Catalysis Science & Technology Blog

The 13th biannual European Congress on Catalysis (EUROPACAT 2017) took place in Florence between the 27-31 August 2017. The Royal Society of Chemistry journals Catalysis Science & Technology, Green Chemistry, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and Sustainable Energy & Fuels supported the conference, each offering a poster prize for the best poster submissions. The winners of the these prizes were:

• Catalysis Science & Technology

Werner Oberhauser: [P2.140] “Highly chemoselective dihydroxyacetone conversion to ethyl lactate by a montmorillonite-supported Pt(II)-diphosphane complex”

• Green Chemistry

Hae Gu Park: [P1.056] “Ni based Catalysts for Carbon Dioxide Reforming of Methane: Effect of Calcination Temperature on Coke Formation and Mechanical Strength”

• Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Noelia Barrabes: [P3.278] “Stability and reactivity studies on Au38(SR)24 clusters supported on oxides: pretreatment effect and catalytic activity in oxidation reactions”

• Sustainable Energy & Fuels

Gino Heremans: [P1.195] “Earth abundant catalysts and anion exchange membrane for vapor based water splitting”

Our congratulations to all of the winners!

The 6th FineCat Symposium will take place in Palermo, Italy, 5th April 2017.

Established in 2012, following publication of the Catalysis Science & Technology themed issue “Heterogeneous catalysis for fine chemicals“, the FineCat Symposium is jointly organised by the Institute of Nanostructured Materials of Italy’s Research Council (CNR) and by Palermo’s University DEIM Department.

Invited Speakers:

A. Stephen K. Hashmi, New Aspects of Gold Catalysis
Institute for Organic Chemistry, University of Heidelberg, Germany

Gideon Grader, Mesoporous Ceramic Nanofibers for Heterogeneous Catalysis
Chemical Engineering Department, Technion, Israel

Raed Abu-Reziq, Nanostructured Materials, Nano-and Microreactors as Platforms for Heterogeneous Catalysis
The Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Catalysis Science & Technology will be providing prizes for the poster competition. The winners will be receiving a free one-year subscription to Catalysis Science & Technology. There is still time to register, so don’t miss your chance to attend!

We are delighted to welcome Professor Will Medlin as our newest Associate Editor for Catalysis Science & Technology.

Will Medlin received his Bachelors in chemical engineering from Clemson University in 1996 and his PhD from the University of Delaware in 2001. After conducting postdoctoral research at Sandia National Laboratories, he joined the chemical and biological engineering department at the University of Colorado, where he is currently the Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor.

His research interests are in the area of heterogeneous catalysis and surface science, with particular emphases on investigations of catalytic chemistry on well-defined surfaces, and on controlling the near-surface environment of heterogeneous catalysts with organic monolayers and thin films.

Welcome to the team Will!

In celebration of Peer Review Week, with the theme of Recognition for Review – we would like to highlight the top 10 reviewers for Catalysis Science & Technology in 2016. They have been selected by the editor for their significant contribution to the journal.

Top 10 reviewers for Catalysis Science & Technology
Dr Pieter Bruijnincx, Utrecht University
Dr Yohsinao Nakagawa, Tohoku University
Professor Ulf Hanefeld, Technische Universiteit Delft
Dr Wei-Lin Dai, Fudan University
Professor Alexander Stepanov, Boreskov Institute of Catalysis
Dr Yasuhiro Shiraishi, Osaka University
Dr Simon Beaumont, Durham University
Dr Ning Yan, National University of Singapore
Dr Bert Weckhuysen, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis Group
Dr Jiaquo Yu, Wuhan University of Technology

We would like to say a massive thank you to these reviewers as well as the Catalysis Science & Technology board and all of the community for their continued support of the journal, as authors, reviewers and readers.

We welcome Professor Jinhua Ye as a new Associate Editor for Catalysis Science & Technology.

Jinhua Ye received her PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1990, and joined National Research Institute for Metals (former NIMS) in 1991. She is now a Principle Investigator and the Field Coordinator of Nano-Power Field at International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS), and a Professor of Joint Doctoral Program in Graduate School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Hokkaido University, Japan. She is also the appointed director of TU-NIMS Joint Research Center, and Professor of Materials Science at Tianjin University, China.

Her research interests focus on the research and development of novel photocatalytic materials and their applications in the fields of environment remediation and solar to chemical energy conversion.

Of her appointment Professor Jinhua Ye says “I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve the community”.

The following HOT articles have been highlighted by the reviewers of the articles as being particularly interesting or significant pieces of research. These are all free to access until 30/11/15. The order they appear in the list has no meaning or ranking.

A water-dependent kinetics guide for complex lipase-mediated synthesis of biolubricants in a water activity control reactor
Yifeng Tao, Guohua Chen, Ioannis V. Pavlidis, Yang Jiang, Longfei Qie, Caixia Cui, Luo Liu, Biqiang Chen and Tianwei Tan
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00995B, Paper

Enhanced activity of H2O2-treated copper(II) oxide nanostructures for the electrochemical evolution of oxygen
Albertus D. Handoko, Suzi Deng, Yilin Deng, Andy Wing Fai Cheng, Kuang Wen Chan, Hui Ru Tan, Yanlin Pan, Eng Soon Tok, Chorng Haur Sow and Boon Siang Yeo
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00861A, Paper

A modular family of phosphine-phosphoramidite ligands and their hydroformylation catalysts: steric tuning impacts upon the coordination geometry of trigonal bipyramidal complexes of type [Rh(H)(CO)2(P^P*)]
Rebecca C. How, Robert Hembre, James A. Ponasik, Ginette S. Tolleson and Matthew L. Clarke
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00886G, Paper

Uranium-mediated ring-opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone: a comparative study
Isabell S. R. Karmel, Maxim Khononov, Matthias Tamm and Moris S. Eisen
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01162K, Paper

Graphene decorated with Fe nanoclusters for improving the hydrogen sorption kinetics of MgH2 – experimental and theoretical evidence
M. Sterlin Leo Hudson, Keisuke Takahashi, A. Ramesh, Seema Awasthi, Ashish Kumar Ghosh, Ponniah Ravindran and Onkar Nath Srivastava
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01016K, Paper

Ru/TiO2-catalysed hydrogenation of xylose: the role of the crystal structure of the support
Carlos Hernandez-Mejia, Edwin S. Gnanakumar, Alma Olivos-Suarez, Jorge Gascon, Heather F. Greer, Wuzong Zhou, Gadi Rothenberg and N. Raveendran Shiju
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01005E, Paper

Aqueous-phase reforming of crude glycerol: effect of impurities on hydrogen production
Dilek A. Boga, Fang Liu, Pieter C. A. Bruijnincx and Bert M. Weckhuysen
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4CY01711K, Paper

Highly crystalline vanadium phosphate catalysts synthesized using poly(acrylic acid-co-maleic acid) as a structure directing agent
Mosaed Alhumaimess, Zhongjie Lin, Nicholas F. Dummer, Stuart H. Taylor, Graham J. Hutchings and Jonathan K. Bartley
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01260K, Paper

Development of a post-synthetic method for tuning the Al content of OSDA-free Beta as a catalyst for conversion of methanol to olefins
Ryoichi Otomo, Ulrich Müller, Mathias Feyen, Bilge Yilmaz, Xiangju Meng, Feng-Shou Xiao, Hermann Gies, Xinhe Bao, Weiping Zhang, Dirk De Vos and Toshiyuki Yokoi
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00944H, Paper

In situ spectroscopic investigations of MoOx/Fe2O3 catalysts for the selective oxidation of methanol
Catherine Brookes, Michael Bowker, Emma K. Gibson, Diego Gianolio, Khaled M. H. Mohammed, Stephen Parry, Scott M. Rogers, Ian P. Silverwood and Peter P. Wells
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01175B, Paper

Dynamic evolution of specific catalytic sites on Pt nanoparticles
Hector Barron, George Opletal, Richard D. Tilley and Amanda S. Barnard
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01205H, Paper

Enhancing internal mass transport in Fischer–Tropsch catalyst layers utilizing transport pores
Henning Becker, Robert Güttel and Thomas Turek
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00957J, Paper

Shaping up operando spectroscopy: Raman characterization of a working honeycomb monolith
S. B. Rasmussen, R. López-Medina, R. Portela, E. Mikolajska, M. Daturi, P. Ávila and M. A. Bañares
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015,5, 4942-4945
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01375E, Communication

Effects of La-doping on charge separation behavior of ZnO:GaN for its enhanced photocatalytic performance
Yansong Zhou, Gang Chen, Yaoguang Yu, Lichen Zhao, Qilin Yu and Qiang He
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01193K, Paper

Continuous flow hydrogenation of nitroarenes, azides and alkenes using maghemite–Pd nanocomposites
Anuj K. Rathi, Manoj B. Gawande, Vaclav Ranc, Jiri Pechousek, Martin Petr, Klara Cepe, Rajender S. Varma and Radek Zboril
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2016, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY00956A, Paper

Theoretical insight on reactivity trends in CO2 electroreduction across transition metals
Sneha A. Akhade, Wenjia Luo, Xiaowa Nie, Aravind Asthagiri and Michael J. Janik
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01339A, Paper

Bifunctional hybrid catalysts derived from Cu/Zn-based nanoparticles for single-step dimethyl ether synthesis
M. Gentzen, W. Habicht, D. E. Doronkin, J.-D. Grunwaldt, J. Sauer and S. Behrens
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01043H, Paper

Structural effects of two-dimensional perovskite Ca2Nb2TaO10− nanosheets for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution
Kazuhiko Maeda and Miharu Eguchi
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01246E, Paper

Niobium phytate prepared from phytic acid and NbCl5: a highly efficient and heterogeneous acid catalyst
Zhimin Xue, Yuwei Zhang, Guofeng Li, Jinfang Wang, Wancheng Zhao and Tiancheng Mu
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01123J, Paper

Nickel sulfides for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution under alkaline conditions: a case study of crystalline NiS, NiS2, and Ni3S2 nanoparticles
Nan Jiang, Qing Tang, Meili Sheng, Bo You, De-en Jiang and Yujie Sun
Journal Article
Catal. Sci. Technol., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5CY01111F, Paper