The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is pleased to announce that Dr. Sourav K. Sen­gup­ta, Research Fel­low – DuPont Cen­tral Research and Devel­op­ment, has been select­ed as the 2015 Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award win­ner. The selec­tion rec­og­nizes his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the sci­ence and prac­tice of catal­y­sis, along with his efforts in men­tor­ing young sci­en­tists.

Dr. Sen­gup­ta earned his Ph.D. Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 1991 and has held a vari­ety of research and devel­op­ment assign­ments at DuPont. He was the found­ing leader of the Process Devel­op­ment Cen­ter for DuPont Chem­i­cal Solu­tions Enter­prise and his efforts led to the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of sev­er­al new spe­cial­ty chem­i­cal prod­ucts and opti­miza­tion of sev­er­al exist­ing cat­a­lysts and cat­alyt­ic process­es, which col­lec­tive­ly gen­er­ate tens of mil­lions of dol­lars.

To achieve these accom­plish­ments, Sen­gup­ta applies an in depth under­stand­ing of het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lyst struc­ture / func­tion rela­tion­ships in oxide mate­ri­als, sup­port­ed met­al cat­a­lysts and bulk met­al cat­a­lysts. He was a pri­ma­ry con­trib­u­tor to a nov­el process for on-demand hydro­gen cyanide pro­duc­tion via induc­tion heat­ing of Pt-Rh gauze and opti­mized oxide sup­port­ed base met­al cat­a­lysts for abate­ment of ozone deplet­ing efflu­ent gas­es. Recent­ly, Dr. Sen­gup­ta has direct­ed his exper­tise toward the uti­liza­tion of bio-renew­able resources for the pro­duc­tion of fuels and chem­i­cals.

Beyond tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions, he is rec­og­nized for his efforts at men­tor­ing young sci­en­tists and engi­neers. Count­less careers have ben­e­fit­ed from his tech­ni­cal and orga­ni­za­tion­al insights. He has shared these through for­mal inter­ac­tions, such serv­ing as instruc­tor for a short course on Hydro­gena­tion Catal­y­sis and on the board of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia but more impor­tant­ly through per­son­al inter­ac­tions with junior col­leagues. The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia is proud to rec­og­nize Dr. Sourav Sen­gup­ta for his com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal excel­lence and men­tor­ing with the grant­i­ng of its 2015 award.

Past Recipients of the Award