Author Archives: Edrick Morales

Professor Robert Davis selected for the 2007 Paul H. Emmett Award

Pro­fes­sor Robert Davis has been select­ed for the 2007 Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis. The award con­sists of a plaque and a prize. The pur­pose of the Award is to rec­og­nize and encour­age indi­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions (under the age of 45) in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic phe­nom­e­na, pro­pos­al of cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of and descrip­tion of cat­alyt­ic sites and species.

Since 2002 Bob has been Pro­fes­sor and Chair of the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia. Bob has made numer­ous last­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the fun­da­men­tal sci­ence of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis with excep­tion­al advances in acid, base, bifunc­tion­al acid/base, and base-pro­mot­ed met­al catal­y­sis. He is rec­og­nized here for his pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the use of in-situ spec­tro­scop­ic meth­ods cou­pled with both steady-state and tran­sient kinet­ic meth­ods to elu­ci­date how oxide sup­ports and basic pro­mot­ers alter the active cat­alyt­ic sites for a vari­ety of reac­tions, includ­ing the selec­tive oxi­da­tion of hydro­car­bons, acid/base con­ver­sions, and ammo­nia syn­the­sis. A dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of Bob’s research is its inte­gra­tion of mul­ti­ple exper­i­men­tal tech­niques for char­ac­ter­iz­ing het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts and the kinet­ics of reac­tions occur­ring on their sur­faces. Bob has employed a com­pre­hen­sive set of spec­tro­scop­ic tools includ­ing extend­ed X-ray absorp­tion fine struc­ture, X-ray absorp­tion near-edge struc­ture, infrared, Raman, nuclear mag­net­ic and elec­tron spin res­o­nance, adsorp­tion microcalorime­try, elec­tron microscopy togeth­er with steady state as well as tran­sient kinet­ic analy­ses to deter­mine the local elec­tron­ic and geo­met­ric struc­ture of the active site(s), the influ­ence local envi­ron­ment, and the reac­tiv­i­ty of nov­el sup­port­ed cat­a­lysts under work­ing con­di­tions. This wide array of tools has enabled him to dis­cov­er the fun­da­men­tal fea­tures that con­trol a wide range of impor­tant cat­alyt­ic sys­tems.

In addi­tion to his out­stand­ing research accom­plish­ments, Bob has proven to be a leader in edu­cat­ing stu­dents and advanc­ing the field of catal­y­sis and reac­tion engi­neer­ing. He is the co-author of a rel­a­tive­ly new undergraduate/graduate text­book “Fun­da­men­tals of Chem­i­cal Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing” pub­lished by McGraw-Hill. His lead­er­ship has also been well rec­og­nized by the field as Bob has cho­sen to lead the pro­gram­ming efforts for Catal­y­sis in the Divi­sion of Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers and cur­rent­ly serves as a Divi­sion Direc­tor. He has also orga­nized and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a num­ber of work­shops to pro­mote catal­y­sis in Asia, South Amer­i­ca and Africa for the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion. He is one of the founders as well as the past Pres­i­dent of the South­east­ern Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. He also recent­ly chaired the 2006 Gor­don Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis.

Bob will give a ple­nary lec­ture and be rec­og­nized at the 2007 North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety meet­ing in Hous­ton. The Paul H. Emmett Award in Fun­da­men­tal Catal­y­sis is spon­sored by the Davi­son Chem­i­cal Divi­sion of W.R. Grace and Com­pa­ny.

It is admin­is­tered by The North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and is award­ed bien­ni­al­ly in odd num­bered years. More infor­ma­tion on this award, the awards process, and pre­vi­ous awardees can be found inside the Awards fold­er on the NACS home page: www​.nacat​soc​.org.

2007 Award for Excellence in Catalysis — Request for Nominations

The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York is seek­ing nom­i­na­tions for its twen­ty-sixth annu­al “Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis”. The award, spon­sored by Exxon­Mo­bil Research and Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny, con­sists of a plaque and a $1,500 gift. It is grant­ed to an indi­vid­ual or a research team from North Amer­i­ca to rec­og­nize out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions in either applied or basic research in either homo­ge­neous or het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. Par­tic­u­lar effort is made to iden­ti­fy wor­thy indi­vid­u­als or teams who have not received suf­fi­cient recog­ni­tion for their work.

This award will bring due recog­ni­tion to the recipient(s), and we appre­ci­ate your help in seek­ing first-rate can­di­dates. We espe­cial­ly need to for­ti­fy our active nom­i­na­tion list! Nom­i­na­tions are solicit­ed from any­one who is cur­rent­ly, or has been pre­vi­ous­ly, active in the field of catal­y­sis. Nom­i­na­tions pre­vi­ous­ly sub­mit­ted as well as new ones will remain active for a peri­od of three years.

Those wish­ing to sub­mit a nom­i­na­tion should write a let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tion for the indi­vid­ual nom­i­nee or team, includ­ing per­ti­nent bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion and a spe­cif­ic descrip­tion of the impact of the nominee’s achieve­ments in catal­y­sis. The max­i­mum length of the let­ter should be no more than two pages. It may be accom­pa­nied by copies of no more than two items pre­sent­ing impor­tant doc­u­men­ta­tion, such as papers or patents.

Dead­line for receipt of nom­i­na­tions is Jan­u­ary 31, 2007.

Nom­i­na­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion should be sent to:

Dr. Col­in Beswick
(Bldg: R&D, Rm: 212)
BASF Cat­a­lysts LLC
25 Mid­dle­sex-Essex Turn­pike
Iselin, NJ 08830
colin.​beswick@​basf.​com

Past Recipients of the Award

  • 1982 J.A. Rabo (Union Car­bide)
  • 1983 K. Kli­er (Lehigh)
  • 1984 W. Kaed­ing, et al (Mobil)
  • 1985 A. Van­nice (U. of Penn­syl­va­nia)
  • 1986 J. Lunsford (Texas A&M)
  • 1987 F.J. Karol, et al (Union Car­bide)
  • 1988 S.J. Tauster (Engel­hard)
  • 1989 Bruce C. Gates (Delaware)
  • 1990 W. Kei­th Hall (Pitts­burgh)
  • 1991 N.Y. Chen (Mobil)
  • 1992 H.S. Gan­di (Ford)
  • 1993 Gary L. Haller (Yale)
  • 1994 James A. Dumesic (Wis­con­sin)
  • 1995 Gary McVick­er (Exxon)
  • 1996 Israel Wachs (Lehigh)
  • 1997 John Newsam (Mol­e­c­u­lar Sim­u­la­tions)
  • 1998 Ter­ry Bak­er (North­east­ern)
  • 1999 Shun Fung (Exxon)
  • 2000 Hen­ry C. Foley (Delaware)
  • 2001 J.F. Brazdil, et al (BP Chem­i­cal)
  • 2002 Amir H. Hov­ey­da (Boston Col­lege)
  • 2003 Stu Soled (Exxon­Mo­bil)
  • 2004 Ralph Dal­la Bet­ta (Cat­alyt­i­ca)
  • 2005 Fabio Ribeiro (Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty)
  • 2006 W. Nicholas Del­gass (Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty)

Herman Pines Award in Catalysis — Solicitation for Nominations

The Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go is solic­it­ing nom­i­na­tions for the Her­man Pines Award for out­stand­ing research in the field of catal­y­sis. Her­man Pines was an out­stand­ing research sci­en­tist, and his work rev­o­lu­tion­ized the gen­er­al under­stand­ing of organ­ic chem­istry, par­tic­u­lar­ly the chem­istry of hydro­car­bons inter­act­ing with strong acids. The award in his hon­or is spon­sored by UOP where Her­man began his indus­tri­al career in 1930 and amassed 145 US patents over a 23 year peri­od. The award is being co-spon­sored by the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go of which Pro­fes­sor Pines was a found­ing mem­ber. The award will be pre­sent­ed at the 2007 Spring Sym­po­sium of the Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go. The recip­i­ent will receive a cash award of $1,000 and reim­burse­ment for trav­el and lodg­ing as a ple­nary speak­er at the Spring Sym­po­sium.

Past winners of the Herman Pines Award

  • 1999 — Pro­fes­sor Harold Kung (North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty)
  • 2000 — Dr. John Mon­nier (East­man Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny)
  • 2001 — Pro­fes­sor Lan­ny Schmidt (Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta)
  • 2002 — Dr. James Brazdil (BP)
  • 2003 — Pro­fes­sor James A. Dumesic (Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin)
  • 2004 — Dr. Alak Bhat­tacharyya (BP)
  • 2005 — Pro­fes­sor Israel Wachs (Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty)
  • 2006 — Dr. Jef­frey T. Miller (BP)

The recip­i­ent will be cho­sen based on the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria:

  • Impor­tance of catal­y­sis research com­plet­ed in the past five years.
  • Alter­na­tion of the award between indus­tri­al and academic/national lab­o­ra­to­ry research­es. For year 2007, nom­i­na­tions for can­di­dates from either an ACADEMIC or NATIONAL LABORATORY RESEARCHER are sought.
  • Recip­i­ent must be a res­i­dent of North Amer­i­ca

Award

  • $1,000 and travel/lodging as a ple­nary speak­er at the Spring Sym­po­sium.

Deadline for Nomination

  • Jan­u­ary 31, 2007
  • Nom­i­na­tions should describe the spe­cif­ic work per­formed in the last 5 years for which the nom­i­nee should be rec­og­nized.

Date of Announcement

  • Novem­ber 2006

Nom­i­na­tions should be e-mailed (sin­gle PDF doc­u­ment) on or before Jan­u­ary 31, 2007 to:

Christo­pher L. Mar­shall
Pres­i­dent-Catal­y­sis Club of Chica­go
Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion
Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60565
(630)252‑4310
CLMarshall@​anl.​gov

Announcement

“Fara­day and Franklin” by Pro­fes­sor Sir John Meurig Thomas, F. R. S.
Octo­ber 13, 2006 at 4:00pm
Mitchell Hall
Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware

Franklin and Fara­day, at dif­fer­ent times, were each the best known and most admired men of sci­ence in the west­ern world: Franklin, dur­ing the last half of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry, Fara­day, who was born eigh­teen months after Franklin’s death, dur­ing the mid­dle half of the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. Each dis­cov­ered a large vari­ety of new phe­nom­e­na, and each was asso­ci­at­ed with some of the most spec­tac­u­lar exper­i­ments ever per­formed.

Of Fara­day, who great­ly admired and often quot­ed Franklin, Ein­stein had said that he was respon­si­ble for the great­est change in the intel­lec­tu­al frame­work of physics since New­ton, and Ruther­ford called him one of the great­est dis­cov­er­ers of all time.

The lec­tur­er will describe (in terms that will be intel­li­gi­ble to non–experts) how these two auto­di­dacts became such icon­ic fig­ures, and how much they have influ­enced the mod­ern world.

Sir John Meurig Thomas is Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of Sol­id State Chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge and Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Chem­istry at the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion of Great Britain, Lon­don. For­mer­ly, he was Mas­ter of Peter­house Col­lege (1993 – 2002), the old­est Col­lege in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, Direc­tor of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion (1986 – 2001) and Head of the Depart­ment of Phys­i­cal Chem­istry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge (1978 – 1986). Ear­li­er, he taught and researched at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wales (Ban­gor and Aberys­t­wyth).

For his work in catal­y­sis, mate­ri­als and sur­face chem­istry he was award­ed the Willard Gibbs Gold Medal of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety (ACS), the Guilio Nat­ta Gold Medal of the Ital­ian Chem­i­cal Soci­ety and was the first recip­i­ent (1999) of the ACS Annu­al Award for “cre­ative research in homo­ge­neous and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis”. Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty award­ed him the 2003 Linus Paul­ing Gold Medal for his con­tri­bu­tions to the advance­ment of sci­ence. In 1991, he was knight­ed for “ser­vices to chem­istry and the pop­u­lar­iza­tion of sci­ence”.

This event is co-spon­sored by the Office of the Provost, the Uni­ver­si­ty Fac­ul­ty Sen­ate, the Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences, the Col­lege of Engi­neer­ing, the Uni­ver­si­ty Hon­ors Pro­gram, and the Depart­ments of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, Chem­istry and Bio­chem­istry, Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing, His­to­ry, Mate­ri­als Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing, Phi­los­o­phy, Physics and Astron­o­my, and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence.

Down­load orig­i­nal announce­ment: Faraday-Franklin.pdf

Professor James A. Dumesic receives 2006 CCP Award

Pro­fes­sor Jing­guang Chen, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and Pass Chair of the CCP, pre­sent­ed Pro­fes­sor Dumesic with the 2006 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award for his pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the kinet­ics and mech­a­nisms of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions. He is also rec­og­nized for the devel­op­ment of con­cepts and tools for elu­ci­dat­ing struc­ture-prop­er­ty rela­tion­ships for the dis­cov­ery of new cat­a­lysts.

After receiv­ing the award, Prof. Dumesic pre­sent­ed the 2006 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award Lec­ture to a full house: “Cat­alyt­ic Pro­duc­tion of Liq­uid Fuels and Chem­i­cals from Bio­mass-derived Oxy­genat­ed Hydro­car­bons”.

2006–2007 Meeting Program

Thurs­day, 28-Sept-2006High through­put exper­i­men­ta­tion and its appli­ca­tions to NOX stor­age and reduc­tion (NSR) cat­a­lysts
Rohit Vijay, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
Thurs­day, 28-Sept-20062006 CCP Award Lec­ture
Cat­alyt­ic Pro­duc­tion of Liq­uid Fuels and Chem­i­cals from Bio­mass-derived Oxy­genat­ed Hydro­car­bons
Prof. James Dumesic, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 19-Oct-2006Redox Prop­er­ties of Sup­port­ed Vana­di­um Sys­tems
Parag R. Shah, Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 19-Oct-2006Exper­i­men­tal and Com­pu­ta­tion­al Stud­ies of Reac­tion Path­ways and Size Depen­dence in Au Catal­y­sis
Dr. Steven H. Over­bury, Oak Ridge Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 9-Nov-2006 Joint meet­ing with the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York
Sup­port­ed Met­al Cat­a­lysts: Some Inter­est­ing New Leads In An Old Field And Use Of Zeta Poten­tial Mea­sure­ments In Cat­a­lyst Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion
Dr. Stu­art Soled, Exxon­Mo­bil — 2006 Cia­pet­ta Lec­tur­er
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 25-Jan-2007New Insights into the Sol­id Acid­i­ty of Sup­port­ed WO3/ZrO2 Cat­a­lysts
E. I. Ross, Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Thurs­day, 25-Jan-2007Hydro­gen from Renew­able Fuels in Mil­lisec­ond Reac­tors
Prof. Lan­ny Schmidt, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 22-Feb-2007Nom­i­na­tion of new offi­cers for 2007–2008
Thurs­day, 22-Feb-2007The Organ­ic-Inor­gan­ic Inter­face in Syn­the­sis and Catal­y­sis
Prof. Galen Stucky, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San­ta Bar­bara
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 22-Mar-2007Stu­dent Poster Com­pe­ti­tion
Pre­sen­ta­tions Start at 5:00 PM
Thurs­day, 22-Mar-2007From Pho­to­catal­y­sis to Selec­tive Hydro­gena­tion on Micro­p­orous Sil­i­cas
Prof. Raul F. Lobo, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 19-Apr-2007Elec­tion of new offi­cers
Thurs­day, 19-Apr-2007A “Chem­i­cal Plant” in the Tailpipe: NOx Adsor­ber Cat­a­lysts for Diesel NOx Emis­sion Con­trol
Dr. Hai-Ying Chen, John­son Matthey Inc., Emis­sion Con­trol Tech­nolo­gies
View abstract »
Mon­day, 14-May-2007Spring Sym­po­sium
Hol­i­day Inn Select Hotel
Naa­mans Road and I-95
Clay­mont, DE

Welcome to the 2006–2007 Season

Dear Col­leagues in Catal­y­sis:

On Sep­tem­ber 28th the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia will begin its 59th sea­son! On behalf of the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee, I wel­come you to par­tic­i­pate in our planned activ­i­ties for this sea­son. We take great pride in being the old­est and one of the most active catal­y­sis clubs in North Amer­i­ca and need your par­tic­i­pa­tion to main­tain the vital­i­ty of the club.

Once again, the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee (list­ed below) has assem­bled a pro­gram of activ­i­ties (see attached sheet) designed to stim­u­late dis­cus­sions in the field of catal­y­sis while meet­ing fel­low sci­en­tists and col­leagues.

2006–7 CCP Officers

  • Roger Grey, Chair
    Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal
  • Edrick Morales, Chair-Elect
    Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal
  • Ist­van Halasz, Pass Chair
    PQ Cor­po­ra­tion
  • Steve Har­ris, Trea­sur­er
    Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal
  • Hong-Xin Li, Sec­re­tary
    Zeolyst Inter­na­tion­al
  • Mahesh Kon­duru, Pro­gram Chair
    John­son Matthey
  • Carl Men­ning, Arrange­ments Chair
    Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
  • Xiao Chen, Direc­tor (Spon­sor­ship)
    John­son Matthey
  • Haim­ing Liu, Direc­tor (Mem­ber­ship)
    Arke­ma
  • Michael Smith, Direc­tor (Poster Ses­sion)
    Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty
  • Anne Gaffney, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to NACS
    ABB Lum­mus

In June the Exec­u­tive com­mit­tee of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia met to plan our activ­i­ties for 2006–2007. High­lights of this meet­ing include;

  • Pro­grams — The month­ly din­ner meet­ings for this sea­son will con­sist of a lec­ture by the fea­tured after din­ner speak­er and will also include a brief pre­sen­ta­tion by a local grad­u­ate stu­dent or post doc. A joint meet­ing with the Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York Catal­y­sis Soci­ety will be held in Novem­ber (at the Bucks Coun­ty Sher­a­ton, Lang­horne, PA). This sea­son the annu­al stu­dent poster ses­sion will be held in March, and the Spring Sym­po­sium in May will be held at the same loca­tion as the month­ly meet­ings (Hol­i­day Inn Select, Wilm­ing­ton).
  • Dues — The 2006–2007 sea­son will again be $10.00 ($5.00 for the local club and $5.00 to the nation­al club). Dues for stu­dents will be $6.00. Please pay your dues to your com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive or to our trea­sur­er, Steve Har­ris (stephen.​harris@​lyondell.​com). Steve will accept dues pay­ments at the month­ly meet­ings.
  • Din­ner Fees and Reser­va­tions -The cost of the din­ner to our mem­bers will be $30.00 (stu­dents and retirees, $15.00) and will include one drink dur­ing the social hour. After one drink, the bar will serve as a cash bar dur­ing the social hour. Walk-in and non-mem­bers din­ner fees will be $35. We strong­ly encour­age mem­bers to make advanced reser­va­tions for the month­ly meet­ings. Although the club will con­tin­ue its pol­i­cy of allow­ing walk-in atten­dees, the hotel can­not guar­an­tee that they will have enough meals to accom­mo­date a large num­ber of walk-ins. Please help us by mak­ing advanced reser­va­tions.
  • Com­mu­ni­ca­tions — We will con­tin­ue to take advan­tage of e-mail cor­re­spon­dence, instead of hard-copy announce­ments for our meet­ings. Hong-Xin is updat­ing our data­base of e-mail address­es to try to include every­one. If you know of some­one who does not receive our e-mails or need to update your e-mail address, please con­tact Hong-Xin (hongxin.​li@​pqcorp.​com).
  • Web page — Last year our club estab­lished its own web site (catal​y​sis​clubphilly​.org). We encour­age you to vis­it this site to review past and future activ­i­ties of our club and oth­er items of inter­est to the catal­y­sis com­mu­ni­ty (i.e. con­fer­ences and links to oth­er catal­y­sis orga­ni­za­tions). Our web­mas­ter is Edrick Morales (edrick.​morales@​lyondell.​com).
  • Atten­dance — We real­ly would like to improve the atten­dance this year at our month­ly meet­ings and the Spring Sym­po­sium. We there­fore encour­age our mem­bers to sup­port the club by attend­ing as many meet­ings as pos­si­ble and also to invite your col­leagues to join us at our meet­ings.

I am look­ing for­ward to an inter­est­ing 2006–2007 sea­son. Please feel free to con­tact me through­out the year with any com­ments or sug­ges­tions for the Club.

Sin­cere­ly,

Roger Grey
Chair, 2006–2007
E-mail: roger.​grey@​lyondell.​com
Phone: 610–359-2286