, chips, and bev­er­age.
Make time in your itin­er­ary to net­work at a spe­cial lun­cheon focused on cat­alyz­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion in our field. All atten­dees are encour­aged to join and will be held at the Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. This event is designed to cre­ate a safe and inclu­sive space for every­one to dis­cuss and enjoy a boxed lunch, regard­less of their back­ground or expe­ri­ences.
 
NEW! Prov­i­dence Ghost Tour | Tues­day, June 20th at 7:00 PM
Cost: $30 per tick­et.
Enjoy the spooky side of Providence’s his­to­ry and join us for an evening like no oth­er! Allow guides to lead you by lantern light for a 1 hour and 30 min­utes tour as you’re intro­duce you to Providence’s longest-lin­ger­ing res­i­dents. You will meet in front of the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 7:00 PM to walk over with your respec­tive groups for your tour to start prompt­ly at 7:30 PM.
 
NEW! Worces­ter Red Sox (WooSox) Base­ball Game | Wednes­day, June 21st at 6:45 PM
Cost: $50 per tick­et to include roundtrip shut­tle trans­porta­tion and a $2 food/merchandise vouch­er.
**Shut­tle Departs the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 5:00 PM
Come watch the Worces­ter Red Sox play the Lehigh Val­ley Iron­Pigs at Polar Park in Worces­ter, MA on Wednes­day, June 21 at 6:45 PM. The bus will depart from the Con­ven­tion Cen­ter at 5:00 PM and return around 10:30 PM that evening.
 
Pre-Con­fer­ence Work­shops & Pan­el | Sun­day, June 18th | Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter
NAM28 will be host­ing work­shops and a pan­el on Sun­day, June 18th. To learn more, please vis­it the NAM28 web­site under Sun­day Work­shops and Sun­day Pan­el.
 
Open­ing Recep­tion | Sun­day, June 28th from 6:30 PM — 10:00 PM | Water­Fire Prov­i­dence
Min­gle with fel­low atten­dees while enjoy­ing one of Providence’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tions!
 
Clos­ing Recep­tion & Ban­quet | Thurs­day, June 22nd from 7:00 PM — 10:00 PM | Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter
Close out the con­fer­ence by eat­ing great food, con­nect­ing on the week with fel­low atten­dees, and hon­or­ing this year’s award recip­i­ents.
 
Sin­cere­ly,
The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee of the 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing
NAM28@meetingsolutionsinc.com
 

Announcement of 2023 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Umit Ozkan of the Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by John­son Matthey and admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000, which will be pre­sent­ed at the award ban­quet at the NAM28 meet­ing. An addi­tion­al $4,500 is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ling expens­es in North Amer­i­ca. The awardee is expect­ed to lec­ture at many of the local catal­y­sis clubs.

The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis 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. The awardee is select­ed on the basis of his/her con­tri­bu­tions to the cat­alyt­ic lit­er­a­ture and the cur­rent time­li­ness of these research con­tri­bu­tions. The recip­i­ent may be invit­ed to (1) vis­it and lec­ture to each of the affil­i­at­ed Clubs/Societies with which mutu­al­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ments can be made and (2) pre­pare a review paper(s) for pub­li­ca­tion cov­er­ing these lec­tures. Pub­li­ca­tion will be in an appro­pri­ate peri­od­i­cal.

Pro­fes­sor Umit Ozkan is rec­og­nized for her pio­neer­ing work that bridged the het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and elec­tro­catal­y­sis fields.  Her group was the first to show that nitro­gen-doped car­bon nanos­truc­tures (CNx) had promis­ing oxy­gen reduc­tion reac­tion (ORR) activ­i­ty in acidic medi­um. Com­bin­ing spec­troscopy tech­niques, met­al-free syn­the­sis meth­ods, and probe mol­e­cules, they were able to iden­ti­fy the active sites and pro­vide a mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing of the ORR. Recent­ly, her group has also been explor­ing the use of CNx mate­ri­als as oxy­gen depo­lar­ized cath­ode elec­trodes as well as in bromine evo­lu­tion reac­tions. Ozkan also expand­ed her work to mid-tem­per­a­ture elec­tro­catal­y­sis in sol­id oxide elec­trolyt­ic cells for appli­ca­tions such as oxida­tive dehy­dro­gena­tion of low­er alka­nes or oxida­tive cou­pling of methane as well as co-elec­trol­y­sis of CO2 and H2O on per­ovskites. More recent­ly, they have been work­ing on mid-tem­per­a­ture elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic NH3 pro­duc­tion from N2 and H2O, pro­vid­ing a route for dis­trib­uted NH3 pro­duc­tion as an alter­na­tive to the Haber-Bosch process. Dr. Ozkan’s con­tri­bu­tions to het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis include stud­ies in oxi­da­tion catal­y­sis, envi­ron­men­tal catal­y­sis, hydro­gena­tion and hydrogenol­y­sis reac­tions as well as reform­ing reac­tions. In all of these stud­ies, her focus has been under­stand­ing the nature of active sites and tai­lor­ing the sur­face prop­er­ties to achieve desired cat­alyt­ic func­tions.

 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Registration is open for the 28th North American Catalysis Society Meeting

February 7, 2023

Dear Catal­y­sis Researcher,

We are excit­ed to invite you to attend the 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing (NAM28) that will be held from June 18 — 23, 2023 in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island at the Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

This bien­ni­al meet­ing is wide­ly rec­og­nized as the pre­mier top­i­cal con­fer­ence for mat­ters relat­ed to homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, while also includ­ing broad cov­er­age of elec­tro­catal­y­sis and pho­to­catal­y­sis. Prov­i­dence is a clas­sic New Eng­land city, full of great cui­sine, arts, and his­toric archi­tec­ture.
Impor­tant Dead­lines and Dates
Reg­is­tra­tion is now open!
Ear­ly Reg­is­tra­tion Rates end April 7, 2023
Reg­is­ter by June 16, 2023
Secure your Hotel Accom­mo­da­tions at the Omni by May 26, 2023
 

Con­fer­ence Loca­tion
Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter
1 Sabin Street
Prov­i­dence, RI, 02903		 Hous­ing Loca­tion
Omni Prov­i­dence
1 West Exchange Street
Prov­i­dence, RI, 02903

Don’t miss these events!
Sun­day Work­shops & Pan­el: NAM28 will be host­ing work­shops and a pan­el on Sun­day, June 18th. To learn more, please vis­it the NAM28 web­site under Sun­day Work­shops and Sun­day Pan­el.
 
Open­ing Recep­tion: Min­gle with fel­low atten­dees while enjoy­ing one of Providence’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tions!
      Sun­day, June 18, 2023
      Water­Fire Prov­i­dence
      6:30pm – 10:00pm
 
Clos­ing Recep­tion & Ban­quet: Close out the con­fer­ence by eat­ing great food, con­nect­ing on the week with fel­low atten­dees, and hon­or­ing this year’s award recip­i­ents.
      Thurs­day, June 22, 2023  
      Rhode Island Con­ven­tion Cen­ter
      7:00pm – 10:00pm

It is crit­i­cal that every­one in the NAM28 com­mu­ni­ty receive this email, and we’re using sev­er­al email plat­forms to ensure com­plete cov­er­age, so you may receive this reminder more than once.

For ques­tions regard­ing reg­is­tra­tion please con­tact NAM28@meetingsolutionsinc.com

Sin­cere­ly,
The Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee of the 28th North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Meet­ing

Johannes Lercher is the recipient of the 2023 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Johannes Lercher of TU München and PNNL is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The Award is spon­sored by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny, and is admin­is­tered joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. Pro­fes­sor Lercher will give ple­nary lec­tures at the meet­ings of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM) and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EuropaCat). The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $6,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28 in Prov­i­dence).

The Michel Boudart 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/or prac­tice of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis.

Pro­fes­sor Lercher is rec­og­nized for sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions to define and quan­ti­fy the cen­ters that bind react­ing mol­e­cules, to char­ac­ter­ize the envi­ron­ment around these cen­ters, and to quan­ti­fy the impact that the sol­id and/or mobile envi­ron­ment has on the react­ing mol­e­cules. Address­ing this com­plex­i­ty required pio­neer­ing work in char­ac­ter­iz­ing “simul­ta­ne­ous­ly” the sol­id as well as mobile phase under con­di­tions rel­e­vant for the cat­alyt­ic trans­for­ma­tion. The approach enabled, how­ev­er, to tie togeth­er under­stand­ing of the impact of liq­uid-sol­id inter­faces on the react­ing mol­e­cules and the addi­tion­al influ­ences by exter­nal elec­tric poten­tials. The pro­found analy­sis of the cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na at the micro­scop­ic lev­el, study­ing the influ­ence of short- and long-range inter­ac­tions between the reac­tant mol­e­cules and the sol­id cat­a­lysts has strong­ly influ­enced our way to under­stand how reac­tions occur on sol­id cat­a­lysts. The holis­tic approach link­ing advanced physic­o­chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of cat­a­lysts and their action with detailed kinet­ic analy­ses has opened a new par­a­digm to catal­y­sis research.

Please join me in con­grat­u­lat­ing Pro­fes­sor Lercher!
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Announcement of 2023–2024 Paul H. Emmett Award Winners

I am pleased to announce the win­ners of the 2023–2024 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis. This award rec­og­nizes and encour­ages 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 win­ner must not have turned 46 on April 1st of the award year. The award is spon­sored by WR Grace & Co and man­aged 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 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28), sched­uled to be held on June 18–23, 2023, in Prov­i­dence. The awardees will also present a Ple­nary Lec­ture at the NAM meet­ing.

The NACS Board has recent­ly approved to hon­or up to two Emmett awardees every two years. The two awardees for the 2023–2024 cycle are (list­ed alpha­bet­i­cal­ly):

2023 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Aditya Bhan, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta
2024 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Yuriy Román-Leshkov, Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy

Professor Aditya BhanPro­fes­sor Aditya Bhan and his group are rec­og­nized for bring­ing ana­lyt­i­cal for­malisms and detailed exper­i­men­ta­tion to elic­it kinet­ic and mech­a­nis­tic infor­ma­tion, ver­i­fied against ther­mo­dy­nam­ic mea­sure­ments and stric­tures, into hydro­car­bon reac­tion sys­tems of sig­nif­i­cant com­plex­i­ty and prac­ti­cal util­i­ty. His group has pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal insight into how and why cat­alyt­ic process­es occur, both as they form desired prod­ucts and as they lead to uns­e­lec­tive or deac­ti­vat­ing side paths for a num­ber of impor­tant indus­tri­al cat­alyt­ic process­es includ­ing methanol-to-hydro­car­bons catal­y­sis, non-oxida­tive and oxida­tive alka­ne con­ver­sion, par­tial oxi­da­tion of olefins, hydrodeoxy­gena­tion, and dehy­dra­tion. These stud­ies have brought con­cepts of chem­i­cal kinet­ics and ther­mo­dy­nam­ics to derive fun­da­men­tal insights into catal­y­sis on zeo­lites, car­bides, oxides, met­als, and MOFs. His group has brought new con­cepts and def­i­n­i­tions to the kinet­ic analy­sis of het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic sys­tems in devel­op­ing a kinet­ic descrip­tion of site ensem­bles on cat­alyt­ic sur­faces, in demon­strat­ing rate func­tions of an over­all reac­tion with many ele­men­tary steps can be writ­ten in a form anal­o­gous to the micro­scop­ic law of mass action, and in devel­op­ing math­e­mat­i­cal mod­els describ­ing rates and reversibil­i­ty in com­plex reac­tion net­works.

Professor Yuriy Román-LeshkovPro­fes­sor Yuriy Román-Leshkov and his group com­bines cat­a­lyst syn­the­sis, kinet­ic stud­ies, and reac­tor design to study chem­i­cal trans­for­ma­tions relat­ed to the sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of fuels and chem­i­cals. A dis­tinc­tive focus has been the design of reac­tive envi­ron­ments in sol­id cat­a­lysts to improve activ­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty by using elec­tric fields, con­fine­ment, and site coop­er­a­tiv­i­ty as means to con­trol reac­tion rates. His work on Lewis acid zeo­lites has improved our under­stand­ing of how the met­al cen­ter, intra­pore con­fine­ment of reactants/solvents, and frame­work polar­i­ty influ­ence rates for the con­ver­sion of bio-derived oxy­genates in the liq­uid phase. This includes trans­fer hydro­gena­tions, iso­mer­iza­tion-lac­toniza­tion sequences, and C‑C cou­pling reac­tions of car­bo­hy­drates, furan-deriv­a­tives, and keto-acids, to pro­duce a wide range of val­ue-added chem­i­cals. Yuriy has made impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the areas of sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuels and plas­tic waste decon­struc­tion through his work on selec­tive hydrodeoxy­gena­tion of lignin into aro­mat­ics and hydrogenol­y­sis of poly­olefinic plas­tic waste with earth-abun­dant cat­a­lysts. Last­ly, his col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts to bridge con­cepts in ther­mo- and elec­tro­catal­y­sis have result­ed in foun­da­tion­al insights into how inter­fa­cial elec­tric fields influ­ence ther­mo­chem­i­cal reac­tion rates even for sys­tems dis­con­nect­ed from exter­nal wiring.
 
Con­grat­u­la­tions to Pro­fes­sor Bhan and Pro­fes­sor Román-Leshkov!
 
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety

Stephen R. Schmidt is the recipient of the 2023 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Stephen R. Schmidt of W.R. Grace is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis. This award is spon­sored by Clari­ant and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28 in Prov­i­dence).

The pur­pose of the Eugene J. Houdry 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 appli­ca­tions.

Dr. Stephen R. Schmidt, Research Fel­low at W.R. Grace, has been with the com­pa­ny since 1985. The cen­ter­piece of Steve’s career has been acquir­ing lead­ing exper­tise in hydro­gena­tion catal­y­sis and apply­ing it to the devel­op­ment of new Raney® base met­al cat­a­lysts. These cat­a­lysts are crit­i­cal to the pro­duc­tion of large vol­ume chem­i­cals such as the diamine monomer of Nylon 6,6, toluene diamine monomer for polyurethanes, the diol monomer of elas­tane (i.e., Span­dex®) and sug­ar alco­hols. They are also robust in both fixed bed and slur­ry reac­tor appli­ca­tions. Steve has also con­tributed to the sci­ence of char­ac­ter­iz­ing the sur­faces of these unique cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, by devel­op­ing pro­to­cols for con­tend­ing with nascent hydro­gen asso­ci­at­ed with Raney® cat­a­lysts. He has also made ground-break­ing con­tri­bu­tions to mul­ti-metal­lic Raney® cat­a­lysts includ­ing pre­cious met­al-mod­i­fied Raney® cat­a­lysts and Fe-mod­i­fied Raney® cat­a­lysts. Steve’s career bridges across sev­er­al busi­ness units at Grace, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of high sur­face area sil­i­ca, alu­mi­na, rare earths, and sup­ports for poly­mer­iza­tion and auto­mo­tive exhaust cat­a­lysts. A hall­mark of Steve’s career is his col­lab­o­ra­tive approach that has facil­i­tat­ed the devel­op­ment of new tech­nol­o­gy for both the cat­a­lyst man­u­fac­tur­er and the pur­chas­er of his company’s cat­a­lyst prod­ucts.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, NACS

Stuart Soled is the recipient of the 2023 NACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

Stu­art (Stu) L. Soled

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Stu­art Soled of Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing is the recip­i­ent of the 2023 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This award is joint­ly spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing and Clari­ant, and is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2023 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM28 in Prov­i­dence).

The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing by sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in addi­tion to tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments.

States­man­ship, schol­ar­ship, and ser­vice to our com­mu­ni­ty describe the career of Stu Soled. From the trench­es of indus­try, he has led in mat­ters of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and ped­a­gogy, while men­tor­ing stu­dents in indus­try and acad­e­mia. His elo­quent lec­tures pro­vide a mod­el of rig­or in the prac­tice of catal­y­sis, but also show the growth of human tal­ent is insep­a­ra­ble from research achieve­ments. His broad tech­no­log­i­cal impact (100+ patents) and con­cep­tu­al con­tri­bu­tions to the schol­ar­ly lit­er­a­ture are out­stand­ing.

His nur­tur­ing and guid­ance in the evo­lu­tion of aca­d­e­m­ic cen­ters, projects, and staff illus­trate how Stu works to advance research and teach­ing in aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions. His men­tor­ship at Exxon­Mo­bil is leg­endary; it has served to bridge demo­graph­ic gaps and changes in strate­gic direc­tions and to main­tain a cul­ture of rig­or. His con­tri­bu­tions to pre­serve and dis­sem­i­nate the his­to­ry of catal­y­sis, painstak­ing­ly gath­ered by Burt Davis over decades required hun­dreds of hours of edit­ing and con­vert­ing video­graph­ic media into acces­si­ble forms. Near­ly 2000 videos, cov­er­ing more than 50 years of lec­tures and inter­views, are now avail­able at the “Video His­to­ry of Catal­y­sis” YouTube chan­nel. This serves as a repos­i­to­ry of our community’s sto­ried his­to­ry of sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal achieve­ments.

Stu Soled rep­re­sents, in spir­it and impact, the def­i­n­i­tion of ser­vice.
 
Jing­guang Chen
NACS Pres­i­dent

In Memoriam: Kenzi Tamaru (1923–2020)

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.