Recipients Of Catalysis Awards Announced

The Organic Reactions Catalysis Society presented the 2005 and 2006 Paul N. Rylander Awards and the 2006 Murray Raney Award to three individuals during the 21st Conference on Catalysis of Organic Reactions in Orlando, Fla., in April.

The Rylander Award recognizes significant contributions to catalysis in organic reactions. The Raney Award acknowledges notable advances in applied catalysis using skeletal metal technology pioneered by Murray Raney.

Jean-Marie Basset of the Laboratoire de Chimie Organom??tallique de Surface, a part of CNRS, Villeurbanne, France, received the 2005 Paul N. Rylander Award. Basset is a leading researcher and prolific publisher of studies connecting the properties and catalytic behaviors of organometallic complexes to those of solid surface-supported catalysts.

Gadi Rothenberg, of Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, received the 2006 Paul N. Rylander Award. Rothenberg's novel research has led to new ligand-free catalysts for carbon-carbon coupling reactions, as well as a unique catalyst for selective oxidative dehydrogenation.

Isamu Yamauchi, of Osaka University, in Japan, received the 2006 Murray Raney Award. Yamauchi is being recognized for his work on improved methods for preparing precursors to skeletal catalysts, novel bimetallic catalyst compositions, and application of improved copper catalysts to the hydration of acrylonitrile and the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide.