The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia held its annu­al elec­tions for the 2007–2008 Club offi­cers at the April 19th gen­er­al meet­ing. I am pleased to announce the results of the elec­tions below.

• Chair Elect – Mark Kamin­sky
• Trea­sur­er – Stephen Har­ris
• Direc­tor – Haim­ing Liu
• Direc­tor – Micheal Smith
• Direc­tor – Qi Sun

Unfor­tu­nate­ly in June, Mark Kamin­sky informed the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee that he has accept­ed a job oppor­tu­ni­ty with­in Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal and will be trans­fer­ing to Texas in August 2007 and there­fore can­not ful­fill the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the Chair Elect of the Club. The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, instead of call­ing for a new spe­cial gen­er­al elec­tion, unaminous­ly agreed that the posi­tion of Chair Elect could be filled by the can­di­date who received the sec­ond most votes for Chair Elect in the April elec­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, Hai-Ying Chen has accept­ed the posi­tion and is the new 2007–2008 Chair Elect of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia.

Accord­ing to the bylaws, the fol­low­ing offi­cers auto­mat­i­cal­ly fill the posi­tions as list­ed below.

• Chair – Edrick Morales
• Past Chair – Roger Grey
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety – Anne Gaffney

Edrick Morales, as Chair, appoint­ed Carl Men­ning, Joseph Fedeyko and Bjorn Mod­en to the posi­tions of Arrange­ments Chair, Pro­gram Chair and Sec­re­tary, respec­tive­ly.

The new Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee terms com­mence the first day of June, 2007.

The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee wish­es to thank Xio Chen, Ist­van Halasz, Mahesh Kon­duru, and Hong-Xin Li for their past ser­vice to the Club as they leave their pos­tions on the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee.

Roger Grey
Past Chair

Nom­i­na­tions are open for the AIChE Catal­y­sis and Reac­tion Engi­neer­ing Prac­tice Award. This award rec­og­nizes indi­vid­u­als who have made pio­neer­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the indus­tri­al prac­tice of catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing. The can­di­date must have made impor­tant and spe­cif­ic tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions, ver­i­fi­able by means of well-doc­u­ment­ed evi­den­tial mate­ri­als, to the inven­tion, devel­op­ment, design or imple­men­ta­tion of indus­tri­al prod­ucts, cat­a­lysts or process­es through inge­nious and cre­ative appli­ca­tion of chem­i­cal reac­tion engi­neer­ing and/or catal­y­sis con­cepts. Awardees will be select­ed based on their con­tri­bu­tions to the dis­cov­ery and appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive catal­y­sis or reac­tion engi­neer­ing solu­tions to tech­no­log­i­cal prob­lems, and/or com­mer­cial­iza­tion of new prod­ucts and process­es Can­di­date must be an AIChE mem­ber. Can­di­dates may be from acad­e­mia, nation­al labs, or indus­try.

The dead­line is May 1, 2007. Nom­i­na­tion pack­ages should include a 2-page (max­i­mum) dou­ble spaced nom­i­na­tion state­ment, a 2-page CV, and up to four sup­port­ing let­ters. Sub­mit the nom­i­na­tion elec­tron­i­cal­ly to Phillip E. Sav­age (psavage@​umich.​edu), Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan.

The award con­sist of a plaque and cash award of $1,000. The award is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly at the Divi­sion Recep­tion or Din­ner. The recip­i­ent is also invit­ed to give a spe­cial lec­ture at the AIChE Annu­al meet­ing.

Past Recip­i­ents

• 2006 — Lar­ry Smith
• 2005 — Robert Far­rauto
• 2004 — Stephen B. Jaffe
• 2003 — Israel Wachs
• 2002 — Teh C. Ho
• 2001 — Thomas R. Keane
• 2000 — L. Hege­dus

At the Feb­ru­ary 22, 2007 meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia, the mem­ber­ship vot­ed to approve an amend­ment to the Bylaws which fur­ther defines the annu­al Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award so that the Award may include a cash prize. The addi­tion to the Bylaws is now item 3 in Bylaw IX. If your orga­ni­za­tion is inter­est­ed in becom­ing a spon­sor of the cash prize award, please con­tact the cur­rent chair of the Club, Roger Grey (roger.​grey@​lyondell.​com), for more details.

view By-laws »

These are the short biogra­phies of those nom­i­nat­ed for office of
the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia for the 2007–2208 sea­son. Elec­tions will be held on Thurs­day, April 19, 2007.

Chair-Elect

Mark Kamin­sky — Mark is a Research Sci­en­tist with Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny where he has worked for the past 8 years in the field of het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis. Pri­or to Lyon­dell Mark worked at BP-Amo­co for 14 years, also in het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts. He is a co-inven­tor on 29 US patents in catal­y­sis and has been award­ed sev­er­al tech­ni­cal achieve­ment awards while work­ing in indus­try. Mark received his Ph.D in Inor­gan­ic chem­istry from Penn State in 1985 and has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia for the past 4 years dur­ing which he has served as the pro­gram chair and the spon­sor­ship direc­tor.

Hai-Ying Chen — Hai-Ying is Prod­uct Devel­op­ment Manger at John­son Matthey Inc., Envi­ron­men­tal Cat­a­lysts and Tech­nolo­gies, Wayne, Penn­syl­va­nia. He is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing advanced emis­sion con­trol cat­a­lysts for mobile source and sta­tion­ary source appli­ca­tions. Hai-Ying Chen received his Ph. D. degree in Chem­istry from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai, Chi­na. He has been a mem­ber of the Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club for 6 years, and served the club as Sec­tary, Pro­gram Chair, and Direc­tor.

Treasurer

Steve Har­ris — Steve received his BS in chem­istry from Muh­len­berg Col­lege in 1975 and his Ph.D. in Phys­i­cal Organ­ic Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester in 1979 con­cen­trat­ing on homo­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic mech­a­nisms. His career start­ed at ARCO Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny where his respon­si­bil­i­ties ranged from devel­op­ment of cat­alyt­ic process­es and new oxy­genat­ed prod­ucts to Propy­lene Oxide and Propy­lene Gly­cols Tech­ni­cal Ser­vice and Appli­ca­tions Super­vi­sor. Cur­rent­ly he devel­op­ing new process­es and plant opti­miza­tions for the Per­for­mance Chem­i­cals busi­ness group with­in Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny.

Jing­guan Chen — Jing­guang Chen is cur­rent­ly a pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and the direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Cat­alyt­ic Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (CCST) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware. He serves on sev­er­al nation­al catal­y­sis orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the board of direc­tors for the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the Catal­y­sis Sec­re­tar­i­al-Gen­er­al of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, and the team leader for the Syn­chro­tron Catal­y­sis Con­sor­tium at Brookhaven Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry. He is a long time mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia and served as chair of the Club in 2004.

Director

Frank Herkes — EDUCATION: DePaul Uni­ver­si­ty, Chica­go, BS 1962; Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, PhD. Phys­i­cal Organ­ic Chem­istry, 1966; Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty, Cam­bridge, MA NSF Post­doc­tor­al with Prof. Paul Bartlett,
1966–1968.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Has 30 years of catal­y­sis and process devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence in the man­u­fac­ture, TSCA reg­is­tra­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of amines, alco­hols and esters while employed in DuPont Spe­cial­ty prod­ucts. Het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lyst back­ground includes cat­a­lyst syn­the­sis on car­bon and met­al oxide sup­ports, dehy­dro­gena­tions, sil­i­ca zeo­lites, alco­hol ami­na­tion and reduc­tive ami­na­tion and alky­la­tion, azo reduc­tions, ring, car­bonyl, olefinic and ester reduc­tions. Has exten­sive expe­ri­ence with pre­cious met­als on car­bon and met­al oxides, and Raney® cat­a­lysts in nitrile hydro­gena­tion for com­mer­cial­iza­tion of many aliphat­ic diamines. He is the author of 32 US patents and 19 pub­li­ca­tions, and has edit­ed 1 book.

Mike Smith — Michael received his Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 2004, and since has held posi­tions as research sci­en­tist where he con­duct­ed research on syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of acti­vat­ed car­bons. Mike is cur­rent­ly a Vis­it­ing Pro­fes­sor in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. His research inter­ests focus on devel­op­ment of nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als for catal­y­sis, adsorp­tion, and sep­a­ra­tion; mate­ri­als char­ac­ter­i­za­tion (elec­tron microscopy, dif­frac­tion, adsorp­tion); het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and chem­i­cal kinet­ics. Pri­or to obtain­ing his PhD, Mike held a vari­ety of posi­tions in the DuPont’s tita­ni­um diox­ide pig­ment busi­ness, and he is a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Insti­tute for Chem­i­cal Engi­neers and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia since 1999, and served as Direc­tor since 2005.

Qi Sun — Qi Sun is a sci­en­tist researcher at Lyon­dell Chem­i­cal Com­pa­ny, New­town Square, Penn­syl­va­nia, work­ing on research and devel­op­ment of process and cat­a­lyst. Pri­or to Lyon­dell, Qi Sun worked for Sud-Chemie Inc. for four years and was in charge of the research group of olefins cat­a­lyst devel­op­ment. Qi Sun received his Ph.D. degree on Sur­face Chem­istry and Catal­y­sis from Fudan Uni­ver­si­ty, Shang­hai and worked as a post-doc­tor­al researcher at Cal­tech and North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty before his indus­tri­al career. His research in het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis includes sol­id acid, met­al oxide, sup­port­ed met­al and mem­brane catalysis/separation in the appli­ca­tion of iso­mer­iza­tion, desul­fu­r­iza­tion, metathe­sis, emis­sion control(DeNOx), F-T syn­the­sis, methanol syn­the­sis, syn­gas, reform­ing, par­tial oxi­da­tion, selec­tive hydro­gena­tion et al. He is a mem­ber of Philadel­phia catal­y­sis Club.

Bill Pryz — William is a third year grad­u­ate stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware work­ing for Prof. Dou­glas J. But­trey and Prof. Raul F. Lobo. He his cur­rent research is the char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of monometal­lic and bimetal­lic cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als using elec­tron microscopy. Spe­cif­ic sys­tems stud­ied include Pt and Au par­ti­cles encap­su­lat­ed in den­drimers (DENs), alka­li-pro­mot­ed Ru cat­a­lysts for hydro­gen pro­duc­tion, and Pt-Re bimetal­lic cat­a­lysts sup­port­ed on car­bon. He is a grad­u­ate of Lafayette Col­lege in 2004 with a BS in chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing. Bill has been a mem­ber of the AICHE since 2002, and a mem­ber of the Philadel­phia Cat­a­lyst Club start­ing in 2005.

Haim­ing Liu — Ham­ming Liu is cur­rent­ly a Research Sci­en­tist at Arke­ma Inc. For the past five years he works on char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of organ­ic and inor­gan­ic mate­ri­als includ­ing poly­mers, small mol­e­cules, and
cat­a­lysts, using pri­mar­i­ly Nuclear Mag­net­ic Res­o­nance Spec­troscopy and expand­ing new instru­men­ta­tion capa­bil­i­ty. He received his Ph. D. in chem­istry from State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Stony Brook, and worked as a post-doc at Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia on syn­the­sis, catal­y­sis, and gas sorption/separation appli­ca­tions of mol­e­c­u­lar sieves includ­ing zeo­lites and porous met­al-organ­ic frame­works. He has been a mem­ber of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia for sev­en years, served as Arrange­ments Chair, and is the cur­rent Mem­ber­ship Direc­tor as well as com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tive. He is also a mem­ber of North East Cor­ri­dor Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion, served as Poster Chair, and will co-chair NECZA 2007 meet­ing.

Each year the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia rec­og­nizes a per­son, prefer­ably from the Philadel­phia area, who has made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the advance­ment of catal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal or in orga­ni­za­tion lead­er­ship. No split Award to two or more per­sons will be giv­en.

The entire nom­i­na­tion pack­age, includ­ing a resume and rec­om­men­da­tion let­ters, should not exceed 10 pages. The dead­line for the receipt of nom­i­na­tions is April 6, 2007. Pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted in 2004 or lat­er will auto­mat­i­cal­ly be con­sid­ered again.

Nom­i­na­tion let­ters along with sup­port­ing mate­ri­als should be sent to:

Dr. Ist­van Halasz
Prin­ci­pal Chemist
Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter
PQ Cor­po­ra­tion
Con­shohock­en, PA 19428
Phone: (610) 651‑4696
Email: istvan.​halasz@​pqcorp.​com