John Vohs wins the 2007 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is pleased to announce that Pro­fes­sor John Vohs of Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia is the recip­i­ent of the 2007 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award. The award is giv­en for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal or in orga­ni­za­tion lead­er­ship.

Pro­fes­sor Vohs is a Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware grad­u­ate. After a NATO Post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at Fac­ultes Uni­ver­si­taires Notre-Dame de la Paix in Namur, Bel­gium he start­ed his aca­d­e­m­ic car­ri­er at Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia where he is cur­rent­ly the Carl V. S. Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing. His award nom­i­na­tors empha­size among oth­ers his pio­neer­ing work in the appli­ca­tion of sur­face sci­ence tech­niques to under­stand reac­tion mech­a­nisms and site require­ments on met­al oxide sin­gle crys­tals. He demon­strat­ed the use of High Res­o­lu­tion Elec­tron Ener­gy Loss Spec­troscopy (HREELS) to obtain vibra­tional spec­tra of reac­tive inter­me­di­ates on the sur­faces of semi­con­duct­ing and insu­lat­ing met­al oxides. This work, which con­tin­ues to be high­ly cit­ed today, was vital to mak­ing the con­nec­tion between mod­el sin­gle crys­tal sur­faces and high sur­face area pow­der cat­a­lysts, espe­cial­ly in demon­strat­ing mech­a­nisms and site require­ments from mod­el sys­tems that could be applied to com­plex mate­ri­als. His HREELS and XPS work on vana­dia, tita­nia, and ceria-based mate­ri­als helped to under­stand the sur­face prop­er­ties of these mate­ri­als and lead to applied research on oxy­gen stor­age process­es which is of vital impor­tance to sol­id oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). As one of the lead­ers of this field, pro­fes­sor Vohs con­tributed to the fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of relat­ed reac­tion and trans­port process­es, as well as strate­gies for pre­vent­ing deac­ti­va­tion and cok­ing in these devices. More­over, he is one of a small but grow­ing num­ber of researchers who are demon­strat­ing a new par­a­digm for design of new cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als from atom­istic under­stand­ing.

In addi­tion to his research con­tri­bu­tions, Pro­fes­sor Vohs has advised near­ly 20 grad­u­ate stu­dents and about the same num­ber of post­doc­tor­al fel­lows dur­ing his 18 years as fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia where he also served as Asso­ciate Dean and Depart­ment Chair. He and his stu­dents have been long sup­port­ers of our Catal­y­sis Club and we are proud to add this award to the series of his pri­or acknowl­edge­ments.

Pro­fes­sor Vohs will be hon­ored with a plaque and a cash award which will be pre­sent­ed to him at a din­ner meet­ing in our fall sea­son when he will also present his award lec­ture.

Recip­i­ents of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award

  • 1968 Adal­bert Farkas
  • 1969 Charles J. Plank
  • 1970 Paul H. Emmett
  • 1971 G. Alex Mills
  • 1972 Alfred E. Hirschler­li
  • 1973 Paul B. Weisz
  • 1974 Roland C. Hans­ford
  • 1975 Paul Venu­to
  • 1976 Heinz Heine­mann
  • 1977 G.C.A. Schuit
  • 1978 George W. Par­shall
  • 1979 Alvin B. Stiles
  • 1980 Abra­ham Schnei­der
  • 1981 James F. Roth
  • 1982 Robert Eis­chens
  • 1983 Edward Rosin­s­ki
  • 1984 James R. Katzer
  • 1985 N.Y. Chen
  • 1986 Bruce C. Gates
  • 1987 James E. Lyons
  • 1988 George Koko­tai­lo
  • 1989 Mau­rice Mitchell, Jr.
  • 1990 Wern­er O. Haag
  • 1991 John A. Sofranko
  • 1992 Fran Waller
  • 1993 George Kerr
  • 1994 Theodore A. Koch
  • 1995 John N. Armor
  • 1996 Mae Rubin
  • 1997 Leo E. Manz­er
  • 1998 Ray Gorte
  • 1999 Anne M. Gaffney
  • 2000 Hen­ry C. Foley
  • 2001 Mark Barteau
  • 2002 Steven D. Ittel
  • 2003 Frank E. Herkes
  • 2004 Jing­guang Chen
  • 2005 Israel Wachs
  • 2006 James A. Dumesic
  • 2007 John Vohs