2013 Spring Symposium

 
Michael A. Smith
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty
Vil­lano­va, PA 19085
michael.​a.​smith@​villanova.​edu
 
Abstract — SBA-15 is a tem­plate-syn­the­sized meso­porous sil­i­cate that has found exten­sive use as a mod­el sup­port for stud­ies of sup­port­ed catalysis.[1, 2] Thor­ough struc­tur­al analy­ses clear­ly describe the dual micro­p­ore-meso­pore struc­ture with a broad dis­tri­b­u­tion of micro­p­ore sizes.[3] Sil­i­cas such as SBA-15 have long been con­sid­ered a rel­a­tive­ly inert sup­port, quite in con­trast to oth­er oxides such as tita­nia or ceria. We find the effect of sur­face rough­ness of SBA-15 has an under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed effect on cat­a­lyst per­for­mance. Specif­i­cal­ly, sam­ples of VO_x-SBA-15 where the sup­port sur­face rough­ness was sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly var­ied were chara­ter­ized using UV-Vis and Raman spec­troscopy, then test­ed in the cat­alyt­ic par­tial oxi­da­tion of methanol to formalde­hyde, and propane to propene. Results show that sup­ports with smoother sur­faces per­mit the devel­op­ment of more poly­mer­ic vana­dia species at the same sur­face den­si­ty load­ing. Such smoother-sur­face cat­a­lysts result in a low­er selec­tiv­i­ty of methanol to for­made­hyde, yet con­verse­ly show a high­er selec­tiv­i­ty of propane to propene. This result is sig­nif­i­cant with respect to our under­stand­ing the role of vana­di­um in in par­tial oxi­da­tion cat­a­lysts, and illus­trates the impor­tance of con­sid­er­ing dif­fer­ences in sup­port sur­face mor­phol­o­gy in ana­lyz­ing cat­alyt­ic behav­ior.
 
Ref­er­ences
[1] V. Dufaud, M. E. Davis, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125 (2003) 9403–9413.
[2] R. K. Zei­dan, S. J. Hwang, M. E. Davis, Angew. Chem.-Int. Edit. 45 (2006) 6332–6335.
[3] M. Kruk, M. Jaroniec, R. Ryoo, J. M. Kim, Chem. Mat. 11 (1999) 2568–2572.
 

Biog­ra­phy — Pro­fes­sor Michael A. Smith is cur­rent­ly an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty. He received his BS in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Lafayette Col­lege in 1980, then worked in a vari­ety of assign­ments with the DuPont Com­pa­ny for 17 years. Dr. Smith returned to school to obtain a Mas­ters at Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty, and obtained his PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware in 2004 work­ing with Prof Raul Lobo. Since he has work as a research sci­en­tist for an SBIR start­up, and has been at Vil­lano­va since 2006, first as a Vis­it­ing Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, then in a tenure track posi­tion since 2008. Dr Smith’s research inter­ests include the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nanos­truc­tured mate­ri­als made using col­loidal self-assem­bly and sol-gel tech­niques, and het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis with an empha­sis on catal­y­sis by met­al oxides.

2013 Spring Symposium

 
Jef­frey Gree­ley
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty
West Lafayette, IN 47907
jgreeley@​purdue.​edu
 
Abstract — Het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and elec­tro­catal­y­sis have, in recent years, con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the devel­op­ment of renew­able and ener­gy-effi­cient tech­nolo­gies, rang­ing from the pro­duc­tion of biore­new­able fuels to the effi­cient gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric­i­ty in fuel cells. Com­pu­ta­tion­al tech­niques, based pri­mar­i­ly on Den­si­ty Func­tion­al The­o­ry (DFT) cal­cu­la­tions, have, at the same time, played an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role in sci­en­tif­ic and engi­neer­ing stud­ies of these cat­alyt­ic process­es. These tech­niques have per­mit­ted the elu­ci­da­tion of fun­da­men­tal cat­alyt­ic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and, in some cas­es, have con­tributed to the com­pu­ta­tion­al design of new cat­a­lysts.

In this talk, I will describe some recent devel­op­ments in the use of DFT-based analy­ses to describe trends in the sci­ence and engi­neer­ing of inter­fa­cial catal­y­sis. Draw­ing on exam­ples in both het­ero­ge­neous catal­y­sis and elec­tro­catal­y­sis, I will out­line some sim­ple strate­gies for com­pu­ta­tion­al analy­sis of com­plex cat­alyt­ic reac­tion net­works and will show how, by tak­ing advan­tage of fun­da­men­tal cor­re­la­tions between the ther­mo­dy­nam­ics and kinet­ics of the rel­e­vant react­ing species, it is often pos­si­ble to describe reac­tiv­i­ty trends in terms of sim­ple vol­cano plots. I will demon­strate the appli­ca­tion of these trends-based analy­ses to tra­di­tion­al con­cepts of cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty and will fur­ther illus­trate how impor­tant ques­tions of cat­a­lyst selec­tiv­i­ty and elec­tro­chem­i­cal cor­ro­sion may fur­ther be addressed. Next, I will describe how it is now becom­ing pos­si­ble, using nov­el exten­sions of bond order con­ser­va­tion the­o­ries, to under­stand and describe trends in com­plex bio­cat­alyt­ic reac­tion net­works that have pre­vi­ous­ly been beyond the reach of elec­tron­ic struc­ture cal­cu­la­tions. I will close with a dis­cus­sion of a nov­el het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic and elec­tro­cat­alyt­ic mate­ri­als, includ­ing bifunc­tion­al mate­ri­als, to which these tech­niques may be applied in the future.
 

Biog­ra­phy — Dr. Jef­frey Gree­ley obtained his PhD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son in 2004. He then postdoc’d with Jens Nørskov at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­mark and devel­oped meth­ods to rapid­ly screen tran­si­tion met­al alloys for promis­ing cat­alyt­ic prop­er­ties. From 2007 to 2013, he was a staff sci­en­tist at Argonne’s Cen­ter for Nanoscale Mate­ri­als where he devel­oped a research pro­gram in com­pu­ta­tion­al nanocatal­y­sis and elec­tro­chem­istry. In 2013, he joined the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty as an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor.

2013 Spring Symposium

 
Charles H.F. Peden1, Charles A. Mims2, Yong Yang1,3, Dong­hai Mei1, Charles T. Camp­bell3
1 Insti­tute for Inte­grat­ed Catal­y­sis, Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry,
P.O. Box 999, Rich­land, WA 99354 USA
2 Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Applied Chem­istry
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Toron­to ON M5S3E5 Cana­da
3 Depart­ment of Chem­istry Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle WA 98195 USA
 
Abstract — The mech­a­nism of methanol syn­the­sis on cop­per-based cat­a­lysts has been exten­sive­ly stud­ied and remains a tar­get of research because of the sig­nif­i­cance of this reac­tion in the chem­i­cal indus­try and methanol’s poten­tial as a liq­uid energy/hydrogen car­ri­er. A recent DFT and micro­ki­net­ic mod­el­ing study by Grabow and Mavrikakis [1] con­tains a thor­ough review of the cur­rent state of our under­stand­ing of this reac­tion. These recent mod­els allow for con­ver­sion of both CO (by direct hydro­gena­tion) and CO₂ (via for­mate inter­me­di­ates) to methanol. Although trac­er exper­i­ments have shown that CO₂ is the pre­ferred reac­tant over CO in H₂:CO:CO₂ mix­tures under com­mer­cial con­di­tions, the rel­a­tive impor­tance of these chan­nels under var­i­ous con­di­tions is still uncer­tain [1]. Fur­ther­more, the role of water in the reac­tion mech­a­nism has received lit­tle atten­tion, despite long estab­lished effects of water and CO₂ in the con­ver­sions of syn­gas [2]. Our recent DFT study has point­ed out that water can have sig­nif­i­cant effects in methanol syn­the­sis and that a sep­a­rate methanol for­ma­tion mech­a­nism via a car­boxyl inter­me­di­ate is ener­get­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble [3]. In this pre­sen­ta­tion, we describe par­tic­u­lar­ly strong effects of water on the con­ver­sion of both CO and CO₂ at tem­per­a­tures below those of com­mer­cial prac­tice, and sup­port for an inter­me­di­ate com­mon to both CO and CO₂ [4].
 
Ref­er­ences
1. Grabow, LC; Mavrikakis, M ACS Catal. 1 (2011) 365.
2. Para­meswaran, VR; Lee, S; Wen­der; I Fuel Sci­ence Techn. Intl. 7 (1989) 899.
3. Zhao, Y-F; Yang, Y; Mims, CA.; Peden, CHF; Li, J; Mei, D J. Catal. 281 (2011) 199.
4. Yang, Y; Mims, CA.; Mei, DH; Peden, CHF; Camp­bell, CT J. Catal. 298 (2012) 10
 

Biog­ra­phy — Chuck Peden is Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Inte­grat­ed Catal­y­sis at Pacif­ic North­west Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry (PNNL). He is also a Lab­o­ra­to­ry Fel­low, and man­ages and par­tic­i­pates in mul­ti­ple tech­ni­cal projects with­in the Phys­i­cal Sci­ences Divi­sion at PNNL. He joined PNNL in 1992 fol­low­ing a nine-year tenure at San­dia Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ries in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co, as a Senior Mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal Staff in the Inor­gan­ic Mate­ri­als Chem­istry Depart­ment. Peden’s main research inter­ests are in the sur­face and inter­fa­cial chem­istry of inor­gan­ic solids; in par­tic­u­lar, the het­ero­ge­neous cat­alyt­ic chem­istry of met­als and oxides with an empha­sis on reac­tion mech­a­nisms and mate­ri­als structure/function rela­tion­ships. He is best known as a leader in the devel­op­ment of the mech­a­nisms of auto­mo­bile exhaust cat­alyt­ic reac­tions. After grad­u­at­ing with dis­tinc­tion from Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Chico with a B.S. in chem­istry, Peden com­plet­ed his Ph.D. in phys­i­cal chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Bar­bara under the direc­tion of Ralph G. Pear­son. He then spent two years as a post­doc­tor­al asso­ciate with D. Wayne Good­man at San­dia Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ries in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co before join­ing the sci­en­tif­ic staff there. Peden has writ­ten or con­tributed to more than 235 peer-reviewed pub­li­ca­tions (H-fac­tor > 40) and 3 issued U.S. patents on top­ics such as auto­mo­bile exhaust catal­y­sis, hydro­car­bon reform­ing on bimetal­lic cat­a­lysts, the struc­ture of hydropro­cess­ing cat­a­lysts, the syn­the­sis and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of nov­el sup­port­ed sol­id acid cat­a­lysts, and the struc­ture and chem­istry of oxide sur­faces. He is a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Chem­i­cal Engi­neers, the Soci­ety of Auto­mo­tive Engi­neers, and the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. Peden was elect­ed a Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Vac­u­um Soci­ety in 2000, and the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence in 2009 and the Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety in 2012. He cur­rent­ly serves as Past-Chair of the ACS Catal­y­sis Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (CATL) Divi­sion.

Mike Harold
Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing
Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton
 
Abstract — Cat­alyt­ic tech­nolo­gies are crit­i­cal to reduc­ing NOx and par­tic­u­late soot from diesel exhaust. In this talk an overview will be pro­vid­ed of efforts span­ning exper­i­men­tal stud­ies of NOx stor­age and reduc­tion and selec­tive cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion, mod­el­ing of mono­lith reac­tors, and dynamome­ter test­ing of fuels and aftertreat­ment tech­nolo­gies.

The effec­tive­ness and spa­tio-tem­po­ral fea­tures of the “lean NOx trap” (LNT) will be described based on our com­bined exper­i­men­tal and mod­el­ing stud­ies. Our recent work focused on the gen­er­a­tion and reac­tiv­i­ty of NH3 has sig­nif­i­cance in NSR/SCR appli­ca­tions. Exper­i­ments in both bench-scale and Tem­po­ral Analy­sis of Prod­ucts (TAP) reac­tors reveal a com­plex cou­pling between the stor­age chem­istry and trans­port process­es. Mea­sure­ments of the con­cen­tra­tion fronts show that a major route to N2 for­ma­tion is via NH3. Sys­tem­at­ic vari­a­tion of the Pt dis­per­sion results in a sig­nif­i­cant vari­a­tion in stor­age and reduc­tion activ­i­ty as well as the prod­uct dis­tri­b­u­tion. Iso­topic TAP exper­i­ments reveal the exis­tence of gra­di­ents in the stored NOx in the vicin­i­ty of the Pt crys­tal­lites. The trans­port of the stored NOx can lim­it the regen­er­a­tion rate under some con­di­tions. Glob­al kinet­ic and micro­ki­net­ic mod­els are devel­oped that pre­dict most of the obser­va­tions and direct ongo­ing design and opti­miza­tion efforts.

Stud­ies of selec­tive cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion of NOx with NH3 on Fe- and Cu-based zeo­lite coat­ed mono­liths will be also be high­light­ed described. Steady-state kinet­ics exper­i­ments reveal sev­er­al com­pet­ing reac­tions. The NOx con­ver­sion is shown to be a non­lin­ear func­tion of the NO: NO2 feed ratio and is under­mined by the com­pet­ing reac­tions of NH3 and NO oxi­da­tion. Trans­port lim­i­ta­tions become prob­lem­at­ic when NO2 is present.
 
Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Mike Harold is the M.D. Ander­son Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal & Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton. He received his B.S. in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Penn State in 1980 and his PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hous­ton in 1985. Mike joined the fac­ul­ty of the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mass­a­chu­setts at Amherst, where he became Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in 1991. In 1993 Mike joined DuPont Com­pa­ny where he held sev­er­al research and super­vi­so­ry posi­tions. In 1999 Mike was appoint­ed Research Man­ag­er of the Chem­i­cal Process Fun­da­men­tals Group in the Cen­tral Research Depart­ment of the DuPont Com­pa­ny. Mike returned to acad­e­mia as the Dow Chair of the UH Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing, which lat­er became the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal and Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing. He served this post until fall 2008.

Robert McIn­trye
Mil­len­ni­um Inor­gan­ic Chem­i­cals a Cristal Com­pa­ny
 
Abstract — Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic prod­ucts have been around for many years with use in numer­ous appli­ca­tions. Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic TiO₂ is being used today in air purifi­ca­tion devices and as sur­face treat­ment and addi­tive in ceram­ics, cement, trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture and glass. These prod­ucts are being uti­lized or eval­u­at­ed for their de pol­lu­tion, self clean­ing, anti fun­gal, and envi­ron­men­tal improve­ment attrib­ut­es. Pho­to­cat­alyt­ic coat­ings are one of the tools we have which can be used to com­bat the air qual­i­ty issues. Many tri­als have been car­ried out using pho­to­cat­alyt­ic prod­ucts. For the first time, tri­als have shown, quan­ti­ta­tive­ly, the de pol­lu­tion effect using chemil­lu­mi­nes­cence mon­i­tors over extend­ed peri­ods. This allows unam­bigu­ous sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis which proves the tech­nol­o­gy is a cost effec­tive prac­ti­cal solu­tion to inner city pol­lu­tion prob­lems. In this pre­sen­ta­tion we eval­u­ate the effi­cien­cy of two types of pho­to­cat­alyt­ic prod­ucts with respect to the removal of haz­ardous NOx pol­lu­tion: pho­to­cat­alyt­ic paints and trans­par­ent clear coat­ings for con­crete sur­faces. The set­ting of impor­tant field test tri­als and the cor­re­spond­ing results are ana­lyzed and pre­sent­ed in details in this lec­ture.
 
Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Robert McIn­trye is cur­rent­ly the Glob­al Research Direc­tor for Mil­len­ni­um Inor­gan­ic Chem­i­cals a Cristal Com­pa­ny. Pri­or to join­ing Mil­le­ni­um, Robert was a research man­ag­er for ICI (’92 – ’97) and Sur­face Chem­istry Cour­taulds (’87 – ’92).

John L. Cas­ci
John­son Matthey
 
Abstract — Feed­stocks for Chem­i­cals and Fuels are chang­ing, with an increas­ing empha­sis on coal and bio-mass along­side the move to heav­ier, and dirt­i­er, sources of oil. One tech­nol­o­gy plat­form that cuts across these diverse feed­stocks is based on Syn­the­sis Gas (Syn­Gas). Each feed­stock, how­ev­er, pos­es spe­cif­ic chal­lenges: chal­lenges that occur across the flow-sheet par­tic­u­lar­ly in purifi­ca­tion and Syn­Gas gen­er­a­tion. The glob­al oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment requires new tech­nolo­gies to be robust and cap­i­tal inten­sive while increas­ing the aware­ness of, and empha­sis on, sus­tain­abil­i­ty requir­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to min­i­mize emis­sions of green­house gas­es.

The pro­duc­tion of liq­uid hydro­car­bons from Syn­Gas is com­mon­ly referred to by the names of the inven­tors, Fis­ch­er and Trop­sch, and hence as Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch (FT) catal­y­sis. FT tech­nol­o­gy dates back to the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry but is being “re-invent­ed” for 21st cen­tu­ry needs and mar­kets.

This pre­sen­ta­tion will pro­vide a brief overview of key tech­nolo­gies across the Syn­Gas flow­sheet: cat­a­lysts and process and the require­ment to inte­grate. Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch catal­y­sis will be high­light­ed and a his­toric per­spec­tive pre­sent­ed. Final­ly, using exam­ples from our own lab­o­ra­to­ries, the key role of advanced char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, and diag­nos­tic tools, in the elu­ci­da­tion of cat­a­lyst struc­ture across the length scales will be high­light­ed.
 
Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — John Cas­ci is cur­rent­ly the Tech­nol­o­gy Man­ag­er at the John­son Matthey Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre at Chilton man­ag­ing Cat­a­lyst Research, Man­u­fac­tur­ing Sci­ence, Cat­a­lyst Engi­neer­ing and Zeo­lite teams. From 2002–2006, John was the Catal­y­sis R&D Direc­tor at Chilton focused on Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch cat­a­lysts. Pri­or to 2002, John had mul­ti­ple roles in ICI focus­ing on cat­a­lyst and zeo­lite research, devel­op­ment and scale up.

Lynne B. McCusker and Chris­t­ian Baer­locher
Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Crys­tal­log­ra­phy
ETH Zurich
 
Abstract — Struc­tur­al infor­ma­tion is essen­tial to the under­stand­ing of zeo­lite chem­istry. Whether it is the syn­the­sis process, the adsorp­tion prop­er­ties, the ion-exchange selec­tiv­i­ty, or the cat­alyt­ic activ­i­ty that is of inter­est, the key lies in the struc­ture. How­ev­er, zeolitic mate­ri­als tend to be poly­crys­talline, so stan­dard sin­gle-crys­tal meth­ods of struc­ture analy­sis can­not be applied. For­tu­nate­ly, pow­der dif­frac­tion meth­ods have devel­oped enor­mous­ly in the last 20 years, and as a result, struc­ture analy­sis using pow­der dif­frac­tion data has become almost rou­tine. Nev­er­the­less, zeo­lite struc­tures often pose a chal­lenge to these meth­ods.

For struc­ture solu­tion, i.e. when the zeo­lite frame­work struc­ture is not known, the prob­lems to be over­come are twofold: (1) the basic phase prob­lem, which is cen­tral to all crys­tal­lo­graph­ic struc­ture analy­ses (includ­ing sin­gle crys­tals), and (2) the reflec­tion over­lap prob­lem, which is spe­cif­ic to pow­der dif­frac­tion data. Over the years, our group has devel­oped sev­er­al dif­fer­ent approach­es to these prob­lems, and a few of these (the use of chem­i­cal infor­ma­tion to sup­ple­ment the pow­der dif­frac­tion data, the adap­ta­tion of the charge-flip­ping algo­rithm to accom­mo­date pow­der dif­frac­tion data, and the use of elec­tron microscopy data to com­ple­ment the pow­der dif­frac­tion data) will be described.

Once the basic frame­work struc­ture is known, inves­ti­ga­tion of the details of the struc­ture can begin. Where is the struc­ture direct­ing agent? Where are the iso­mor­phous­ly sub­sti­tut­ed atoms in the frame­work? What hap­pens upon cal­ci­na­tion? Where are the ions before and after ion exchange? Where are the sorbed mol­e­cules? Under favor­able cir­cum­stances, these ques­tions can be addressed by gen­er­at­ing dif­fer­ence elec­tron den­si­ty maps using the mea­sured pow­der dif­frac­tion pat­tern and the frame­work struc­ture mod­el. How­ev­er, not all prob­lems are amenable to this tech­nique and even when they are, the inter­pre­ta­tion of the maps still requires con­sid­er­able patience and per­se­ver­ance. The pos­si­bil­i­ties and lim­i­ta­tions will be dis­cussed.
 
Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Lynne McCusker has been study­ing zeo­lite crys­tal struc­tures since she start­ed her doc­tor­al research with Karl Seff at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii in 1976. After spend­ing three years as a post­doc in the group of Wal­ter Meier at the ETH in Zurich, Switzer­land learn­ing pow­der dif­frac­tion tech­niques from Chris­t­ian Baer­locher, she moved on to Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty to put these new­ly acquired skills into prac­tice. In 1985, she moved back across the Atlantic for anoth­er post­doc, this time at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty in Mike Glazer’s group. There she learned the val­ue of syn­chro­tron radi­a­tion and solved her first nov­el zeo­lite frame­work struc­ture (Sig­ma 2). For this work, she received the Bar­rer Award from the British Zeo­lite Asso­ci­a­tion in 1987 and the Phys­i­cal Crys­tal­log­ra­phy Award from the British Crys­tal­lo­graph­ic Asso­ci­a­tion in 1989. In 1988, she returned to the ETH and for the last 20 years has head­ed a group, togeth­er with Chris­t­ian Baer­locher, devot­ed to the devel­op­ment of method­ol­o­gy for solv­ing zeo­lite frame­work struc­tures from pow­der dif­frac­tion data. In 2007, they received the Breck Award of the IZA (togeth­er with Osamu Terasa­ki) for their zeo­lite struc­tur­al work. In 2010, she received the IZA award for the research she has done with Chris­t­ian and for her ser­vice to the IZA com­mu­ni­ty.