"Theory and practice in catalyst design: Tailoring
binding centers and their surroundings"
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
FRNY G140
– Reception at 2:30 PM in Henson Atrium at Forney Hall–
Dr. Enrique Iglesia
Neil Armstrong Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Purdue University,
Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School,
& Theodore Vermeulen Chair in Chemical Engineering (Emeritus),
University of California Berkeley
Biography:
Enrique Iglesia is a Distinguished Professor and the Vermeulen Chair (Emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He holds
degrees from Princeton and Stanford and doctor honoris causa from the Universidad Politecnica-Valencia and the Technical University-Munich. His research addresses the synthesis and structural/functional
assessment of solids as catalysts for the production and use of energy carriers and chemicals with minimal environmental footprints. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy
of Inventors. He has been recognized by ACS (Olah, Somorjai, Murphree awards), AIChE (Wilhelm, Alpha Chi Sigma, Walker awards), and chemical and catalysis societies worldwide (Emmett, Burwell, Boudart, Distinguished Service awards; Gault and Cross Canada Lectureships).
He received the ENI Energy Prize, the Kozo Tanabe Prize, and the International Natural Gas Conversion Award. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Catalysis and President of the North American Catalysis Society. His teaching has been recognized by several
awards, notably the Noyce Prize, the highest teaching award at Berkeley.
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"Theory and practice in catalyst design: Tailoring binding centers and their surroundings"
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.
FRNY G140
– Reception at 2:30 PM in Henson Atrium at Forney Hall–
Abstract:
This lecture develops, through a combination of theory and experiments, a methodology to address the rate and selectivity of chemical
transformations in surface catalysis based of thermodynamic formalisms that underpin the concept of transition states as intermediates. The approach considers the properties of molecular species involved as reactive intermediates in catalytic sequences and
of active centers that bind them and how they act in concert to select reaction channels, often against those favored by thermodynamics. When applied to acid-base and oxidation catalysis at oxide surfaces, this methodology has uncovered unprecedented details
about the types of active centers involved and the elementary steps that they mediate. For instance, the energy required to deprotonate a solid acid and that gained by placing the proton on a reactant molecule determine reactivity and selectivity for solid
acid catalysts, because transformations involve the transfer of protons and cationic moieties at transition states. In contrast, oxidation catalysis on redox-active oxides occurs via H-abstraction from C-H bonds in reactants and the concomitant reduction of
the metal centers in oxide catalysts. These steps are mediated by bound di-radical pairs with O-H and C-H bonds that are nearly formed and cleaved, respectively, thus making the energies of H-binding at surfaces and of C-H bond cleavage the relevant surface
and molecular descriptors of reactivity. The environments that surround the binding centers complement their properties through solvation effects that are able to stabilize specific bound intermediates and transition states through concerted van der Waals
or H-bonding interactions. Such stabilization becomes particularly evident (and consequential) when active centers reside within inorganic voids of molecular dimensions or are able to contact dense phases, such as liquids or bound adlayers. These emerging
concepts and tools are bringing us closer to the purposeful design of surfaces and environments for specific chemical transformations.