I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Manos Mavrikakis of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin is the recip­i­ent of the 2021 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 NAM27 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 Mavrikakis has elu­ci­dat­ed the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el mech­a­nisms of impor­tant het­ero­ge­neous­ly cat­alyzed and elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic chem­i­cal reac­tions. Through a com­bi­na­tion of quan­tum mechan­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions with micro­ki­net­ic mod­el­ing and reac­tion kinet­ics exper­i­ments, his group has elu­ci­dat­ed nov­el reac­tion mech­a­nisms, includ­ing new key inter­me­di­ates, among oth­ers, for the water-gas-shift reac­tion and methanol syn­the­sis over indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant cop­per-based cat­a­lysts. Fur­ther, Mavrikakis has devel­oped a rig­or­ous iter­a­tive approach for elu­ci­dat­ing the nature of the active sites for a cat­alyt­ic reac­tion, while the reac­tion is tak­ing place. In par­tic­u­lar, through the com­bi­na­tion of approach­es men­tioned above, his group devel­oped an approach capa­ble of deriv­ing infor­ma­tion on the inter­me­di­ates and at what cov­er­ages they dec­o­rate the active sites as a func­tion of pres­sure, tem­per­a­ture, and feed com­po­si­tion. This iter­a­tive approach is unique­ly posi­tioned to pre­dict the nature of the active sites as a func­tion of reac­tion con­di­tions, a goal that remains most­ly elu­sive from the most elab­o­rate in-situ and operan­do exper­i­men­tal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion tech­niques. Mavrikakis has con­tributed exten­sive­ly to under­stand­ing and pre­dict­ing the struc­ture sen­si­tiv­i­ty of cat­alyt­ic and elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic reac­tions, and has guid­ed the inor­gan­ic syn­the­sis com­mu­ni­ty towards the syn­the­sis of improved elec­tro­cat­a­lysts for a vari­ety of reactions.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

I am pleased to announce the win­ners of the 2021–2022 the 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 con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the W.R. Grace & Co. It is admin­is­tered by The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the next North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM27 in New York City). 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 2021–2022 cycle are (list­ed alphabetically):

2021 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Thomas Jaramil­lo of Stan­ford University

2022 Win­ner: Pro­fes­sor Beat­riz Roldan Cuenya of the Fritz Haber Institute 

Pro­fes­sor Jaramil­lo is rec­og­nized for his efforts in the design and devel­op­ment of cat­a­lysts for sus­tain­able chem­i­cal process­es. Jaramillo’s research has deep­ened our under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms and inter­fa­cial phe­nom­e­na, lead­ing to cat­a­lyst sys­tems with improved prop­er­ties, and serv­ing as a foun­da­tion for the devel­op­ment of new tech­nolo­gies. This includes, for instance, process­es that employ renew­able ener­gy for the sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of fuels and chem­i­cals. In this respect, Jaramil­lo has syn­the­sized and inves­ti­gat­ed advanced cat­a­lyst sys­tems for hydro­gen (H2) pro­duc­tion by water elec­trol­y­sis and by solar pho­to­elec­tro­chem­istry, as well as for the elec­tro­chem­i­cal con­ver­sion of CO2 to pro­duce valu­able car­bon-based prod­ucts, e.g. acetalde­hyde and ethanol, among oth­er process­es. Much of Jaramillo’s work has focused on devel­op­ing cat­a­lysts from earth-abun­dant ele­ments, either min­i­miz­ing or avoid­ing the use of pre­cious met­als. A key aspect of his research has involved method devel­op­ment, includ­ing cat­a­lyst bench­mark­ing efforts, new reac­tor designs, cou­pling ana­lyt­i­cal chem­istry tech­niques for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and quan­tifi­ca­tion of reac­tion prod­ucts, and operan­do meth­ods to study cat­a­lysts under true oper­at­ing con­di­tions. Jaramillo’s research has advanced cat­a­lyst devel­op­ment efforts for cost-effec­tive, clean ener­gy tech­nolo­gies, engi­neer­ing cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als at the nano- and atom­ic-scale to achieve active sites with desired properties.

Pro­fes­sor Roldan has made excep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to the mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing of ther­mal and elec­tro-cat­alyt­ic reac­tions based on the use of well-defined nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als com­bined with advanced in situ and operan­do micro­scop­ic and spec­tro­scop­ic char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Her chal­leng­ing exper­i­men­tal cat­alyt­ic research has great­ly advanced our fun­da­men­tal knowl­edge of how geo­met­ric and elec­tron­ic prop­er­ties influ­ence the cat­alyt­ic per­for­mance. In par­tic­u­lar, she has pro­vid­ed insight into re-uti­liza­tion of CO2 through its ther­mal or elec­tro­chem­i­cal con­ver­sions to high­er val­ue chem­i­cals and fuels such as methanol, eth­yl­ene, or ethanol. A high­light of her research pro­gram are stud­ies fea­tur­ing the dynam­ic nature of nanocat­a­lysts under reac­tion con­di­tions using syn­chro­tron-based operan­do spec­troscopy and dif­frac­tion meth­ods com­bined with envi­ron­men­tal trans­mis­sion elec­tron microscopy. She has pio­neered the com­bi­na­tion of col­loidal chem­istry approach­es and elec­tro­chem­i­cal syn­the­sis for the prepa­ra­tion of mod­el cat­alyt­i­cal­ly active mate­ri­als, and their chem­i­cal func­tion­al­iza­tion and restruc­tur­ing using plas­ma treat­ments. Over­all, her work has served to bridge the gap between sur­face sci­ence and “real” catal­y­sis by cre­at­ing scal­able ex situ syn­the­sis approach­es lead­ing to monodis­persed nano­ma­te­ri­als and expos­ing them to in depth physi­co-chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion under real­is­tic reac­tion con­di­tions. Her research will help to guide the ratio­nal design of the next gen­er­a­tion of cat­a­lysts based on atom­istic understanding.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Pro­fes­sor Jaramil­lo and Pro­fes­sor Roldan!

 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis Society

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Deng-Yang (DY) Jan of the Hon­ey­well UOP is the recip­i­ent of the 2021 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 2021 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM27 in New York City). 

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. Jan’s tech­ni­cal focus is devel­op­ing plat­form knowl­edge and intro­duc­ing enabling con­cepts to devel­op future gen­er­a­tion prod­ucts and process­es in Aro­mat­ics & Deriv­a­tives, and Olefins & Deter­gents. Since 2000, Dr. Jan and Team UOP have been focus­ing on zeolitic catal­y­sis by apply­ing UOP Zeolitic Mate­r­i­al plat­form to the tech­nol­o­gy port­fo­lio includ­ing aro­mat­ics alky­la­tion, iso­mer­iza­tion, trans-alky­la­tion, new routes for pro­duc­ing para-xylene, eth­yl­ben­zene, cumene, lin­ear alkyl­ben­zene and motor fuel. DY achieve­ments include com­mer­cial­ize high­ly selec­tive cumene alky­la­tion (UOP Q‑Max) with low cap­i­tal and oper­at­ing costs, lin­ear alkyl­ben­zene (UOP Detal for biodegrad­able deter­gent) at low util­i­ty cost enabling replace HF alky­la­tion, Aro­mat­ics Iso­mer­iza­tion (UOP Iso­mar), Aro­mat­ics Trans-Alky­la­tion (UOP Tatoray) enabling flex­i­ble process of feed­stock of vary­ing compositions.

Dr. Jan received B.S. in Chem­istry from Nation­al Cheng-Kung Uni­ver­si­ty, M.S. in Inor­gan­ic Chem­istry in Nation­al Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty (Tai­wan) and a Ph.D. in Chem­istry from The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty in 1985. He has over 100 issued US patents and 30 peer review jour­nal pub­li­ca­tions. Dr. Jan has been rec­og­nized with sev­er­al awards, includ­ing the the 2007 Hon­ey­well Fun­da­men­tal Tech­nol­o­gy Devel­op­ment Award, the 2016 Her­man Pines Award for his con­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial­iz­ing EB/Cumene and Deter­gent, and the 2017 Hon­ey­well Dis­tin­guished Tech­nol­o­gy Award giv­en for out­stand­ing tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions over the course of a career.

 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley and Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry is the recip­i­ent of the 2021 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. This award is joint­ly spon­sored by Clari­ant and Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing 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 2021 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM27 in New York City). 

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.

Ded­i­ca­tion to catal­y­sis through ser­vice and lead­er­ship has been a hall­mark through­out the pro­fes­sion­al career of Enrique Igle­sia, from his Prince­ton stu­dent days as Pres­i­dent of AIChE and Tau Beta Pi local chap­ters, to Sec­tion Head for Catal­y­sis Sci­ence at Exxon, and as the men­tor of a pro­lif­ic group at Berke­ley. Ear­ly on, he served ACS and AIChE in lead­er­ship posi­tions, in which he cham­pi­oned the coa­les­cence of catal­y­sis with­in the Catal­y­sis Sec­re­tari­at (lat­er a Divi­sion) at ACS and the Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion at AIChE. He has served IACS as Pro­gram Co-Chair of the 11th ICC, as Vice-Pres­i­dent and Pres­i­dent-Elect, and as the 17th ICC Meet­ing Chair. He has served NACS as Vice Pres­i­dent and Pres­i­dent and as Meet­ing Co-Chair for its NAM21. In each role, as well as in his tenure as NAE Sec­tion 3 Chair and Search Com­mit­tee Chair, he has focused on broad­en­ing the mem­ber­ship and on encour­ag­ing, men­tor­ing, and rec­og­niz­ing the achieve­ments of young sci­en­tists and engi­neers. Per­haps his most last­ing lega­cy comes from his thir­teen-year tenure as Edi­tor-in-Chief of Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis. Any­one who inter­act­ed with him in that role, and in all oth­ers, knows his pas­sion for excel­lence in the study and prac­tice of catal­y­sis. The award cita­tion reads “For tire­less ded­i­ca­tion to the stew­ard­ship of catal­y­sis and for encour­ag­ing, men­tor­ing, and rec­og­niz­ing its practitioners”.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Cong-Yan Chen of Chevron is the recip­i­ent of the 2020 F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis. Dr. Chen is also an adjunct pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis. The award is admin­is­tered by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and spon­sored by the W. R. Grace & Co. It is to be award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The recip­i­ent may be invit­ed to lec­ture at some of the local catal­y­sis clubs dur­ing the two-year peri­od cov­ered by this award.

Dr. Cong-Yan Chen’s research for over 25 years at Chevron cov­ers var­i­ous areas in the field of fun­da­men­tal and indus­tri­al catal­y­sis includ­ing syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of micro­p­orous and meso­porous mol­e­c­u­lar sieves, struc­ture-prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships of zeo­lites, adsorp­tion, dif­fu­sion and reac­tion mech­a­nisms. The work has had an empha­sis on inven­tion and devel­op­ment of cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions of zeo­lites and oth­er cat­a­lysts in refin­ing and petro­chem­istry. He and his group devel­oped sev­er­al cat­alyt­ic process­es of indus­tri­al impor­tance. In one exam­ple, alka­ne dis­pro­por­tion­a­tion is applied in upgrad­ing or elim­i­nat­ing liq­uid petro­le­um gas (LPG, con­sist­ing of propane and butanes) at remote loca­tions, with the tar­get of inte­grat­ing the result­ing ethane into nat­ur­al gas and blend­ing the result­ing C5+ liq­uid into crude oil while sav­ing the trans­porta­tion and stor­age facil­i­ties for LPG. It pro­vides an eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal­ly benign process more attrac­tive than com­plex com­bi­na­tions of oth­er exist­ing tech­nolo­gies. Dr. Chen’s work has been pio­neer­ing in the devel­op­ment of borosil­i­cate zeo­lites in the area of aro­mat­ics cre­ation and trans­for­ma­tions in the petro­chem­i­cals sec­tor. In anoth­er exam­ple, a nov­el renew­able base oil tech­nol­o­gy is trans­lat­ed into com­mer­cial val­ue via zeo­lite catal­y­sis, rais­ing the lubri­cants’ per­for­mance to the next lev­el with envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits and resource sustainability.
 
Congratulations!
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society