Cong-Yan Chen of Chevron is the recipient of the 2020 F. G. Ciapetta Lectureship in Catalysis

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

17th ICC will take place in San Diego, USA, June 14–19, 2020

17th ICC will take place in San Diego, USA, June 14–19, 2020, chaired by Prof. Enrique Igle­sia and Abhaya Datye, Bruce Gates, and Umit Ozkan as Vice-Chairs. The theme of the 17th ICC is “2020 Vision for Catal­y­sis”.

The web­site for ICC2020 is oper­a­tive, fol­low this link.

Noti­fi­ca­tion of accept­ed abstracts has been dis­trib­uted. Con­fer­ence Reg­is­tra­tion por­tal is open now.

17th ICC Travel Awards for Graduate Students and Postdocs at North American Institutions

The 17th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis will award a lim­it­ed num­ber of trav­el awards to grad­u­ate stu­dents and post­docs to assist with their trav­el expens­es to the meet­ing. These trav­el awards will cov­er reg­is­tra­tion and trav­el to the con­fer­ence (up to $1000/graduate stu­dent and $1250/postdoc; sub­mis­sion of all receipts will be required). To be eli­gi­ble, the grad­u­ate student/postdoc must be cur­rent­ly enrolled or employed by an insti­tu­tion in North Amer­i­ca (US, Cana­da and Mexico). 

The nom­i­na­tion for this award should be made by the student/postdoc’s research advi­sor. Each advi­sor may nom­i­nate only one stu­dent or post­doc.

The nom­i­na­tion pack­age should include the fol­low­ing as a sin­gle PDF file:
a) Notice of abstract accep­tance at the 17th ICC along with the abstract.
b) A resume (up to 2 pages in length) high­light­ing the student/postdoc’s accomplishments.
c) A sin­gle-page rec­om­men­da­tion let­ter from the fac­ul­ty advisor. 

The nom­i­na­tion mate­r­i­al must be sent elec­tron­i­cal­ly by email as a sin­gle pack­age to Eran­da Nikol­la at travelawards@2020icc.com. The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is Feb­ru­ary 24th (mid­night EST), 2020.

Nominations are open for the Herman Pines Award in Catalysis

Sponsored by UOP and the Catalysis Club of Chicago

 

Her­man Pines

The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is solic­it­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Her­man Pines Award for out­stand­ing research in the field of catal­y­sis. Her­man Pines was an out­stand­ing research sci­en­tist in both indus­try and acad­e­mia, 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 co-spon­sored by UOP, where Her­man Pines began his indus­tri­al career in 1930 and amassed 145 US patents, and by the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go of which Her­man Pines was a found­ing mem­ber while at North­west­ern University.

The Award will be pre­sent­ed at the 2020 Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go Spring Sym­po­sium in May 2020 and con­sists of a plaque, a cash award of $1,000 and reim­burse­ment for trav­el and lodg­ing as a ple­nary speak­er at the Spring Symposium.

The nom­i­nee must meet the fol­low­ing criteria:

  • Sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments in catal­y­sis research over the past five years
  • For year 2020, the award will be giv­en to a mem­ber of industry
  • Active mem­ber in catal­y­sis community
  • A res­i­dent of North America.

Dead­line for nom­i­na­tion is Jan­u­ary 17, 2020.

Nom­i­na­tions should describe the spe­cif­ic work for which the nom­i­nee should be rec­og­nized. A com­plete cur­ricu­lum vitae with letter(s) of sup­port for the nom­i­nee must be includ­ed in the nom­i­na­tion, togeth­er with the descrip­tion of work. Let­ters of nom­i­na­tion and sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion must be sent as a sin­gle PDF doc­u­ment to:
 
Neil M. Schweitzer, Ph.D.
North­west­ern University
neil.schweitzer@northwestern.edu
 
List of past award recip­i­ents of the Her­man Pines Award
1999 Prof. Harold Kung – North­west­ern University
2000 Dr. John Mon­nier – East­man Chem­i­cal Company
2001 Prof. Lan­ny Schmidt – Uni­ver­si­ty of Minnesota
2002 Dr. James Brazdil – BP
2003 Prof. James Dumesic – Uni­ver­si­ty of Wisconsin
2004 Dr. Alak Bhat­tacharyya – BP
2005 Prof. Israel Wachs – Lehigh University
2006 Dr. Jeff Miller – BP
2007 Prof. Chun­shan Song – Penn­syl­va­nia State University
2008 Dr. Alek­sey Yez­erets – Cum­mins Inc.
2009 Prof. Tobin Marks – North­west­ern University
2010 Dr. James Rekoske – UOP
2011 Prof. Jing­guang Chen – Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
2012 Dr. Stu­art Soled — ExxonMobil
2013 Prof. W. Nicholas Del­gass – Pur­due University
2014 Dr. Haiy­ing Chen – John­son Matthey
2015 Prof. Fabio Ribeiro – Pur­due University
2016 Dr. DY Jan – Hon­ey­well UOP
2017 Prof. Peter Stair – North­west­ern University
2018 Dr. Jerzy Klosin — Dow
2019 Prof. Manos Mavrikakis — Uni­ver­si­ty of Wisconsin

17th International Congress on Catalysis — Abstract deadline November 15th 2019


Dear Colleague,
 
The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety invites your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 17th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis () to be held in San Diego, CA from 14–19 June 2020. This con­gress, held once four years, is the pre­mier tech­ni­cal gath­er­ing of our com­mu­ni­ty. This 17th con­gress is orga­nized on the theme 2020 Vision for Catal­y­sis with the aim of look­ing into the future for catal­y­sis research guid­ed by the past and to the judge the present in con­text of what lies ahead. The tech­ni­cal pro­gram (Tech­ni­cal Pro­gram) will address the sci­ence and prac­tice of catal­y­sis along three cross-cut­ting themes:

  • Mate­ri­als and Molecules
  • Path­ways and Mechanisms
  • Reac­tors and Processes

We invite you to sub­mit an abstract (Abstract Sub­mis­sion) using the tem­plate avail­able online before the 15 Novem­ber 2019 deadline.

NACS will also pro­vide trav­el awards for stu­dents and post­docs from US insti­tu­tions (no restric­tions on nation­al­i­ty). More updates on the trav­el award com­ing soon!

We look for­ward to your con­tri­bu­tions and par­tic­i­pa­tion in this 17th ICC and to see­ing all of you in San Diego.
 
Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee of the 17th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catalysis

2020 ORCS call for abstracts is now open

ORCS is pleased to announce its 28th Bien­ni­al Con­fer­ence at the One Ocean Resort and Spa in Jack­sonville, FL on March 29-April 2, 2020.
 
Key Dates
 

  • Abstract Sub­mis­sions Due – Oct. 15, 2019
  • Con­fer­ence Reg­is­tra­tion Opens – Oct. 1, 2019
  • Award Noti­fi­ca­tion – Octo­ber 1, 2019
  • Abstract Noti­fi­ca­tion – Novem­ber 15, 2019
  • Con­fer­ence Dates – Mar. 29 — Apr. 2, 2020

 
Down­load the ORCS Abstract Tem­plate and the meet­ing full page fli­er.

2020 Vision for Catalysis

Abstract submission period has been extended to 15-November-2019

INVITATION The orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee cor­dial­ly invites you to attend the 17th Inter­na­tion­al Con­gress on Catal­y­sis that will be held from June 14–19, 2020 in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, USA. The ICC 2020, with the theme of “2020 Vision for Catal­y­sis”, will bring togeth­er our inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to share knowl­edge, bridge intel­lec­tu­al gaps, advance our sci­ence, and cel­e­brate the tal­ents and achieve­ments of the most accom­plished prac­ti­tion­ers of our discipline.
 
TOPICS

  • C1 Chemistry
  • Func­tion­al­iza­tion and Con­ver­sion of C2-C5 Paraffins
  • H2 Gen­er­a­tion and Use
  • Syn­gas Gen­er­a­tion and Use
  • Elec­tro­catal­y­sis and Pho­to­catal­y­sis Fundamentals
  • Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing (Con­ven­tion­al and Mod­u­lar Methods)
  • Envi­ron­men­tal Catal­y­sis (Gas and Liq­uid Phases)
  • Het­eroatom Removal
  • Car­bon-Car­bon and Car­bon-Het­eroatom Bond Formation
  • Con­ver­sion of Bio­mass and Bio­mass-derived Molecules
  • Emerg­ing and cross-cut­ting top­ics in catalysis
  • In-situ and Operan­do Analysis
  • Catal­y­sis with Ordered Porous Mate­ri­als (MOFs, Zeo­lites, etc.)
  • Catal­y­sis for Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis (Com­mod­i­ty and Specialty)
  • The­o­ry and Com­pu­ta­tion in Catalysis
  • Cat­a­lyst Syn­the­sis and/or Characterization
  • Catal­y­sis in Nitro­gen Chemistry
  • Cat­alyt­ic Cracking
  • Catal­y­sis with Sup­port­ed Metals
  • Catal­y­sis with Oxides
  • Cat­a­lyst Deactivation

 
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS)
 
CHAIRMAN Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia, USA
 
CONGRESS VENUE Man­ches­ter Grand Hyatt, San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, USA
 
KEY DATES

  • June 5, 2019 — Call for abstracts
  • Novem­ber 15, 2019 — Dead­line for abstract submission
  • Feb­ru­ary 14, 2020 — Accep­tance notification
  • April 15, 2020 — Dead­line for ear­ly registration
  • June 11, 2020 — Dead­line for online registration

 
ICC SPONSORSHIP offers many advan­tages to your organization.
Please con­tact Pro­fes­sor Tom Deg­nan, Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame
at tdegnan1@nd.edu for spon­sor­ship details.
 
CORRESPONDENCE info@2020icc.com
 
ICC SATELLITE CONFERENCES

  • 26th Cana­di­an Sym­po­sium on Catal­y­sis (CSC 2020), June 9–12, 2020, Van­cou­ver, Canada
  • 3rd Inter­na­tion­al Sym­po­sium on Sin­gle Atom Catal­y­sis (ISSAC‑3), June 10–13, 2020, Asilo­mar Con­fer­ence Grounds, Pacif­ic Grove, CA, USA
  • Catal­y­sis for bio­mass derived mol­e­cules to valu­able prod­ucts, June 11–12, 2020, Puer­to Val­lar­ta, Mexico
  • 4th Inter­na­tion­al meet­ing on the fun­da­men­tals and appli­ca­tions of ceria in catal­y­sis, June 20–23, 2020, Meno­lo Park, CA, USA
  • Gor­don Research Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis, June 28-July 3, 2020, New Lon­don, NH, USA

In Memoriam: Michel Che (1941 ‑2019)

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)

Abhaya Datye is the recipient of the 2019 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

Abhaya Datye

I am pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Abhaya Datye of the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co is the recip­i­ent of the 2019 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 NAM26 Chica­go 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 Abhaya Datye and his research group have per­formed ele­gant and cre­ative exper­i­ments that have clar­i­fied rela­tion­ships between the atom­ic-lev­el struc­ture of het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts and their reac­tiv­i­ty and/or sta­bil­i­ty. He has intro­duced new approach­es to doing catal­y­sis research (e.g., mod­el cat­a­lysts and sam­ple prepa­ra­tion tech­niques) that enabled the use of elec­tron microscopy to study indus­tri­al­ly rel­e­vant cat­a­lysts. He thus elu­ci­dat­ed impor­tant fun­da­men­tal con­cepts that are cru­cial for design­ing cat­a­lysts for improved per­for­mance. He showed how cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty is enhanced due to oxi­da­tion-induced rough­en­ing of met­al sur­faces in nanopar­ti­cles, and how phase trans­for­ma­tions in Fe Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch cat­a­lysts can cause cat­a­lyst attri­tion. A major con­tri­bu­tion was the use of elec­tron microscopy and sin­ter­ing rate equa­tions to uncov­er atom­ic-scale mech­a­nisms of cat­a­lyst sin­ter­ing. Recent­ly, his group described a method for gen­er­at­ing sta­ble monomer­ic Pt species on the sur­faces of a ceria sup­port, termed atom trap­ping. In this work, high tem­per­a­tures, which nor­mal­ly destroy cat­a­lysts, enable the syn­the­sis of ther­mal­ly sta­ble sin­gle atom cat­a­lysts (SACs). By study­ing the trap­ping of mobile atoms on the sup­port, his group has improved our fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of cat­a­lyst regen­er­a­tion. These insights have led to many cre­ative ideas for new sin­ter-resis­tant cat­a­lyst mate­ri­als that have great indus­tri­al relevance.

Brent Shanks Receives Inaugural Great Plains Catalysis Society Award

The 2018 Great Plains Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Award is pre­sent­ed to Pro­fes­sor Brent Shanks, Iowa State University’s Anson Marston Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor in Engi­neer­ing, Mike and Jean Stef­fen­son Chair, and Direc­tor of the NSF Engi­neer­ing Research Cen­ter for Biore­new­able Chem­i­cals (CBiRC). Dr. Shanks is a vision­ary in the devel­op­ment of new mate­ri­als to bridge the gap between bio­log­i­cal catal­y­sis and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. His accom­plish­ments include the cre­ation of new par­a­digms for the con­ver­sion of bio­mass-derived sug­ars to high­er-val­ue chem­i­cals by com­bin­ing bio­log­i­cal and het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic path­ways. In par­tic­u­lar, his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of tri­acetic acid lac­tone (TAL) as a build­ing block mol­e­cule; his ele­gant­ly com­bined meth­ods to elu­ci­date cat­alyt­ic paths, the nature of the active sites and the effects of sol­vent in the cat­alyt­ic con­ver­sion of biore­new­able feed­stock to chem­i­cals to aid ratio­nal design of bet­ter cat­a­lysts; and his great con­tri­bu­tions to the list of one hun­dred bio­priv­i­leged mol­e­cule can­di­dates have sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­enced cur­rent and future biore­new­able research in the het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty. Dr. Shanks has also lever­aged these sci­en­tif­ic suc­cess­es as an entre­pre­neur, hold­ing sev­er­al patents and co-found­ing three biore­new­ables-based start­up com­pa­nies. In addi­tion to his own sci­en­tif­ic accom­plish­ments, he has served as a dri­ving force behind the suc­cess of CBiRC for the past decade and cat­alyzed the fur­ther suc­cess­es of those who have the priv­i­lege of work­ing with him, includ­ing his 34 grad­u­ate stu­dents and 15 post­docs and vis­it­ing sci­en­tists. Dr. Shanks’s accom­plish­ments as a sci­en­tist, entre­pre­neur, edu­ca­tor, and orga­ni­za­tion­al leader epit­o­mize the spir­it of the Great Plains Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Award, mak­ing him an exem­plary hon­oree to serve as the inau­gur­al Award winner.