It is my plea­sure to announce that Dr. Stu­art Soled of Exxon­Mo­bil Research & Engi­neer­ing Co. is the 2006 F. G. Cia­pet­ta Lec­tur­er. This award is spon­sored by Grace Davi­son Cat­a­lysts and admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The award is giv­en in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on indus­tri­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es and the dis­cov­ery of new cat­alyt­ic reac­tions and sys­tems of poten­tial indus­tri­al impor­tance. The Award con­sists of a plaque, an hon­o­rar­i­um and addi­tion­al mon­ey is avail­able to cov­er trav­el­ing expens­es to vis­it many of the local clubs in North Amer­i­ca. The local clubs should con­tact Dr. Soled direct­ly (908–730-2577) to make trav­el arrangements.

Stu has a long and dis­tin­guished record in indus­tri­al research. His nom­i­na­tors cit­ed his many con­tri­bu­tions to the syn­the­sis, struc­tur­al and func­tion­al char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and use of cat­alyt­ic solids. Stu has made dis­cov­er­ies and fun­da­men­tal advances in bulk sol­id oxides, mol­e­c­u­lar oxide clus­ters, sul­fides, and car­bides applied to Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis, hydrodesul­fu­r­iza­tion, oxi­da­tion, and acid catal­y­sis. Most recent­ly, his work on nov­el, mixed met­al cat­a­lysts have had a dra­mat­ic impact on the desul­fu­r­iza­tion of diesel fuels. These Neb­u­la cat­a­lysts offer sig­nif­i­cant­ly enhanced activ­i­ty which allow refin­ers to retro­fit exist­ing hydrotreaters with lit­tle addi­tion­al cap­i­tal cost and to pro­duce a prod­uct which exceeds the gov­ern­men­tal­ly man­dat­ed clean fuels stan­dards around the world. Well over one mil­lion pounds of the Neb­u­la cat­a­lyst has been deployed through­out the world for the pro­duc­tion of ultra low sul­fur fuels.

Dr soled is prob­a­bly best know for his work in the area of sol­id acid­i­ty. His 1993 paper on the chem­istry of sul­fat­ed zir­co­nia has been cit­ed over 100 times in the last five years, and it pro­vides the defin­i­tive account of the struc­tur­al require­ments for iso­mer­iza­tion of larg­er alka­nes on these mate­ri­als. He con­tin­ued this work with the nov­el fam­i­ly of tungstat­ed zir­co­nias. Stu also led an effort in under­stand­ing aspects of Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch syn­the­sis that are crit­i­cal com­po­nents of the AGC-21 process and led the gen­er­a­tion of a new gen­er­a­tion of more sta­ble catalysts.

Stu has been at Exxon­Mo­bil in Annan­dale, N.J. since 1979 where he is a senior mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal staff with the title of Dis­tin­guished Research Asso­ciate. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and his B.S. in Chem­istry from City Col­lege of New York (grad­u­at­ed Magna Cum Laude). He has received the 2003 NY Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award and the Thomas Alva Edi­son Patent Award in 2002 which is giv­en for prod­uct inno­va­tions and impor­tant sci­en­tif­ic break­throughs orig­i­nat­ing in the State of New Jersey.
 
John Armor
Pres­i­dent, North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Society