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.

APCAT‑8 Welcome Message

Wel­come to Thai­land, Bangkok, the City of Angels, rec­og­nized as one of the most excit­ing des­ti­na­tions in Asia, it has all the ingre­di­ents for the suc­cess of the 8th Asia-Pacif­ic Con­gress in Catal­y­sis (APCAT) in 2019. It is with great plea­sure that we invite you to par­tic­i­pate in the 8th APCAT, which will be held dur­ing 4–7th August 2019 in Bangkok, Thai­land. The sci­en­tif­ic theme of APCAT encom­pass­es a wide spec­trum of top­ics, includ­ing state-of-the-art and recent trend in dif­fer­ent catal­y­sis research areas which will be cov­ered through ple­nary and keynote lec­tures, oral and poster pre­sen­ta­tions. Catal­y­sis plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in pro­vid­ing a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, con­tribut­ing to the econ­o­my direct­ly and indi­rect­ly. It is the inno­v­a­tive process­es and prod­ucts devel­oped by research that facil­i­tate and enable improve­ments in the qual­i­ty of life, and it is the meet­ing of minds brought about by con­fer­ences such as the 8th APCAT that pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ties, the inspi­ra­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tions and net­works that aid in the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new process­es, chem­i­cals, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and materials.

It is under­stood and accept­ed that pop­u­la­tions are grow­ing, that the vital resources of food, water and ener­gy are both lim­it­ed and valu­able. There­fore, it is impor­tant to use our resources more effi­cient­ly, to min­i­mize glob­al foot­print and to move toward a sus­tain­able future. We under­stand these chal­lenges, more, we can help dri­ve this notion by demon­strat­ing how through catal­y­sis break­through we can be more effi­cient, reduc­ing our envi­ron­men­tal foot­print and in so doing, reduce the costs of indus­tri­al process­es and devel­op­ing tech­nolo­gies, enabling change. We can design, devel­op and alter process­es to use less water, less ener­gy, to use envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly feed stocks, thus, we present this year theme:

“A breakthrough in catalysis toward efficiency and sustainable future”

Obtain­ing effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­able future through a break­through in catal­y­sis is a far reach­ing theme, includ­ing top­ics such as catal­y­sis for envi­ron­men­tal, ener­gy and chem­i­cal syn­the­sis, indus­tri­al catal­y­sis and pro­cess­ing. We will also devel­op the bio-catal­y­sis dis­cus­sions, includ­ing bio­mass con­ver­sion to bio-chem­i­cals and bio-fuels, and bar­ri­ers to production.

We will endeav­or to devel­op an attrac­tive pro­gram of top­ics rel­e­vant to the theme and take the oppor­tu­ni­ty of this aus­pi­cious occa­sion for forg­ing new net­works and devel­op­ing new col­lab­o­ra­tions with sci­en­tists around the world. By join­ing with the APCAT the sym­po­sium will bring togeth­er researchers from both inside and out­side of the Asia-Pacif­ic region, to fur­ther research ideals and fos­ter new ideas and relationships.

We look for­ward to see­ing you in Bangkok in 4–7th August, 2019.
 
Piyasan Praserth­dam
Chair­man of APCAT 8

IZC’19 Announcement


 
On behalf of the Local Orga­niz­ing Com­mit­tee I invite you to attend 19th Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Con­fer­ence to be held in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia 7–12 July 2019, at Crown Perth.

West­ern Aus­tralia is a resource rich state and Perth is the per­fect city to host IZC’19. The pro­gram for­mat will be sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous con­fer­ences, how­ev­er the com­mit­tee plan to com­ple­ment your vis­it with field trips to mine sites and pro­cess­ing plants both in West­ern Aus­tralia and also on the east­ern sea board where many del­e­gates may wish to enter from.

Perth is a vibrant cos­mopoli­tan city that con­tin­ues to grow and thrive and only less than 2 hours’ dri­ve either north or south we have con­trast­ing land­scapes that demon­strates the nat­ur­al beau­ty of West­ern Aus­tralia. We look for­ward to host­ing you in July 2019 and encour­age you to make the most of this oppor­tu­ni­ty by tak­ing the time while here to vis­it many oth­er parts of this great coun­try, the parts that you have always want­ed to visit.
 
Prof Moses Olu­dayo Tade
Chair Local Organ­is­ing Com­mit­tee, IZC’19
Deputy Pro Vice Chan­cel­lor, Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Engineering,
Curtin Uni­ver­si­ty, Perth, West­ern Australia

Enrique Iglesia is the recipient of the 2019 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis

We are pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor Enrique Igle­sia of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley is the recip­i­ent of the 2019 Michel Boudart Award for the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The award is pre­sent­ed joint­ly by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NACS) and the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Catal­y­sis Soci­eties (EFCATS). The award is sup­port­ed by the Hal­dor Top­søe Com­pa­ny and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. Pro­fes­sor Igle­sia will give ple­nary lec­tures at the 2019 NACS and EFCATS meet­ings. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize of $6,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM26 in Chicago). 

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 Enrique Igle­sia and his research group have advanced the design, syn­the­sis, and struc­tur­al and mech­a­nis­tic char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of sol­id cat­a­lysts for chem­i­cal reac­tions involved in the pro­duc­tion, con­ver­sion, and use of ener­gy car­ri­ers, in sus­tain­able syn­the­ses of chem­i­cals and inter­me­di­ates, and in the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment. These advances exploit nov­el pro­to­cols for the syn­the­sis of well-defined nanos­truc­tures and iso­lat­ed uni­form sites with­in porous solids, as well as tech­niques that probe the local struc­ture and atom­ic con­nec­tiv­i­ty in these mate­ri­als, in most instances as cat­alyt­ic turnovers occur. His research approach, in the spir­it and teach­ings of his men­tor, Pro­fes­sor Michel Boudart, is under­pinned by chem­i­cal kinet­ics, spec­tro­scop­ic probes, ther­mo­dy­nam­ic cycles, tran­si­tion state the­o­ry, and sta­tis­ti­cal mechan­ics and quan­tum meth­ods for the pur­pose of elu­ci­dat­ing the essen­tial fea­tures of the rel­e­vant sur­face chem­istry and the nature of the required active sites. His most recent work has brought togeth­er sol­va­tion effects on reac­tiv­i­ty and selec­tiv­i­ty induced by con­fine­ment and by dense phas­es, whether liq­uid or adsorbed lay­ers, into a uni­fy­ing con­cep­tu­al frame­work. In doing so, these stud­ies have led to the more accu­rate and explic­it iso­la­tion of the respec­tive effects of the bind­ing point and the reac­tion envi­ron­ment on tran­si­tion state sta­bil­i­ty, thus allow­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of more com­plete descrip­tors of site reac­tiv­i­ty in oxi­da­tion and acid catal­y­sis. The rel­e­vance of his research to the prac­tice of catal­y­sis is evi­dent from his many patents, sev­er­al of which have enabled improve­ments in cat­alyt­ic process­es for the con­ver­sion of nat­ur­al gas and oxy­genates to fuels and chem­i­cals as well as the broad­er appli­ca­tion of zeo­types in chem­i­cal syn­the­ses and envi­ron­men­tal control.
 
Jing­guang Chen
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Call for Nominations of the 2019 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 2019 Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go Spring Sym­po­sium on April 16, 2019 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 2019, the award will be giv­en to a mem­ber of acad­e­mia or nation­al laboratory
  • Active mem­ber in catal­y­sis community
  • A res­i­dent of North America.

Dead­line for nom­i­na­tion is Jan­u­ary 18, 2019. 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 by Jan­u­ary 18, 2019 as a sin­gle PDF doc­u­ment to:

 
Chris Nicholas
Pres­i­dent – The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go (2018–2019)
Hon­ey­well UOP
25 East Algo­nquin Rd.
Des Plaines, IL 60017
Christopher.Nicholas@uop.com

 

Previous 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 H. Ribeiro, Pur­due University
2016 Dr. Deng-Yang Jan, UOP-Honeywell
2017 Prof. Peter Stair – Northwestern
2018 Dr. Jerzy Klosin – Dow Chemicals

Javier Pérez-Ramírez is the recipient of the 2019 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fundamental Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Javier Pérez-Ramírez of ETH Zurich is the recip­i­ent of the 2019 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis, spon­sored by W. R. Grace & Co. This prize is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Dr. Pérez-Ramírez will present a Ple­nary Lec­ture at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM26, in Chicago).

The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis 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 2019 award rec­og­nizes Pro­fes­sor Pérez-Ramírez for sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the design of cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als and process con­cepts to solve ener­gy, resource, and envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges of soci­ety at large. He has devel­oped cat­a­lysts that enable pio­neer­ing selec­tive routes for CO2 hydro­gena­tion to methanol and halo­gen-medi­at­ed func­tion­al­iza­tion of nat­ur­al gas com­po­nents, as well as for con­ver­sion of renew­ables to chem­i­cal build­ing blocks. He has advanced tech­niques for nanos­truc­tur­ing of noble met­als in the form of defined ensem­bles or sin­gle atoms. This has enabled key sus­tain­abil­i­ty tar­gets, such as the avoid­ance of harm­ful mod­i­fiers for liq­uid-phase alkyne hydro­gena­tion. The thread of his research com­bines cre­ative dis­cov­ery with advanced struc­tur­al and mech­a­nis­tic under­stand­ing, empha­siz­ing the bridge between the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el and appli­ca­tion at the tech­ni­cal scale.
 
Citation:
For the design of inno­v­a­tive cat­alyt­ic process­es to address ener­gy, resource, and envi­ron­men­tal challenges.
 
Christo­pher W. Jones
VP, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society

Call for Nominations of the 2018 Great Plains Catalysis Society Award

The Great Plains Catal­y­sis Soci­ety seeks nom­i­na­tions for the 2018 Great Plains Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Award. This will be the first time the Award is giv­en by the Soci­ety. The Award will be pre­sent­ed at the 2nd Annu­al Sym­po­sium of the Great Plains Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, to be held on April 12, 2019 at the Phillips 66 Research Cen­ter in Bartlesville, OK. The Award win­ner will give a ple­nary lec­ture at the Symposium.

The Award will be giv­en to an indi­vid­ual, prefer­ably from the Great Plains area, who has made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal, or in orga­ni­za­tion lead­er­ship. The Award will be pre­sent­ed at the annu­al sym­po­sium and con­sists of a scroll and memen­to, reim­burse­ment for trav­el and lodg­ing expens­es to the annu­al Sym­po­sium, and a cash prize. Nom­i­nees must con­firm in advance their atten­dance at the annu­al Sym­po­sium and their intent to deliv­er a ple­nary lec­ture if cho­sen to receive the Award.

A full nom­i­na­tion pack­age must be lim­it­ed to 10 pages and should include the following:

  1. Name, occu­pa­tion­al address, phone, and e‑mail of the nom­i­na­tor, who must be a mem­ber in good stand­ing of the Society
  2. Name, occu­pa­tion­al address, phone, and e‑mail of the nominee
  3. Nominee’s short-form cur­ricu­lum vitae
  4. One let­ter of nom­i­na­tion from the nominator
  5. One to two let­ters of support
  6. An award cita­tion of 200–400 words that could be used for publicity

The nom­i­na­tion pack­age must be received by Jan­u­ary 8, 2019 and should be sent to:
 
Alan All­geier
Learned Hall
Uni­ver­si­ty of Kansas
1530 W. 15th St
Lawrence, KS 66045
alan.allgeier@ku.edu
 
It is the intent of the Soci­ety to noti­fy the Award win­ner by March 1, 2019.

Hai-Ying Chen is the recipient of the 2019 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Hai-Ying Chen of John­son Matthey is the recip­i­ent of the 2019 Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis spon­sored by Clariant. 

The Eugene J. Houdry Award in Applied Catal­y­sis rec­og­nizes and encour­ages indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on the devel­op­ment of new and improved cat­a­lysts and process­es rep­re­sent­ing out­stand­ing advances in their use­ful appli­ca­tion. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (NAM26) in Chica­go. Dr. Chen will also present a Ple­nary Lec­ture at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety in recog­ni­tion of this honor. 

Dr. Chen is rec­og­nized for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to advanc­ing the capa­bil­i­ties of cat­alyt­ic con­vert­ers for auto­mo­tive exhaust emis­sion con­trol – a field pio­neered by Eugene J. Houdry more than 60 years ago. Dr. Chen and his team at John­son Matthey have devel­oped and indus­tri­al­ized many inno­v­a­tive cat­a­lyst tech­nolo­gies for clean­ing air pol­lu­tants from exhaust emis­sions. These include the devel­op­ment of NOx adsor­ber cat­a­lysts for diesel pick­up trucks to meet strin­gent US EPA 2010 emis­sion stan­dards in 2007; the dis­cov­ery and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of a group of small-pore zeo­lite sup­port­ed Cu cat­a­lysts for the selec­tive cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion of NOx for heavy-duty diesel trucks to meet low NOx emis­sion reg­u­la­tions in 2010; and the most recent inven­tion of Pd-zeo­lite based diesel cold start con­cept cat­a­lysts that help fuel-effi­cient vehi­cles meet stricter future envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions. Mil­lions of emis­sion con­trol cat­a­lysts and sys­tems that con­tain the tech­nolo­gies devel­oped by Dr. Chen and his team have been installed on vehi­cles. This has result­ed in mil­lions of tons of reduc­tion in air pol­lu­tants, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly ben­e­fits our envi­ron­ment and society. 

Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Chem­istry from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, Chi­na. He con­duct­ed post­doc­tor­al research at North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, Evanston, Illi­nois. He has pub­lished more than 60 tech­ni­cal papers and holds more than 140 grant­ed patents in var­i­ous juris­dic­tions around the world.
 
Citation:
For out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to advance­ments in cat­a­lyst tech­nolo­gies and sci­ence for diesel exhaust emis­sion control. 

In Memoriam: Burtron H. “Burt” Davis (1934 ‑2018)

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

Alexis T. Bell is the recipient of the 2018 NACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

I am pleased to announce that Prof. Alex­is T. Bell is the recip­i­ent of the 2018 NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis. The award is co-spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil and Clari­ant. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even-num­bered years. The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000. The plaque will be pre­sent­ed dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2019 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Society.

The NACS Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is giv­en to a per­son who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing by sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty in addi­tion to their tech­ni­cal accomplishments.

Alex Bell’s dis­tin­guished ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty has sig­nif­i­cant­ly advanced the field through a wide vari­ety of lead­er­ship posi­tions. He has been the Edi­tor in Chief of Catal­y­sis Reviews – Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing and Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Sci­ence. In addi­tion, Alex has tak­en lead­er­ship roles that have great­ly impact­ed catal­y­sis. He was appoint­ed as Chair of a Pan­el on New Direc­tions in Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy for the Nation­al Research Coun­cil from 1989–91. He orga­nized a work­shop on the sub­ject and led the writ­ing of a report enti­tled Catal­y­sis Looks to the Future. Oral pre­sen­ta­tions based on the report were made to House and Sen­ate com­mit­tees deal­ing with sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. The find­ings of the report served to launch and strength­en research pro­grams in catal­y­sis in many parts of the world and pro­vid­ed direc­tion and sup­port­ing infor­ma­tion for many research pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted in the US. Alex has also served in lead­er­ship posi­tions for work­shops designed to help shape DOE pro­grams that impact catal­y­sis. In addi­tion to these spe­cial assign­ments Alex has also tak­en on lead­er­ship roles in the NACS and inter­na­tion­al catal­y­sis soci­eties. Alex estab­lished this record of ser­vice while advanc­ing the knowl­edge of catal­y­sis with the pub­li­ca­tion of over 700 tech­ni­cal pub­li­ca­tions, with an h‑index of 111. He has estab­lished lead­er­ship roles in mech­a­nis­tic stud­ies using vibra­tional spec­tro­scopies and kinet­ic analy­sis for a vari­ety of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions, and appli­ca­tions to catal­y­sis of the­o­ry rang­ing from mol­e­c­u­lar dynam­ics to bond order con­ser­va­tion meth­ods to den­si­ty func­tion­al the­o­ry. This most impres­sive body of work has been wide­ly rec­og­nized, includ­ing elec­tion to the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of both Engi­neer­ing and Science.

The time required for these tasks was sub­stan­tial, but the ben­e­fits to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty were huge and made pos­si­ble only by Alex’s unique com­bi­na­tion of skill and com­mit­ment. The com­mu­ni­ty is very thank­ful to Alex for these impor­tant contributions.
 
Christo­pher W. Jones
VP, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society