Author Archives: Edrick Morales

Winners of the 2012 Annual Student Poster Competition

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia annu­al stu­dent poster con­test for the 2012- 2013 sea­son took place on Octo­ber 18th 2012 at the Wilm­ing­ton Dou­ble Tree Hotel, 4727 Con­cord Pike Wilm­ing­ton, DE. Out of the twen­ty five abstracts sub­mit­ted, twen­ty were pre­sent­ed by grad­u­ate stu­dents and five by post-doc­tor­al fel­lows. The four first place win­ners were

  • Jesse R. McManus (Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia) with “Cor­re­lat­ing Sur­face Chem­istry of Gly­co­lalde­hyde and Glyc­er­alde­hyde with Glu­cose, a Mech­a­nis­tic Study on Pd(111)”
  • Christo­pher J. Ketu­rakis (Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty) with “New Insights into the Water-Gas Shift Reac­tion over Bulk Cr2O3*Fe2O3 Mixed Oxide Cat­a­lysts: A Com­bined Operan­do Raman-IR-XAS-XPS Inves­ti­ga­tion”
  • Vinit Choud­hary (Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware) with “Fur­fur­al Pro­duc­tion from Xylose in Aque­ous Media in a Cas­cade of Reac­tions using Het­ero­ge­neous and Homo­ge­neous Catal­y­sis”
  • Yiqing Wu (Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land) with “Cat­alyt­ic Char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Hier­ar­chi­cal Meso-/mi­cro­p­orous MFI and MWW Zeo­lites”.

The top hon­ors place was award­ed to Thomas R. Gor­don from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, with his poster titled “Non­aque­ous Syn­the­sis of TiO2 Nanocrys­tals Using TiF4 to Engi­neer Mor­phol­o­gy, Oxy­gen Vacan­cy Con­cen­tra­tion, and Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic Activ­i­ty”.

2013 Award for Excellence in Catalysis: Request for Nominations

The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York is seek­ing nom­i­na­tions for its thir­ty-sec­ond 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, 2013. Nom­i­na­tions for con­sid­er­a­tion should be sent to:
 
Lucas Dorazio
BASF Cor­po­ra­tion
25 Middlesex/Essex Turn­pike
Iselin, NJ 08830
lucas.​dorazio@​basf.​com

Catalysis Club of Philadelphia’s Annual Student Poster Contest

This is the first call for posters for the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadelphia’s annu­al Stu­dent Poster Con­test to be held Thurs­day, Octo­ber 18th, 2012 at the Dou­ble­Tree Hotel, 4727 Con­cord Pike (Rt. 202) in Wilm­ing­ton, DE. To enter, please sub­mit a short abstract of your pro­posed entry before Octo­ber 5th, 2012, to Vladimiros Niko­lakis.

The com­pe­ti­tion is restrict­ed to grad­u­ate stu­dents only. 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. As in years past Catal­y­sis Club mem­bers and guests will cast their votes for favorite poster and a last year a pan­el of indus­tri­al judges will select the 5 best posters from the top 10 posters. Total prizes 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 one over­all win­ner will be invit­ed to present his or her work at the annu­al Catal­y­sis Club sym­po­sium in spring 2013.

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.

2012–2013 Meeting Program

Thurs­day, 20-Sep-2012Water Gas Shift over Indus­tri­al Cu Cat­a­lysts: A Mech­a­nis­tic and Micro­ki­net­ic Inves­ti­ga­tion
Ros­tam J. Madon, BASF Cor­po­ra­tion — 2012 CCP Award Lec­ture
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 18-Oct-2012Poster Ses­sion
Time: 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Poster abstracts »
Thurs­day, 18-Oct-2012Israel E. WachsPer­va­sive­ness of Sur­face Met­al Oxide Phas­es In Mixed Oxide Cat­a­lysts
Israel E. Wachs, Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty, Beth­le­hem, PA
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 15-Nov-2012A DFT study of the acid-cat­alyzed con­ver­sion of 2,5-dimethylfuran and eth­yl­ene to p-xylene
Nima Nikbin, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware — Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Abstract »
Thurs­day, 15-Nov-2012Jason B. BaxterDesign­ing and Prob­ing Pho­to­volta­ic and Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic Mate­ri­als
Jason B. Bax­ter, Drex­el Uni­ver­si­ty
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 17-Jan-2013Stuart SoledSup­port­ed Met­al Cat­a­lysts — Issues and Oppor­tu­ni­ties
Stu­art Soled, Exxon­Mo­bile Research and Engi­neer­ing Co.
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 21-Feb-2013Nom­i­na­tion of new offi­cers
Thurs­day, 21-Feb-2013Anne GaffneyOxida­tive Dehy­dro­gena­tion of Ethane to Eth­yl­ene
Anne Gaffney, AMG Catal­y­sis and Chem­istry Con­sult­ing, LLC
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 21-Mar-2013James B. MillerSul­fur-Resis­tant Pd- Alloy Mem­branes for H2 Purifi­ca­tion
James B. Miller, Carnegie Mel­lon
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 21-Mar-2013Nature of Cat­alytic Active Sur­face Sites on Semi­con­duc­tor Photo­cat­a­lysts for Split­ting of Water
Som­phonh Peter Phivi­lay, Lehigh Uni­ver­sity — Stu­dent Pre­sen­ta­tion
Abstract »
Thurs­day, 18-Apr-2013Elec­tion of new offi­cers
Can­di­dates Biogra­phies & By-law Amend­ment »
Thurs­day, 18-Apr-2013John KitchinIn Situ Spec­tro­scop­ic Stud­ies of Met­al Oxide Elec­trodes Dur­ing Water Oxi­da­tion
John Kitchin, Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty
Abstract » | Announce­ment »
Thurs­day, 9-May-2013Spring Sym­po­sium
Carl Men­ning, Orga­niz­er
Dou­ble­tree Hotel in Wilm­ing­ton, DE
Online Sym­po­sium Reg­is­tra­tion »

Welcome to the 2012–13 Season of the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia

Dear Col­leagues,

Wel­come to the 64th sea­son of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia. Since the club was found­ed in 1949, we con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of hold­ing meet­ings to stim­u­late dis­cus­sions among the aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al catal­y­sis sci­en­tists in the greater Philadel­phia area. We hope that you will join us by attend­ing the broad range of talks that have been arranged for this sea­son.

The speak­er line­up for our month­ly meet­ings has been coor­di­nat­ed by Yaritza Lopez of John­son Matthey. As has been our recent tra­di­tion, the first meet­ing of the sea­son will be the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award Lec­ture. We are pleased to have the 2012 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award win­ner Ros­tam Madon of BASF present his work on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2012. Below is the speak­er sched­ule for the 2012–13 sea­son along with any spe­cial event that will occur through­out the year.

  • 9/20/12 — Ros­tam Madon, BASF — CCP Award Lec­ture
  • 10/18/12 — Israel Wachs, Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
  • 10/18/12 — Poster Ses­sion
  • 11/15/12 — To be announced
  • 1/17/13 — Stu­art Soled, Exxon­Mo­bil
  • 2/21/13 — Anne Gaffney, INVISTA
  • 2/21/13 — Offi­cer Nom­i­na­tions
  • 3/21/13 — Jim Miller, Carnegie Mel­lon
  • 4/18/13 — John Kitchin, Carnegie Mel­lon
  • 4/18/13 — Offi­cer Elec­tions
  • May 13 — CCP Spring Sym­po­sium

Our annu­al stu­dent poster com­pe­ti­tion will take place in Octo­ber and will be coor­di­nat­ed by Vladimiris Niko­lakis of Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. The poster ses­sion pro­vides a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for local grad­u­ate stu­dents to present their work to a broad catal­y­sis audi­ence and for com­pa­nies to look for poten­tial can­di­dates. The nom­i­na­tions of CCP offi­cers for the 2013–14 sea­son will take place in Feb­ru­ary with elec­tions sched­uled for April. Carl Men­ning of DuPont will orga­nize the CCP Spring Sym­po­sium in May. We will also con­tin­ue to have a brief pre­sen­ta­tion by a local grad­u­ate stu­dent pri­or to the main lec­ture at some of the month­ly meet­ings.

The month­ly meet­ings will again be held at the Dou­ble­tree Hotel on US-202 in Wilm­ing­ton, DE. The cost of the din­ner will remain at $35.00 for mem­bers, $20.00 for students/retirees and will include one drink dur­ing the social hour. The fees for walk-ins and non-mem­bers will be $40.00. We strong­ly encour­age advance reser­va­tions for the meet­ings.

Dues for the 2012–13 sea­son will remain at $25.00 ($5.00 for the local club and $20.00 to the nation­al club). Dues for stu­dents, post­docs and retirees will be $10.00 ($5.00 for the local club and $5.00 to the nation­al club). You can pay your dues to your com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive, to our trea­sur­er Hai-Ying Chen of John­son Matthey, or at the month­ly meet­ings. A list of com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives is avail­able in our web­site.

Please vis­it our web­site at catal​y​sis​clubphilly​.org to receive lat­est infor­ma­tion on month­ly meet­ings. If you would like to receive our month­ly announce­ments or need to update your con­tact infor­ma­tion, please con­tact our Mem­ber­ship Direc­tor, Parag Shah of PQ Cor­po­ra­tion at parag.​shah@​pqcorp.​com.

The strength of our club has always revolved around our mem­bers and our month­ly meet­ings. Please con­tin­ue to sup­port CCP by attend­ing the meet­ings and by invit­ing your col­leagues. I am look­ing for­ward to see­ing you all on Sep­tem­ber 20 to start off anoth­er great sea­son.

Please also feel free to con­tact me or the oth­er offi­cers through­out the sea­son with any com­ments or sug­ges­tions for how we can improve the club.

Bjorn Mod­en
Chair
(610)651‑4679
bjorn.​moden@​pqcorp.​com

Rostam Madon is the recipient of the 2012 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is pleased to announce Dr. Ros­tam Madon as the recip­i­ent of the 2012 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award, in recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the fields of Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch and flu­id cat­alyt­ic crack­ing cat­a­lysts.

Ros­tam obtained his PhD in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. While at Stan­ford, Ros­tam helped devel­op the Madon-Boudart cri­te­ri­on for iden­ti­fy­ing mass-trans­fer, heat trans­fer, and poi­son­ing effects on cat­alyt­ic rates. The cri­te­ri­on is used today in aca­d­e­m­ic and indus­tri­al lab­o­ra­to­ries world­wide.

After post-doc­tor­al research at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin, Ros­tam start­ed his indus­tri­al career at Exxon where he dis­cov­ered the impor­tance of sup­port oxide struc­tures in con­trol­ling the over­all reac­tion rates for Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch cat­alyt­ic chem­istry. This find­ing led to the devel­op­ment of a spe­cif­ic oxide sup­port enabling Exxon’s Advanced Gas Con­ver­sion 21th (AGC21) process and cat­a­lysts and was cit­ed by Exxon’s Cor­po­rate Research dur­ing its 30th Anniver­sary as a key devel­op­ment dur­ing that peri­od. His work and col­lab­o­ra­tions on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch cat­a­lysts, also led to impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions on the impact of sul­fur on activ­i­ty pat­terns and mod­el­ing chain growth reac­tion path­ways.

In 1986, Ros­tam tran­si­tioned to Engel­hard (now BASF) and began to focus on flu­id cat­alyt­ic crack­ing (FCC) cat­a­lysts. His study of FCC cat­a­lysts has led to many impor­tant insights. In par­tic­u­lar, Ros­tam led the devel­op­ment of the Redux­ion-Max­ol® suite of cat­a­lysts which were the result of under­stand­ing the inter­play between of the matrix and zeo­lite Y and have been used in over 100 refiner­ies world­wide. Fur­ther­more, he explained the role of ZSM-5 as a co-cat­a­lyst in FCC units and the role of rare earth oxides in increas­ing the rates of hydride trans­fer dur­ing hydro­car­bon crack­ing reac­tions. Ros­tam has authored 43 tech­ni­cal papers and been award­ed 9 US patents. Addi­tion­al­ly in 2009, Ros­tam was award­ed the AIChE Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Prac­tice Award.

Please join us in con­grat­u­lat­ing Ros­tam on receiv­ing the 2012 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia award.

Catalysis Club of Philadelphia 2012 Spring Symposium

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia held its annu­al Spring Sym­po­sium at the Dou­ble­tree Hotel in Wilm­ing­ton, DE on May 17, 2012. It was a suc­cess­ful event with 87 atten­dees from indus­try and acad­e­mia. The speak­ers pre­sent­ing their work at the sym­po­sium were: Matt Neu­rock (Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia), Enrique Igle­sia (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley), Raul Lobo (Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware), David John­son (Lucite Inter­na­tion­al), Tewodros Ase­fa (Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty), Ist­van Halasz (PQ Cor­po­ra­tion), Michael Janik (Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty), Alan All­geier (DuPont) and Yadan Tang (Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty).