The 7th World Con­gress on Oxi­da­tion Catal­y­sis aims to focus on the under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic oxi­da­tion phe­nom­e­na across time and length scales, tak­ing togeth­er the fun­da­men­tal phe­nom­e­na that is most often the focus of acad­e­mia with the process­es and appli­ca­tions that dri­ve indus­try. The ses­sion titled From Fun­da­men­tals to Appli­ca­tion includes exist­ing and nascent top­ics that bridge fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing to cur­rent and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. For exam­ple, materials/catalyst prepa­ra­tion and design top­ics address the mul­ti­func­tion­al nature inher­ent in oxi­da­tion process cat­a­lysts. Emerg­ing alter­na­tive or “green” oxi­dants can be used in both het­ero­ge­neous and homo­ge­neous process­es to ben­e­fit selec­tiv­i­ty. Chem­i­cal loop­ing process­es promise to elim­i­nate the pri­ma­ry source of nitro­gen oxides.

A new ses­sion for­mat is includ­ed with the goal of pre­sent­ing new ideas and method­olo­gies for decod­ing the com­plex­i­ty inher­ent in catal­y­sis and cat­alyt­ic process­es. Pre­sen­ters are encour­aged to dis­cuss excit­ing com­bi­na­tions of the­o­ry and exper­i­ment and the com­bi­na­tion of mul­ti­ple exper­i­men­tal tech­niques. Pre­sen­ta­tions will be sched­uled ear­ly in the pro­gram with a dis­cus­sion work­shop to gen­er­ate con­sen­sus on the cur­rent state and direc­tion of the field.

The oxida­tive cat­alyt­ic appli­ca­tions impor­tant to indus­try in a great sense dri­ve the fun­da­men­tal work dis­cussed above. The petro­chem­i­cal process­es focused on syn­gas generation/conversion, com­bus­tion, par­tial and selec­tive oxi­da­tion, amines and C1 chem­istry, along with process­es for bio­mass con­ver­sion to fuels will be pre­sent­ed. Fine chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­duc­tion that gen­er­al­ly employ homo­ge­neous oxi­da­tions are cov­ered among the subtopics of olefin and aro­mat­ic oxi­da­tion, epox­i­da­tion and the chem­istry of rad­i­cal species. Final­ly, the con­tri­bu­tion of catal­y­sis to envi­ron­men­tal tech­nolo­gies such as VOC oxi­da­tion, waste­water treat­ment and autoex­haust catal­y­sis will be pre­sent­ed.

The Con­gress begins with a full day on Sun­day, June 9th, and lasts through Wednes­day June 12th. It will be held in Saint Louis, Mis­souri on the cam­pus of Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. With Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty act­ing as host the Con­gress is made quite eco­nom­i­cal and many will find the reg­is­tra­tion prices cou­pled with the avail­abil­i­ty of cam­pus hous­ing a pleas­ant sur­prise. The Con­gress din­ner will be on Tues­day, June 11 and a group excur­sion to the top of the Gate­way Arch will take place on Wednes­day, June 12. For more infor­ma­tion about the 7th World Con­gress, vis­it www​.7wcoc​.org.