Supported Metal Catalysts – Issues and Opportunities

Meeting Program — Janiary 2013

 
Stu­art Soled
Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Co
Rt. 22 East
Annan­dale, NJ
 
Abstract — Sup­port­ed met­al oxides, met­als and sul­fides form a large frac­tion of indus­tri­al­ly impor­tant cat­a­lysts. Prepa­ra­tion of sup­port­ed cat­a­lysts can involve a rich chem­istry. We will detail dif­fer­ent prepa­ra­tion approach­es all aimed at con­trol­ling active site num­ber and site loca­tion. Issues involv­ing activ­i­ty, trans­port, and deac­ti­va­tion come into play. Site loca­tions are opti­mized on both mm and nm scale. Approach­es involv­ing elec­tro­sta­t­ic inter­ac­tions and sur­face com­plex for­ma­tion will be illus­trat­ed. We will describe approach­es to mak­ing sup­port­ed noble met­al cat­a­lysts on sil­i­ca as well as cat­a­lysts used in Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch chem­istry. The impor­tance of nanoscale homo­gene­ity on cat­a­lyst sta­bil­i­ty will be illus­trat­ed in sev­er­al exam­ples.
 
Biog­ra­phy — Stu­art Soled received his Ph.D in chem­istry from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty in 1973. He then did 4 year of post-doc­tor­al work in sol­id state chem­istry both at Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and in France, focus­ing on the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nov­el oxide and sul­fide mate­ri­als. He has been at Exxon’s Cor­po­rate Research Labs for more than 31 years. His research inter­ests lie in the syn­the­sis, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and eval­u­a­tion of nov­el cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als. He has worked exten­sive­ly on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch chem­istry, sol­id acid and met­al catal­y­sis, and hydrotreat­ing. He is the coau­thor of more than 70 pub­li­ca­tions and over 100 U.S. patents. He worked on the team dis­cov­er­ing the Neb­u­la cat­a­lyst and has worked on a joint Exxon­Mo­bil-Albe­mar­le team to bring it to com­mer­cial real­i­ty. Neb­u­la has been pro­duc­ing low sul­fur diesel fuels in over 15 refin­ery units world­wide.

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.