Author Archives: Edrick Morales

Graduate Student Poster Competition

This is the first call for posters for the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadelphia’s annu­al Stu­dent Poster Con­test to be held Thurs­day, March 18, 2010 at the Wilm­ing­ton Hol­i­day Inn, Naa­mans Rd and I-95 at 5 pm.

To enter, please sub­mit a short abstract of your pro­posed entry before March 4, 2010 to Eliz­a­beth Ross-Medgaar­den.

The com­pe­ti­tion is restrict­ed to grad­u­ate stu­dents. Post-docs are wel­come to present their posters but are not eli­gi­ble for prizes. All poster pre­sen­ters should be list­ed as the first author, and will be guests of the Catal­y­sis Club for the evening. Catal­y­sis Club mem­bers and guests will cast their votes for favorite poster; then a select pan­el of indus­tri­al judges will select the 5 best posters from the top 10 posters. A total prize award of $550 will be dis­trib­uted between the win­ners; $150 will go to the over­all win­ner and $100 each to the 4 oth­er win­ners. The over­all win­ner will be invit­ed to present his or her work at the Catal­y­sis Club’s annu­al sym­po­sium on May 13, 2010.

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is very proud of this event and views it as one of the region’s pre­mier oppor­tu­ni­ties for grad­u­ate stu­dents to show­case their work with the local chem­i­cal indus­try pro­fes­sion­als. All grad­u­ate stu­dents whose work is either direct­ly or indi­rect­ly relat­ed to catal­y­sis sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy are encour­aged to sub­mit entries.

Nominations Open for Award for Excellence in Natural Gas Conversion

Dead­line is Novem­ber 1, 2009

The Award for Excel­lence in Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion is spon­sored by the Nat­ur­al Gas Con­ver­sion Board and its Inter­na­tion­al Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee. The award has been pre­sent­ed just 5 times in the past twen­ty years, and rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who — in the eyes of their peers — have made note­wor­thy con­tri­bu­tions in the field of nat­ur­al gas con­ver­sion and the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies that are like­ly to play an impor­tant part in meet­ing the world’s chem­i­cal and fuel require­ments in the years ahead.

Please vis­it the award web page at ngbc​.kma​.net/​i​n​d​e​x​.​a​s​p​?​s​i​d​=54 for addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion and the nom­i­na­tion process.

Job Search Strategies Workshop for Chemical Professionals

The Philadel­phia Sec­tion of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety is offer­ing a Job Search Strate­gies Work­shop for chem­i­cal sci­en­tists enter­ing the job mar­ket and those in tran­si­tion. The work­shop will be held at Ursi­nus Col­lege in Col­legeville, Penn­syl­va­nia on Octo­ber 6th at 6:30 pm.

The work­shop has three com­po­nent pre­sen­ta­tions, each tak­ing about an hour. Plan­ning Your Job Search dis­cuss­es trends in the indus­tri­al mar­ket, artic­u­lat­ing one’s per­son­al moti­va­tors, locat­ing job open­ings and net­work­ing. Prepar­ing a Resume address­es resume prepa­ra­tion from the per­spec­tives of struc­ture, con­tent, for­mat and style; cov­ers let­ters; and oth­er rel­e­vant doc­u­ments. Effec­tive Inter­view­ing cov­ers the inter­view process, behav­ioral-based ques­tions, han­dling dif­fi­cult ques­tions, prepar­ing for inter­views, the research talk, and man­ag­ing job deci­sions.

The empha­sis of this work­shop will be on indus­tri­al employ­ment. How­ev­er, since gov­ern­ment employ­ment offers many career oppor­tu­ni­ties for sci­en­tists, we’ll dis­cuss this top­ic as well.

Down­load fly­er for addi­tion­al details: JobSearchWorkshop.pdf.

2009–2010 Meeting Program

Thurs­day, 17-Sept-20092009 CCP Award Lec­ture
New Con­cepts in Cat­alyt­ic Mem­brane Reac­tor Sci­ence
Prof. S. Ted Oya­ma, Vir­ginia Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 17-Sept-2009Gas-phase cou­pling behav­ior in sur­face reac­tions stud­ied by in situ sur­face imag­ing and scan­ning mass spec­trom­e­try
Daniel Bil­bao, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 22-Oct-2009Restock­ing Burwell’s Organometal­lic Zoo: Sup­port­ed Met­al Com­plex­es and Met­al Clus­ters with Well-Defined Struc­tures
Prof. Bruce Gates, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Davis
2009 Bur­well Lec­tur­er
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 22-Oct-2009Con­trol­ling the Bond Scis­sion Sequence of Methanol Decom­po­si­tion on Plat­inum-Mod­i­fied Tung­sten Car­bide
Alan L. Stot­tle­my­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 19-Nov-2009Green Gaso­line — A Bet­ter Bio­fu­el
Prof. John Regal­b­u­to, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Chica­go
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 19-Nov-2009The Influ­ence of Cobalt Load­ing on Oxi­da­tion of Sup­port­ed Cat­a­lysts for Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch Syn­the­sis
Kevin Bakhmut­sky, Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 21-Jan-2010Shape effects in Au/Ceria cat­a­lysts for the low-tem­per­a­ture methanol steam reform­ing and water-gas shift reac­tions
Prof. Maria Fly­tzani-Stephanopou­los, Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 21-Jan-2010Resolv­ing the Con­tri­bu­tions of Sur­face Lewis and Bron­st­ed Acid Sites dur­ing NOx/NH3 SCR: An Operan­do TP-IR Spec­tro­scop­ic Inves­ti­ga­tion
Kevin Doura, Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 18-Feb-2010Het­ero­ge­neous Cat­a­lysts Designed for High Selec­tiv­i­ty using Mol­e­c­u­lar Recog­ni­tion
Prof. Robert Rioux, Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 18-Feb-2010Nom­i­na­tion of new CCP offi­cers for 2010–2011
Thurs­day, 18-Mar-2010Struc­tur­al, Elec­tron­ic, and Cat­alyt­ic Prop­er­ties of Micel­lar Met­al Nanopar­ti­cles: Size, Shape, Sup­port, and Oxi­da­tion State Effect
Prof. Beat­riz Roldán Cuenya, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cen­tral Flori­da
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 18-Mar-2010Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Poster Com­pe­ti­tion
The com­pe­ti­tion starts at 5 PM
Poster abstracts »
Thurs­day, 22-Apr-2010The role of sur­face basal planes of lay­ered mixed met­al oxides in selec­tive trans­for­ma­tion of low­er alka­nes: Propane ammox­i­da­tion over sur­face ab planes of Mo-V-Te-Nb-O M1 phase
Prof. Vadim V. Guliants, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cincin­nati
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 22-Apr-2010Elec­tion of new offi­cers for the 2010–2011 sea­son
Bio­graph­i­cal sketch­es » of the can­di­dates.
Thurs­day, 13-May-2010Spring Sym­po­sium
Top­ic: Catal­y­sis for Ener­gy, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and Envi­ron­ment
Sym­po­sium pro­gram »

Gordon Conference on Catalysis – Program Announcement

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will be held at Col­by Sawyer Col­lege, NH from June 27, 2010 through July 2, 2010. The meet­ing chair is Abhaya Datye (datye@​unm.​edu) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co in Albu­querque, NM and the Vice-chair is Bruce Cook (Bruce.​Cook2@​bp.​com) from BP Prod­ucts NA in Naperville, IL.

In 2010, the Catal­y­sis con­fer­ence will move to a new­ly-fur­bished con­fer­ence room with seat­ing for 150, a new poster ses­sion area that will allow 40 posters per ses­sion. The dorm rooms pro­vide sin­gle and dou­ble accom­mo­da­tions, free WIFI and the reg­is­tra­tion fee includes all meals and the famous lob­ster din­ner on Thurs­day night. After­noons are open to enjoy the New Eng­land ambiance with oppor­tu­ni­ties for hik­ing, sail­ing, golf and ten­nis to cre­ate an out­stand­ing con­fer­ence that will help you net­work with col­leagues, and make long last­ing con­nec­tions. Please vis­it the con­fer­ence web site for more details and to reg­is­ter for the meet­ing: 2010 GRC Pro­gram.

The 2010 GRC on Catal­y­sis will focus on sev­er­al areas that are of both fun­da­men­tal and prac­ti­cal impor­tance, (down­load pro­gram fly­er). The under­ly­ing theme is to high­light the role of catal­y­sis in meet­ing society’s needs for ener­gy and mate­ri­als. The con­fer­ence is orga­nized into 9 ses­sions:

  1. Alter­na­tive Feed­stocks For Chem­i­cals And Fuels
  2. Nov­el Cat­alyt­ic Mate­ri­als
  3. 3D Imag­ing Of Cat­a­lysts
  4. Spec­troscopy, With Spe­cial Empha­sis On Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis In The Liq­uid Phase
  5. Mol­e­c­u­lar Insights Through The­o­ry
  6. The Sci­ence Of Cat­a­lyst Syn­the­sis
  7. Design Of Cat­a­lysts For Excep­tion­al Sta­bil­i­ty
  8. Sur­face Sci­ence
  9. Future Per­spec­tives On Catal­y­sis

The themes and the speak­ers have been cho­sen to inter­weave aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al inter­est, as has been the very effec­tive tra­di­tion of this long run­ning con­fer­ence, and to illus­trate broad, fore­front con­cepts in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. By includ­ing senior sci­en­tists as dis­cus­sion lead­ers, we hope to add a diver­si­ty of per­spec­tive and enhance the lev­el of dis­cus­sions. A spe­cial effort was made to attract speak­ers and dis­cus­sion lead­ers from indus­try. Finan­cial sup­port will be avail­able for grad­u­ate stu­dents, post-docs and junior fac­ul­ty. Please vis­it the NACS web­site in Feb­ru­ary 2010 for more details.

Nominations open for Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Catalysis

The Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice in the Advance­ment of Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. It is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in even num­bered years. The Award con­sists of a plaque, an hon­o­rar­i­um of $5,000, and par­tial sup­port ($1000) for trav­el to the meet­ing where the award is pre­sent­ed. The Award will be pre­sent­ed for the first time at the 2011 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

The Award rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who has advanced cat­alyt­ic chem­istry or engi­neer­ing through a com­bi­na­tion of sig­nif­i­cant ser­vice to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and tech­ni­cal accom­plish­ments. Ser­vice may include teach­ing, men­tor­ing, edi­to­r­i­al, and orga­ni­za­tion­al activ­i­ties, as well as lead­er­ship in the orga­ni­za­tion of con­fer­ences and work­shops. These activ­i­ties must have ben­e­fit­ed specif­i­cal­ly the North Amer­i­can catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty and more gen­er­al­ly the field at large.

Elec­tion of the awardee will be made with­out regard to age, sex, nation­al­i­ty, or affil­i­a­tion. The nom­i­na­tion must con­tain a crit­i­cal eval­u­a­tion of the sig­nif­i­cance of candidate’s achieve­ments and a spe­cif­ic state­ment about the ser­vice and tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions on which the nom­i­na­tion is based. Nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments (short sum­ma­ry state­ment of the con­tri­bu­tions (300 words); cur­ricu­lum vitae; one nom­i­nat­ing let­ter and no more than two let­ters of sup­port) must be sent as a sin­gle elec­tron­ic PDF file to the Pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety (Enrique Igle­sia; iglesia@​berkeley.​edu). Nom­i­na­tions for the 2010 Award for Dis­tin­guished Ser­vice will close on Novem­ber 24, 2009. Receipt of the nom­i­na­tion will be acknowl­edged by return email with­in 48 hours.

Call for Papers in advance of the 23rd ORCS Conference

The Organ­ic Reac­tions Catal­y­sis Soci­ety announces its Call for Papers in advance of the 23rd ORCS Con­fer­ence March 14–18, 2010 in Mon­terey, CA. The abstract sub­mis­sion dead­line is Sept 8, 2009 and details can be found at www​.orcs​.org. Addi­tion­al­ly, the Soci­ety announces an agree­ment with Springer Pub­lish­ing to pub­lish the pro­ceed­ings of the 23rd Con­fer­ence in the jour­nal, Top­ics in Catal­y­sis. ORCS has a long tra­di­tion of pub­lish­ing its pro­ceed­ings in book for­mat as a ser­vice to the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Recent sur­veys of ORCS mem­ber­ship revealed a desire for greater vis­i­bil­i­ty and elec­tron­ic acces­si­bil­i­ty of the ORCS pro­ceed­ings. In response, ORCS has forged the agree­ment with Top­ics in Catal­y­sis for pub­li­ca­tion of the pro­ceed­ings, index­ing by major abstract ser­vices, elec­tron­ic acces­si­bil­i­ty of con­tent through Springerís web­site and, as a bonus, all ORCS atten­dees will receive a hard bound issue of the ORCS Pro­ceed­ings. We wel­come feed­back on this change from all mem­bers (email: chair@​orcs.​org). Those con­sid­er­ing sub­mit­ting abstracts / man­u­scripts will be inter­est­ed to know that three focus top­ics will be: catal­y­sis applied to chem­i­cal pro­duc­tion from biore­new­able resources, C-X cou­pling reac­tions and hydro­gena­tion catal­y­sis. These top­ics will form the basis for spe­cial ses­sions, in addi­tion to the tra­di­tion­al scope of ORCS con­fer­ences.

At each bien­ni­al con­fer­ence of the ORCS two tech­ni­cal awards may be con­ferred by the Soci­ety for excel­lence if the field of catal­y­sis applied to organ­ic prod­ucts: the Mur­ray Raney Award and the Paul Rylan­der Award. The lat­ter is an annu­al award and two awardees may be rec­og­nized at the con­fer­ence. Nom­i­na­tions, com­pris­ing a CV and two sup­port­ing let­ters, are due Sept 8, 2010 to chair@​orcs.​org. Awardees receive an hon­o­rar­i­um and trav­el expens­es and are invit­ed to give a ple­nary lec­ture. Details may be found at www​.orcs​.org.

At the 23rd Con­fer­ence, ORCS will spon­sor an edu­ca­tion­al course: Hydro­gena­tion: An Indis­pens­able Tool. This three hour course will be pre­sent­ed Tues­day Mar 16, 2010 at the con­fer­ence hotel and will be taught by lead­ers from the chem­i­cal indus­try. Course top­ics span het­ero­ge­neous and homo­ge­neous catal­y­sis, as well as, safe­ty in the catal­y­sis lab­o­ra­to­ry and pilot plants or scale-up lab­o­ra­to­ries. The course will be pro­vid­ed for a nom­i­nal fee to con­fer­ence atten­dees and is also avail­able as a one day reg­is­tra­tion. Inter­est­ed par­ties will find more infor­ma­tion at www​.orcs​.org.