August 26, 2013

Charles Campbell is the recipient of the 2013 Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis

Charles Camp­bell, Professor and B. Seymour Rabinovitch Endowed Chair in Chemistry, is the recip­i­ent of the 2013 Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, spon­sored by John­son Matthey.

The Robert Bur­well Lec­ture­ship in Catal­y­sis is given in recog­ni­tion of sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions to one or more areas in the field of catal­y­sis with empha­sis on dis­cov­ery and under­stand­ing of cat­alytic phe­nom­ena, cat­alytic reac­tion mech­a­nisms and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and descrip­tion of cat­alytic sites and species.

Pro­fes­sor Camp­bell is being rec­og­nized for “bridg­ing the gap between sur­face sci­ence and catal­y­sis, for devel­op­ing new con­cepts and tools in both dis­ci­plines, and for his service to both com­mu­ni­ties as Editor-in-Chief of Sur­face Sci­ence. His knowl­edge and his con­tri­bu­tions over the last three decades have encom­passed enor­mous depth and breadth. He has made sem­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions in (1) devel­op­ing meth­ods to mea­sure surface bond ener­gies, specif­i­cally calorime­try using an appa­ra­tus devel­oped by his research group and which cur­rently ranks as the most sen­si­tive heat detec­tion tool for the study of model cat­a­lysts; (2) accu­rate mea­sure­ments of the bind­ing of metal atoms and nanoparticles to oxides, which has led to mech­a­nis­tic approaches and fun­da­men­tal treatments of cat­a­lyst sin­ter­ing; (3) advanc­ing and using micro­ki­netic treat­ments of cat­alytic reac­tions, espe­cially by pro­vid­ing many clas­sic exam­ples of how sur­face sci­ence can con­tribute to the under­stand­ing of cat­alytic mech­a­nisms; and (4) for­mal­iz­ing the con­cept of ‘the degree of rate con­trol’ to assess the extent to which indi­vid­ual steps in a catalytic sequence limit reac­tions rates.”

The award con­sists of a plaque and an hon­o­rar­ium of $5,000, and is awarded bien­ni­ally. Pro­fes­sor Camp­bell will present lec­tures at the local catal­y­sis clubs and soci­eties dur­ing the two-year period cov­ered by this award. The plaque will be pre­sented dur­ing the clos­ing ban­quet cer­e­monies at the 2015 North Amer­i­can Meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety.

More information about the Robert Burwell Lectureship in Catalysis can be found on the award website.

To learn more about Prof. Campbell and his research, please visit his faculty page and research group page.