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.

Ted Oyama is the winner of the 2009 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award

The win­ner of the 2009 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award is Pro­fes­sor Ted Oya­ma from Vir­ginia Poly­tech­nic Insti­tute. Pro­fes­sor Oya­ma is rec­og­nized for his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions and lead­er­ship in catal­y­sis research. In his ear­ly work, he made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to our under­stand­ing of cat­alyt­ic reac­tions on met­al car­bides, nitrides and oxides. Pro­fes­sor Oya­ma uses state-of-the-art spec­troscopy meth­ods to obtain infor­ma­tion about catal­y­sis in the work­ing sate. He cur­rent­ly works in three areas: the oxida­tive trans­for­ma­tion of hydro­car­bons to high-val­ue prod­ucts, the devel­op­ment of nov­el cat­a­lysts for the upgrad­ing of petro­le­um resources and the devel­op­ment of mem­branes and mem­brane reac­tors for the selec­tive sep­a­ra­tion of gas­es. The award announce­ment was made at the 2009 Spring Sym­po­sium. Pro­fes­sor Oya­ma will be hon­ored dur­ing his award lec­ture, sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber, with a plaque and a $1000 cash award.

Announcement of the 2009-10 Season of the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia

Dear Col­leagues:

Wel­come to the 61st sea­son of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia. Since the club was found­ed in 1949, we con­tin­ue the tra­di­tion of hold­ing reg­u­lar meet­ings to stim­u­late dis­cus­sions among our fel­low catal­y­sis sci­en­tists. Your offi­cers, list­ed on the left, have assem­bled a pro­gram of activ­i­ties for the 2009-10 sea­son that seeks to pro­vide a vari­ety of stim­u­lat­ing and enjoy­able tech­ni­cal pro­grams. We hope that you will join us by reg­is­ter­ing as a mem­ber of the club for the new sea­son and enjoy the pre­sen­ta­tions.

Our tech­ni­cal pro­grams, coor­di­nat­ed by Raul Lobo (Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware), will get off to a strong start with Ted Oya­ma, win­ner of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia 2009 award join­ing us in Sep­tem­ber. Our annu­al stu­dent poster ses­sion will be coor­di­nat­ed by Eliz­a­beth Ross-Medgaar­den (Lyon­dell­Basell Indus­tries) and held in March. Dion Vla­chos (Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware) will orga­nize the Spring Sym­po­sium in May. As intro­duced in the past cou­ple of years, we will con­tin­ue to have a brief pre­sen­ta­tion by a local grad­u­ate stu­dent or post-doc pri­or to the main lec­ture at some of the month­ly meet­ings.

Dues for the 2009-10 sea­son will remain at $10.00 ($5.00 for the local club and $5.00 to the nation­al club). Dues for stu­dents will be $6.00. You can pay your dues to your com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive, to our trea­sur­er (Steve Har­ris), or at the month­ly meet­ings. A list of com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives is avail­able at catal​y​sis​clubphilly​.org/​c​o​m​p​R​e​p​.​php.

The cost of the din­ner will again be $30.00 for mem­bers, $15.00 for students/retirees and will include one drink dur­ing the social hour. Walk-ins and non-mem­bers din­ner fees will be $35.00. We strong­ly encour­age advance reser­va­tions for the meet­ings.

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, Wei Huang (Air Liq­uide) at wei.​huang@​airliquide.​com.

The strength of our club has always revolved around our month­ly meet­ings, a stim­u­lat­ing mix of fel­low­ship with sci­en­tif­ic col­leagues and first rate pre­sen­ta­tions from the finest sci­en­tists in our field; I look for­ward to see­ing you at as many of them as pos­si­ble. Sup­port the club and bring a friend! Final­ly, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact me, or any of the oth­er offi­cers, through­out the year with any com­ments or sug­ges­tions for the club.

Best regards,

Michael A Smith
Chair
610–519-5968
michael.​a.​smith@​villanova.​edu

Jeffrey Miller has won the 2009 CSNY Award for Excellence in Catalysis

Jef­frey Miller has won the 2009 Award for Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis pre­sent­ed by the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York.

Miller is being rec­og­nized for his strong con­tri­bu­tions to the field of catal­y­sis. In par­tic­u­lar, his work on impor­tant petro­chem­i­cal process­es con­tributed to the fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of met­al cat­a­lysts and enabled the upgrad­ing and con­ver­sion of for­mer waste streams to valu­able chem­i­cals. In his more recent work he pro­mot­ed the use of X-ray absorp­tion spec­tro­scopies to under­stand the cor­re­la­tion of prepa­ra­tion to struc­ture and func­tion of het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts. He hold 48 patents and authored more than 100 peer reviewed pub­li­ca­tion in the field of catal­y­sis.

Miller grad­u­at­ed with a Ph.D. in Inor­gan­ic Chem­istry from Ore­gon State Uni­ver­si­ty in 1980. He joined Amo­co Oil Com­pa­ny (now BP Chem­i­cals) in 1980 where he pro­gressed through var­i­ous lead­er­ship posi­tions in the research orga­ni­za­tion. In June 2008, he joined Argonne Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry where cur­rent­ly holds the posi­tion of Group Leader of the Het­ero­ge­neous Catal­y­sis pro­gram.

The Excel­lence in Catal­y­sis Award lec­ture will take place on May 20th where Miller will also receive a plaque and cash award. For more details, vis­it www​.nyc​sweb​.org.

Results from the 2009 Directors-at-Large Elections

The elec­tion for Direc­tors-at-Large for the NACS was con­clud­ed on Feb­ru­ary 27th, 2009. Four mem­bers from North Amer­i­ca are elect­ed every 4 years by the mem­ber­ship resid­ing in North Amer­i­ca to serve as nation­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Board of Direc­tors. The 4 per­sons receiv­ing the most votes for Direc­tors-at-Large will begin serv­ing imme­di­ate­ly. The new Direc­tors-at-Large are:

  • Jing­guang Chen, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware
  • Robert Davis, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia
  • Bruce Gates, Uni­ver­si­ty Of Cal­i­for­nia at Davis
  • Stu­art Soled, Exxon Mobil Research and Engi­neer­ing Co.

2009 Spring Symposium of the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York

The 2009 Spring Sym­po­sium of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety of Met­ro­pol­i­tan New York will be held at the McDon­nell Hall, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty on Wednes­day, March 18, 2009. Invit­ed speak­ers are:

  • Pro­fes­sor Matthew Neu­rock — Keynote Speak­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia
  • Pro­fes­sor Dion Vla­chos, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware — Catal­y­sis for decen­tral­ized hydro­gen pro­duc­tion
  • Dr. Ger­ald Koer­mer, BASF Cat­a­lysts LLC — The Mod­ern Tool Box for Cat­a­lyst Dis­cov­ery

The NYCS is encour­ag­ing stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion by reim­burs­ing reg­is­tra­tion fees. To take advan­tage stu­dents must mail-in the advance reg­is­tra­tion with fee. Stu­dents must be present at the meet­ing to receive the reim­burse­ment and some form of stu­dent ID may also be required.

Down­load () the advance reg­is­tra­tion and mail with pay­ment by Wednes­day, March 11, 2009 to:

Jan Koe­gler
LUMMUS TECHNOLOGY, A CB&I COMPANY
1515 Broad Street Bloom­field, NJ 07003 jkoegler@​cbi.​com

2009 Spring Symposium

The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia 2009 Spring Sym­po­sium will be held on Thurs­day, May 21st at the John M. Clay­ton Hall, Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. Invit­ed speak­ers are:

  • Robert Schlögl, Fritz Haber Insti­tute — Max Planck Soci­ety
  • Allen Bur­ton, Chevron
  • Stu Soled, Exxon-Mobil Research
  • Chris Keily, Lehigh Uni­ver­si­ty
  • Mike Ward, New York Uni­ver­si­ty
  • Suljo Lin­ic, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan

Pro­gram and reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion will be forth­com­ing.