Author Archives: Edrick Morales

Nicholas Delgass is the Winner of the 2013 Herman Pines Award in Catalysis

The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is pleased to announce that Prof. W. Nicholas Del­gass (Max­ine Spencer Nichols Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty) is the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Her­man Pines Award in Catal­y­sis. This Award is giv­en to rec­og­nize Prof. Del­gass’ out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to cat­a­lyst char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, reac­tion and cat­a­lyst chem­istry, and advanced cat­a­lyst design. Prof. Del­gass first intro­duced the appli­ca­tions of Möss­bauer spec­tra and XPS to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty.

Prof. Del­gass has served on the edi­to­r­i­al boards of lead­ing catal­y­sis jour­nals such as Jour­nal of Catal­y­sis and as chairs for inter­na­tion­al catal­y­sis con­fer­ences. He is a gift­ed teacher, win­ning the Pur­due School of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Teach­ing Award­ing for sev­en times. Prof. Del­gass has been invit­ed to give more than 190 lec­tures on nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sci­en­tif­ic meet­ings. He has pub­lished over 160 pub­li­ca­tions.

The award includes an hon­o­rar­i­um ($1,000) and a plaque. Prof. Del­gass will receive this Award dur­ing the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go Spring Sym­po­sium on May 7, 2013 at BP Research Cen­ter (Naperville, IL). Prof. Del­gass will deliv­er the Award address at the Sym­po­sium.
 
Pre­vi­ous recip­i­ents of the Her­man Pines Award
1999 Harold Kung (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty)
2000 John Mon­nier (East­man Chem­i­cal)
2001 Lan­ny Schmidt (Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta)
2002 James Brazdil (BP)
2003 James Dumesic (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin)
2004 Alak Bhat­tacharyya (BP)
2005 Israel Wachs (Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty)
2006 Jef­frey Miller (BP)
2007 Chun­shan Song (Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty)
2008 Alek­sey Yez­erets (Cum­mins)
2009 Tobin Marks (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty)
2010 James Rekoske (UOP)
2011 Jing­guang Chen (Uni­ver­si­ty Delaware)
2012 Stu­art Soled (Exxon­Mo­bil)

Elections for the 2013–2014 CCP Season

Elections of officers and amendment to the by-laws

Candidates for the CCP Executive Committee

  • Chair-Elect: Vladimiros Niko­lakis and Haim­ing Liu
  • Trea­sur­er: Steve Har­ris and Hai-Ying Chen
  • NACS Rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Anne Gaffney and Mike Smith
  • Direc­tors: Yaritza Lopez, Joe Li, Ale­jan­dra Rivas-Car­dona, Parag Shah, and Eric Zhang

Biographical sketches of the candidates

Chair-Elect

  • Dr. Vladimiros Niko­lakis (Ph.D., Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts Amherst, 2001) is a Research Asso­ciate Direc­tor at the Catal­y­sis Cen­ter for Ener­gy Inno­va­tion (CCEI), Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. Before join­ing CCEI he was a Prin­ci­pal Researcher at the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing & High Tem­per­a­ture Chem­i­cal Process­es (FORTH/ICE-HT), Greece. His cur­rent stud­ies are focused in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis for the con­ver­sion of bio­mass feed­stocks to plat­form chem­i­cals or fuels. His research inter­ests also include the fields of zeo­lite crys­tal­liza­tion; zeo­lite mem­brane syn­the­sis and per­for­mance eval­u­a­tion. He has pub­lished more than 40 arti­cles in peer reviewed sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals and he has more than 50 pre­sen­ta­tions in sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences. He has served the pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty as a mem­ber of the orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee of sev­er­al sci­en­tif­ic con­fer­ences (once as a con­fer­ence chair), and as review­er of research arti­cles or pro­pos­als. He served the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia as the Direc­tor of the Poster Ses­sion in 2012–2013.
  • Haim­ing Liu is cur­rent­ly a Senior Research Sci­en­tist at Arke­ma Inc at North Amer­i­ca R&D Cen­ter in King of Prus­sia, PA. For the past ten years he works on char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of organ­ic and inor­gan­ic mate­ri­als includ­ing poly­mers, small mol­e­cules, and cat­a­lysts, using pri­mar­i­ly Nuclear Mag­net­ic Res­o­nance Spec­troscopy and expand­ing new instru­men­ta­tion capa­bil­i­ty. He received his Ph. D. in chem­istry from State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Stony Brook, and worked as a post-doc at Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia on syn­the­sis, catal­y­sis, and gas sorption/separation appli­ca­tions of mol­e­c­u­lar sieves includ­ing zeo­lites and porous met­al-organ­ic frame­works. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia for twelve years, and has served as Arrange­ments Chair, Mem­ber­ship Direc­tor, and Spon­sor­ship Direc­tor in the past. He is also a mem­ber of Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and North East Cor­ri­dor Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion. ToC

Treasurer

  • Stephen Har­ris received his PhD in Organometal­lic Chemistry/Physical Organ­ic Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester. He worked 32 years for ARCO Chem­i­cal and its suc­ces­sors on organometal­lic olefin catal­y­sis and plant imple­men­ta­tion, prod­uct purifi­ca­tion improve­ments, prod­uct tech­ni­cal ser­vice and new prod­uct devel­op­ment, and gen­er­al organ­ic process devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion. After a brief stint in the excel­lent city of Boston work­ing on bio­mass trans­for­ma­tions to com­mod­i­ty chem­i­cals, he is work­ing now at Ren­matix on con­ver­sion of wood and oth­er bio­mass sub­strates into fer­mentable sug­ars.
  • Dr. Hai-Ying Chen is a Prod­uct Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er at John­son Matthey Inc., Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies, in Wayne, Penn­syl­va­nia. He is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing advanced cat­a­lysts for exhaust emis­sion con­trol. Hai-Ying Chen received his Ph. D. degree in Chem­istry from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, Chi­na. He has been a mem­ber of the Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club since 2000, and served the club as Sec­re­tary, Pro­gram Chair, Direc­tor, Chair, and Trea­sur­er. ToC

NACS Representative

  • Anne Gaffney is cur­rent­ly an INVISTA™ R&D Leader work­ing on Spe­cial­ty Mate­ri­als in Newark, DE. She has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia since 1982 and has held the fol­low­ing club posi­tions: Chair (1986–87); Direc­tor (1989–1995); and NACS Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (1996–2013). Anne received her BA in chem­istry and math­e­mat­ics from Mount Holyoke Col­lege and her Ph.D. in chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. She has been work­ing in indus­tri­al catal­y­sis since 1981 at the fol­low­ing addi­tion­al com­pa­nies, ARCO Chem­i­cal, DuPont, Rohm and Haas, and Lum­mus Tech­nol­o­gy.
  • Dr. Michael A. Smith is cur­rent­ly an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. He received his BS in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Lafayette Col­lege in 1980, then worked in a vari­ety of assign­ments with the DuPont Com­pa­ny for 17 years. Dr. Smith returned to school to obtain a Mas­ters at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty, and obtained his PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 2004 work­ing with Prof Raul Lobo. Since he has work as a research sci­en­tist for an SBIR start­up, and has been at Vil­lano­va since 2006, first as a Vis­it­ing Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, then in a tenure track posi­tion since 2008. Dr. Smith’s research inter­ests include the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als made using col­loidal self-assem­bly and sol-gel tech­niques, and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis with an empha­sis on catal­y­sis by met­al oxides. ToC

Directors

  • Dr. Yaritza M. López is cur­rent­ly Tech­ni­cal Pro­gram Man­ag­er at John­son Matthey Inc., Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies, in the Heavy Duty Diesel depart­ment in Audubon, PA. She is lead­ing tech­ni­cal pro­grams for direct appli­ca­tion of advanced cat­a­lyst tech­nol­o­gy onto future engines/vehicles and devel­op­ment of new emis­sions con­trol tech­nol­o­gy. She joined JM in Sep­tem­ber 2010, after fin­ish­ing her Post-Doc at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na (USC), where she focused her research of NOx reduc­tion cat­a­lysts for gaso­line emis­sions. She obtained her PhD degree from USC in 2009, her dis­ser­ta­tion was focused on the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and kinet­ic eval­u­a­tion of den­drimer-derived monometal­lic and bimetal­lic cat­a­lysts for hydro­gena­tion and NOx reduc­tion reac­tions. Yaritza was mem­ber of the South­east Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and she is an active mem­ber of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety (2007 – present). She has been part of sev­er­al pro­fes­sion­al and grad­u­ate stu­dent com­mit­tees. She was co-chair on fun­da­men­tals of catal­y­sis ses­sion in AIChE and she par­tic­i­pat­ed as judge of AIChE under­grad­u­ate stu­dent poster (2010). She was also vice-pres­i­dent of the chem­i­cal engi­neer grad­u­ate orga­ni­za­tion at USC (2008–2009) and part of the grad­u­ate stu­dent recruit­ing com­mit­tee at USC from 2005 to 2009.
  • Yejia (Joe) Li is a sci­en­tist in Arke­ma Inc. work­ing in analy­sis of poly­mers using Gel Per­me­ation Chro­matog­ra­phy (GPC)/Size Exclu­sion Chro­matog­ra­phy (SEC). He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Sci­ence from Peking Uni­ver­si­ty Health Sci­ence Cen­ter, Bei­jing, Chi­na. After a short peri­od of indus­try expe­ri­ence, he stud­ied in Tulane Uni­ver­si­ty for his PhD degree in syn­the­sis, purifi­ca­tion and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of poly­mers with var­i­ous archi­tec­tures, prop­er­ties and appli­ca­tions. His cur­rent work involves method devel­op­ment of GPC, analy­sis of mol­e­c­u­lar weight and dis­tri­b­u­tion of poly­mers.
  • Ale­jan­dra Rivas-Car­dona is a Staff Sci­en­tist at John­son Matthey Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies in the Prod­uct Devel­op­ment depart­ment. She is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing new cat­a­lysts for emis­sion con­trol appli­ca­tions and man­ag­ing the Prod­uct Devel­op­ment research lab­o­ra­to­ry. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Celaya Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, one of the top five Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing pro­grams in Mex­i­co. Ale­jan­dra received her Ph.D. degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty, where she worked in zeo­lite syn­the­sis under the guid­ance of Pro­fes­sor Daniel Shantz. She was a mem­ber of the South­west Catal­y­sis Soci­ety where she par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al Annu­al Spring Sym­po­siums and has been a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety since 2010. She became a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia in Novem­ber 2011 and has been attend­ing its meet­ings and sym­po­siums since then.
  • Parag Shah is a Senior Research Engi­neer at PQ Cor­po­ra­tion and is involved in devel­op­ing improved sil­i­ca-based sup­ports and process/product devel­op­ment for emerg­ing cat­a­lyst tech­nolo­gies. In 2008 he received his PhD in Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing from Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia under the guid­ance of Prof. Ray­mond J. Gorte. His the­sis work focused on inves­ti­gat­ing the ther­mo­dy­nam­ic prop­er­ties of met­al-oxide cat­a­lysts. Parag earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Tech­nol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Bom­bay (India), and sub­se­quent­ly did a Mas­ters in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Twente (The Nether­lands), with empha­sis on Process Devel­op­ment and Design. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia since 2004, and has served as Sec­re­tary (2010–2012), and Direc­tor (2012–2013).
  • Dr. Xiawei (Eric) Zhang received his B.S. in chem­istry from Lanzhou Uni­ver­si­ty, Chi­na in 1995, and a M.S. in organometal­lic chem­istry from the Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Sin­ga­pore in 2000, where he worked in the lab­o­ra­to­ry of Pro­fes­sor Pak-Hing Leung. He obtained his Ph.D. also in organometal­lic chem­istry from Rut­gers, the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New Jer­sey at New Brunswick in 2005 work­ing with Pro­fes­sor Alan Gold­man. He then did post­doc­tor­al research in Pro­fes­sor Geoff Coates’ lab­o­ra­to­ry at Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Zhang start­ed his career in indus­try in 2008. After about 5 years work­ing in Arke­ma Inc., he joined the Philadel­phia site of Hon­ey­well as senior sci­en­tist in 2013. ToC

Proposed amendment to the CCP by-laws

 
We pro­posed to amend sec­tion 5 of BY–LAW IV — Offi­cers, to include the posi­tion of Web­mas­ter among the appoint­ed posi­tions. Addi­tions are high­light­ed with an ital­ic blue font on yel­low back­ground and a dele­tions are strike-through. The com­plete CCP by-laws are avail­able at catal​y​sis​clubphilly​.org/​a​b​o​u​t​/​b​y​-​l​aws.

Proposed text for section 5 of BY–LAW IV — Officers

 
The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee shall con­sist of the offi­cers of the Club, the imme­di­ate Past–Chairman, three elect­ed Direc­tors, a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, and three four offi­cers appoint­ed by the Chair­man: Arrange­ments Chair, Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000), and Pro­gram Chair, and Web­mas­ter. Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000) shall include send­ing to mem­bers such notices as the busi­ness of the Club may require, noti­fy­ing mem­bers of the time and place of meet­ings, keep­ing min­utes of the busi­ness meet­ings, and tak­ing care of such cor­re­spon­dence as the busi­ness of the Club requires (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994). They shall adopt and rec­om­mend to the Chair­man for exe­cu­tion those poli­cies and plan which will best fur­ther the achieve­ment of the objec­tives of the Club. The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety shall serve on the Board of Direc­tors of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and shall be respon­si­ble to the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Club (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1984). The Web­mas­ter shall main­tain the inter­net pres­ence of the Club. ToC

In Situ Spectroscopic Studies of Metal Oxide Electrodes During Water Oxidation

Meeting Program — April 2013

 
John Kitchin
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing,
Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty

 
Abstract — Elec­tro­chem­i­cal water split­ting may be in inte­gral part of future ener­gy stor­age strate­gies by enabling ener­gy stor­age in chem­i­cal bonds. One of the pri­ma­ry sources of inef­fi­cien­cy in the water split­ting reac­tion is the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion, which has high reac­tion bar­ri­ers that require addi­tion­al applied elec­tric poten­tial to dri­ve the reac­tions at prac­ti­cal rates. The most active elec­trode mate­ri­als in acid elec­trolytes include ruthe­ni­um and irid­i­um oxides, which are expen­sive but nec­es­sary for sta­bil­i­ty. In alka­line envi­ron­ments, many base met­al oxides become sta­ble, although they are still less active than Ru and Ir oxides. It has been known that small amounts of Fe can pro­mote the elec­tro­chem­i­cal activ­i­ty of nick­el oxides, mak­ing it almost as active as cobalt oxide. We have inves­ti­gat­ed the mech­a­nisms behind the pro­mo­tion using in situ Raman and syn­chro­tron spec­tro­scopies as well as ex situ char­ac­ter­i­za­tion tech­niques. Inter­est­ing­ly, we found the elec­trode changes under oxy­gen evo­lu­tion con­di­tions, turn­ing from an oxide to an oxy­hy­drox­ide phase. Fur­ther­more, the com­po­si­tion of the elec­trolyte has a sig­nif­i­cant effect on the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion activ­i­ty. We will dis­cuss these results and their impli­ca­tions in find­ing bet­ter oxy­gen evo­lu­tion elec­tro­cat­a­lysts.
 

John Kitchin

John Kitchin

Biog­ra­phy — John Kitchin com­plet­ed his B.S. in Chem­istry at North Car­oli­na State Uni­ver­si­ty. He com­plet­ed a M.S. in Mate­ri­als Sci­ence and a PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 2004 under the advise­ment of Dr. Jing­guang Chen and Dr. Mark Barteau. He received an Alexan­der von Hum­boldt post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship and lived in Berlin, Ger­many for 1 ½ years study­ing alloy seg­re­ga­tion with Karsten Reuter and Matthias Schef­fler in the The­o­ry Depart­ment at the Fritz Haber Insti­tut. Pro­fes­sor Kitchin began a tenure-track fac­ul­ty posi­tion in the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty in Jan­u­ary of 2006. He is cur­rent­ly an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor. At CMU, Pro­fes­sor Kitchin is active in a major research effort with­in the Nation­al Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry Region­al Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance in CO2 cap­ture, chem­i­cal loop­ing and super­al­loy oxi­da­tion. Pro­fes­sor Kitchin also uses com­pu­ta­tion­al meth­ods to study adsor­bate-adsor­bate inter­ac­tions on tran­si­tion met­al sur­faces for appli­ca­tions in catal­y­sis. He was award­ed a DOE Ear­ly Career award in 2010 to inves­ti­gate mul­ti­func­tion­al oxide elec­tro­cat­a­lysts for the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion in water split­ting using exper­i­men­tal and com­pu­ta­tion­al meth­ods. He received a Pres­i­den­tial Ear­ly Career Award for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers in 2011.
 
Recent Pub­li­ca­tions
  1. Sne­ha A. Akhade and John R. Kitchin*, “Effects of strain, d-band fill­ing and oxi­da­tion state on the sur­face elec­tron­ic struc­ture and reac­tiv­i­ty of 3d per­ovskite sur­face”, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 084703 (2012).
  2. James Lan­don, Ethan Deme­ter, Nilay İnoğlu, Chris Ketu­rakis, Israel E. Wachs, Rel­ja Vasić, Ana­toly I. Frenkel, John R. Kitchin, “Spec­tro­scop­ic char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of mixed Fe-Ni oxide elec­tro­cat­a­lysts for the oxy­gen evo­lu­tion reac­tion in alka­line elec­trolytes”, ACS Catal­y­sis, 2, 1793–1801 (2012).
  3. Sne­ha A. Akhade and John R. Kitchin*, Effects of strain, d-band fill­ing and oxi­da­tion state on the bulk elec­tron­ic struc­ture of cubic 3d per­ovskites, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 104702 (2011).
  4. N. Inoglu, and J.R. Kitchin, Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of sul­fur tol­er­ant bimetal­lic sur­faces using DFT para­me­ter­ized mod­els and atom­istic ther­mo­dy­nam­ics, ACS Catal­y­sis, 1, 399–407 (2011).
  5. Isabela C. Man, Hai-Yan Su, Fed­eri­co Calle-Valle­jo, Heine A. Hansen, José I. Martínez, Nilay G. Inoglu, John Kitchin, Thomas F. Jaramil­lo, Jens K. Nørskov, Jan Ross­meisl, Uni­ver­sal­i­ty in Oxy­gen Evo­lu­tion Elec­tro-Catal­y­sis on Oxide Sur­faces, Chem­CatChem, 3, (2011).
  6. Spencer D. Miller, Nilay İnoğlu, and John R. Kitchin, Con­fig­u­ra­tional cor­re­la­tions in the cov­er­age depen­dent adsorp­tion ener­gies of oxy­gen atoms on late tran­si­tion met­al fcc (111) sur­faces, J. Chem­i­cal Physics, 134, 104709 (2011).
  7. R. Chao, J. R. Kitchin, K. Gerdes, E. M. Sabol­sky, and P. A. Sal­vador, Prepa­ra­tion of Meso­porous La0.8Sr0.2MnO3 Infil­trat­ed Coat­ings in Porous SOFC Cath­odes Using Evap­o­ra­tion-Induced Self-Assem­bly Meth­ods, ECS Trans­ac­tions, 35 (1) 2387–2399 (2011).
  8. W. Richard Ale­si Jr., McMa­han Gray, John R. Kitchin, CO2 Adsorp­tion on Sup­port­ed Mol­e­c­u­lar Ami­dine Sys­tems on Acti­vat­ed Car­bon, Chem­SusChem, 3(8), 948–956 (2010) Spe­cial issue on CO2 cap­ture and Seques­tra­tion.
  9. Nilay Inoglu, John R. Kitchin, Sim­ple mod­el explain­ing and pre­dict­ing cov­er­age-depen­dent atom­ic adsorp­tion ener­gies on tran­si­tion met­al sur­faces, Phys­i­cal Review B, 82, 045414 (2010).

NACS Elections for Directors-at-Large

This year, for the sec­ond time, the NACS will be using on-line bal­lot­ing as the only way to vote for Direc­tors-at-Large. We have con­tract­ed with a firm that is expe­ri­enced in on-line vot­ing to ensure the accu­racy and con­fi­den­tial­ity of the process. The elec­tions are sched­uled for March 18th to April 5th. You will be receiv­ing an email mes­sage on March 17th with your user­name, unique pass­word and a link to a restrict­ed vot­ing web­page. The sub­ject head­line is “NACS Elec­tions for Direc­tors-at-Large”. Please don’t delete this email until you cast your vote. If you have a prob­lem receiv­ing this email, then you need to con­tact Edrick Morales at edrickmorales@​live.​com.

The web log-in page will have instruc­tions on how to use your elec­tron­ic bal­lot with links to tech­ni­cal assis­tance in case you have dif­fi­cul­ty with the log-in and PDF doc­u­ments with the pro­posed amend­ments and revised ver­sion of the by-laws.

You can cast your vote start­ing on March 18th at 12:01 am. The vot­ing web­page will be held open to those mem­bers of NACS (includ­ing stu­dents) who reside with­in North Amer­i­ca. Back­ground infor­ma­tion for each can­di­date will be avail­able on the bal­lot site with a hyper­link asso­ci­at­ed to each candidate’s name. On the bal­lot web­site, you will be select­ing only six (6) or less mem­bers from the slate of 11 can­di­dates for the office of Direc­tor-at-Large and one vote to approve or not approve the amend­ments to the by-laws. The top six can­di­dates will be elect­ed to office if the amend­ments to the by-laws are approved; oth­er­wise, the top four (4) can­di­dates will be elect­ed.

Vot­ers will need to log back in and com­plete the bal­lot from scratch if they log-out or close the brows­er win­dow with­out sub­mit­ting their bal­lot. Your pass­word will be deac­ti­vat­ed after you record your vote.

Nature of Catalytic Active Surface Sites on Semiconductor Photocatalysts for Splitting of Water

Meeting Program — March 2013

 
Som­phonh Peter Phivi­lay
Operan­do Mol­e­c­u­lar Spec­troscopy & Catal­y­sis Lab­o­ra­to­ry
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
Beth­le­hem, PA 18015 USA
Stu­dent Speak­er
 
Abstract — One of society’s great chal­lenges for the 21st cen­tu­ry is the devel­op­ment of alter­na­tive ener­gy resources. Hydro­gen is con­sid­ered to be one of the poten­tial can­di­dates espe­cial­ly if it can be gen­er­at­ed from the pho­to­cat­alyt­ic con­ver­sion of cheap abun­dant H2O into clean non-car­bon H2 from solar ener­gy resources. Devel­op­ment of this clean, renew­able form of ener­gy will help to address our reliance on deplet­ed fos­sil fuel sup­plies and the envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems accom­pa­ny­ing its use.

Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic split­ting of waters pro­ceeds via gen­er­a­tion of excit­ed elec­trons and holes in the semi­con­duc­tor cat­a­lyst bulk lat­tice, the dif­fu­sion of the exci­tons through the semi­con­duc­tor lat­tice to the sur­face, and sur­face reac­tions of the exci­tons with water to split H2O to H2 and O2. The pho­to­catal­y­sis lit­er­a­ture, how­ev­er, has almost com­plete­ly neglect­ed the sur­face nature of pho­to­cat­a­lysts and focused on the semi­con­duc­tor cat­a­lyst bulk lat­tice that is only respon­si­ble for gen­er­a­tion of the excit­ed holes and elec­trons.

This pre­sen­ta­tion will exam­ine the anato­my of the sup­port­ed (Rh2-yCryO3)/(Ga1-xZnx)(N1-xOx) pho­to­cat­a­lysts that are able to split water with vis­i­ble light exci­ta­tion by deter­min­ing the nature of the bulk lat­tice (mm), sur­face region (~1–3 nm) and out­er­most sur­face lat­er (~0.3 nm) with unique cut­ting edge char­ac­ter­i­za­tion tech­niques.

Sulfur-Resistant Pd-Alloy Membranes for H2 Purification

Meeting Program — March 2013

 
James B. Miller
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty
 
Abstract — Sep­a­ra­tion of hydro­gen from mixed gas streams is a key unit oper­a­tion in the gen­er­a­tion of car­bon-neu­tral fuels and elec­tric­i­ty from fos­sil- and bio-derived feed­stocks. Dense Pd mem­branes have received sig­nif­i­cant atten­tion for the sep­a­ra­tion appli­ca­tion in advanced gasi­fi­ca­tion process­es. Pd’s near-per­fect selec­tiv­i­ty reflects its unique inter­ac­tions with H2: mol­e­c­u­lar H2 dis­so­ci­ates on the cat­alyt­ic Pd sur­face to cre­ate H-atoms, which dis­solve into and dif­fuse through the Pd bulk, to even­tu­al­ly recom­bine on the down­stream side of the mem­brane. In prac­tice, Pd suf­fers from sev­er­al lim­i­ta­tions, includ­ing high cost, struc­tur­al insta­bil­i­ty, and deac­ti­va­tion by minor com­po­nents of the mixed gas, most notably H2S. Alloy­ing with minor com­po­nents, such as Cu, can be an effec­tive strat­e­gy for improv­ing mem­brane per­for­mance.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with sci­en­tists at the Nation­al Ener­gy Tech­nol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry, we have com­bined mem­brane per­for­mance test­ing, com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el­ing, and H2 dis­so­ci­a­tion activ­i­ty char­ac­ter­i­za­tion to pro­vide fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of the inter­ac­tions of H2 and H2S with Pd and PdCu alloys. We have shown that H2S influ­ences mem­brane per­for­mance by two dis­tinct mech­a­nisms: sur­face deac­ti­va­tion, which inhibits the dis­so­cia­tive adsorp­tion of H2, and reac­tion with the met­al to form a low-per­me­abil­i­ty sul­fide scale. The mech­a­nism that dom­i­nates depends on both alloy com­po­si­tion and oper­at­ing con­di­tions. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the sur­face of the sul­fide scale is itself active for H2 dis­so­ci­a­tion. Atom­istic mod­el­ing of the dis­so­ci­a­tion process pro­vides con­text for this obser­va­tion, show­ing that while the ener­getic bar­ri­er for H2 dis­so­ci­a­tion is high­er on Pd4S than on Pd, there exist reac­tion tra­jec­to­ries with rel­a­tive­ly low bar­ri­ers that can sus­tain the sep­a­ra­tion sequence at accept­able rates. Microkinec­tic analy­sis of H2-D2 exchange con­duct­ed over Pd and a series of PdCu alloys, both in the pres­ence and absence if H2S, con­firms this find­ing and pro­vides insight into the role of the Cu minor com­po­nent in impart­ing S-tol­er­ance to the alloy.

Final­ly, we have devel­oped a high through­put capa­bil­i­ty to explore alloy prop­er­ties over broad, con­tin­u­ous com­po­si­tion space, based on Com­po­si­tion Spread Alloy Film (CSAF) libraries of mod­el sep­a­ra­tion alloys. CSAFs are thin (~100 nm) films with com­po­si­tions that vary con­tin­u­ous­ly across the sur­face of a com­pact (~1cm2) sub­strate. Using a unique mul­ti­chan­nel microre­ac­tor for spa­tial­ly resolved mea­sure­ment of reac­tion kinet­ics across CSAF sur­faces, we have char­ac­ter­ized the kinet­ics of H2-D2 exchange across con­tin­u­ous Pd1-xCux and Pd1-x-yCuxAuy com­po­si­tion space.
 

James B. Miller

James B. Miller

Biog­ra­phy — Jim Miller is Asso­ciate Research Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty, where he stud­ies advanced mate­ri­als for ener­gy-relat­ed appli­ca­tions in sep­a­ra­tions, catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal sens­ing. Jim earned BS, MS and PhD degrees at Carnegie Mel­lon and an MS at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh. Before join­ing the fac­ul­ty in 2006, he worked in indus­try as a devel­op­er of cat­a­lysts, cat­alyt­ic process­es and chem­i­cal sen­sors for over 25 years. Jim is a two-time past pres­i­dent of the Pitts­burgh-Cleve­land Catal­y­sis Soci­ety; he recent­ly led the Society’s suc­cess­ful efforts to obtain tax exempt sta­tus in antic­i­pa­tion of NAM 2015. He is a win­ner of AIChE’s 2010 “Shin­ing Star” in recog­ni­tion of his vol­un­teer work in the Pitts­burgh Local Sec­tion.

Oxidative Dehydrogenation of Ethane to Ethylene

Meeting Program — February 2013

 
Anne M. Gaffney
AMG Catal­y­sis and Chem­istry Con­sult­ing, LLC
 
Abstract — This sem­i­nar will dis­cuss a new­ly patent­ed cat­alyt­ic process and cat­a­lyst for the selec­tive, oxida­tive dehy­dro­gena­tion (ODH) of ethane to eth­yl­ene. Recent advances in shale gas tech­nol­o­gy, espe­cial­ly as prac­ticed in the Unit­ed States, has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved the eco­nom­ics around pro­duc­ing eth­yl­ene and has rev­o­lu­tion­ized man­u­fac­tur­ing approach­es to basic chem­i­cals, poly­mers and mate­ri­als. Ethane is sec­ond to methane as a major hydro­car­bon com­po­nent of shale gas, serv­ing as the pre­cur­sor to eth­yl­ene. Eth­yl­ene is used to pro­duce a wide vari­ety of con­sumer goods, includ­ing pack­ag­ing, build­ing & auto­mo­tive mate­ri­als, fibers, tires and bot­tles. In 2012, a num­ber of U.S. chem­i­cal com­pa­nies announced plans to invest in new plant capac­i­ty, expand exist­ing facil­i­ties, or re-open plants near shale gas sup­plies, pri­mar­i­ly based on the assump­tion that the U.S. is enter­ing a peri­od of sus­tained low nat­ur­al gas prices and grow­ing sup­ply.

This selec­tive ODH process pro­vides an alter­na­tive to eth­yl­ene pro­duc­tion via naph­tha or ethane crack­ing. In addi­tion to replac­ing these crack­ers and recy­cle crack­ers, the eth­yl­ene prod­uct efflu­ent from the ODH process may be used to feed eth­yl benzene/styrene monomer and eth­yl­ene oxide plants. The syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions of the new, M1 struc­tured, mixed met­al oxide cat­a­lyst will be reviewed.
 

Anne M. Gaffney

Anne M. Gaffney

Biog­ra­phy — Dr. Anne M. Gaffney joined INVISTA™ in 2011 as Direc­tor of R&D, Spe­cial­ty Mate­ri­als and is cur­rent­ly Pro­gram Leader for C11/C12™ R&D. She was pre­vi­ous­ly VP of Tech­nol­o­gy at Lum­mus Tech­nol­o­gy. Oth­er pri­or indus­tri­al roles include Senior Research Fel­low at Rohm and Haas, Senior Research Asso­ciate at DuPont and Man­ag­er of Catal­y­sis at ARCO Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny. Anne is the inven­tor/­co-inven­tor of over 100 patents and author/­co-author of over 80 pub­li­ca­tions. She was select­ed as an ACS Fel­low in 2010 and holds sev­er­al oth­er awards, includ­ing the 2013 ACS award in Indus­tri­al Chem­istry and the 1999 Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club Award. Anne received her Ph.D. in Phys­i­cal Organ­ic Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and her B.A. in Chem­istry and Math­e­mat­ics from Mount Holyoke Col­lege. Anne’s endeav­ors and inter­ests include R&D Lead­er­ship, break -through tech­nolo­gies, het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis, selec­tive oxi­da­tion, cat­a­lyst syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. He is the recip­i­ent of the New York Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award, the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety Frank Cia­pet­ta Lec­ture­ship Award, the ACS Heroes in Chem­istry Award, and the Her­man Pines in Catal­y­sis.