324 Catalvsis
Societv
Announces
Award
Maurice M. Mitchell. Jr., President of the Catalysis Society, has announced that Michel Boudart, William J. Keck Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, has been named to Ciapetta the F.G. Lectureship in Catalysis for 1986. Professor Boudart is for honoured his substantial the knowledge of contribution to catalytic reactions and systems of potential industrial importance. Boudart's work in the chemical dynamics of homogeneous and heterogeneous systems has made him the recipient of many awards and honors including membership in the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. The Lectureship, which is sponsored jointly by the Davison Chemical Division of W.R. Grace and Company and the Catalysis Society consists of a plaque and honorarium of $ 5000 and traveling expenses. During the calendar year 1986, Boudart will visit and lecture to the local clubs and societies affiliated with the Catalysis Society. The lectureship honors the memory of Dr. Frank G. Ciapetta who, at the time of his death in 1972, was vice-president of research for the Davison Chemical Division of W.R. Grace and Company. He was president of the International Congress of Catalysis at that time and was also a past president and director of the Catalysis Society and chairman of the Petroleum Research Fund Advisory Board.
Chinese Research on Inorganic Catalyst Carriers
Fibres
as
Inorganic fibresr are among the new materials which are promising as catalyst carriers. The Chinese Institute of Coal Chemistry, Academia Sinica, started research on such materials as catalyst carriers in 1975. In recent years, more than 25 articles have been published, and some new fibrous catalysts have found widespread application in industries in China. Based on the theoretical investigation of the effectiveness factor and mass transfer of a fibrous catalyst, the result obtained strongly suggest that the fibrous catalysts may be much more effective for diffusionally controlled surface reactions because of its much larger external surface area and much
amwtabis
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smaller pore diameter than granular catalysts. Attempts have been made to use them to study noble metal catalysed hydrogenation, de-hydrogenation and oxidation, all of which are known to be fast surface reactions. Experimental results have justified the assumption. The research achievements on inorganic fibres as catalyst carriers at ICCAS are briefly described in the following paragraphs, The surface properties of fibres such as glass fibre, carbon fibrous felt and alumina fiber have been characterized. The results indicated that the porosity of glass fibers can be derived from acid treatments. Different acid treatments give rise to different pore structures. The nitrogen isotherms of the glass fibres treated with HCl indicated that the proportion of micropores increased with the degree of etching. On the contrary, HF treatment gives the reverse results. The average pore radii of fibres after HCl and HF treatments are 6.8 - 6.9A and 9.7 - 9.81 respectively. For carbon fibres, the results showed that the untreated material has a smooth surface which gives little adsorption. However, under controlled oxidation, its surface area can be increased from less than one square meter to several hundred square meter. This increase is associated with the formation of functional groups such as hydroxy, carbonyl and carboxyl groups on its surface, and these show specific adsorption for noble metal ions. The nitrogen isotherms revealed that the carbon fibre, after controlled oxidation, has uniform pore size distribution with micropores (