Grad students tops in region for catalysis research

	Chunli Zhao

At the Annual Spring Symposium of the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York, held March 21 in Annandale, N.J., Lehigh students placed first, second and fourth in a presentation of 30 posters by students from Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Delaware and Lehigh.

Chunli Zhao, a graduate student in chemistry, won first place for her presentation “Operando Spectroscopy of Propylene Oxidation to Acrolein over Well-Defined Supported Vanadia Catalysts.”

	Kamalakanta Routray, (right), receiving award from a contest official

Kamalakanta Routray (chemical engineering) took second place for his presentation “Is there a Relationship between the M=O Bond Length in Bulk Mixed Metal Oxides and Catalytic Activity?”

	Elizabeth Ross

Elizabeth I. Ross (chemical engineering) won fourth place for her presentation “Conversion of Methanol over Solid Acidic WO3/ZrO2 Catalysts: Molecular/Electronic Structure-Activity Relationships.”

Third place went to A.L. Stottlemoyer of the University of Delaware.

On March 22, Zhao and Edward L. Lee (chemical engineering) were named runners-up at the annual graduate student poster competition of the Philadelphia Catalysis Society in Wilmington, Del. Thirty posters were presented by students from Lehigh, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and one by a student from the Politecnico di Milano in Italy.

	Edward Lee

Zhao presented “Operando Spectroscopy of Propylene Oxidation to Acrolein over Well-Defined Supported Vanadia Catalysts.” Lee’s presentation was titled “Controlling the Molecular Structure and Reactivity of Supported Metal Oxide Catalytic Active Sites.” Lee won the best poster presentation award at the same competition last year.

Winner of this year’s best poster presentation was Eseoghene Jeroro from the University of Pennsylvania’s department of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

All the Lehigh graduate students are advised by Israel E. Wachs, the G. Whitney Snyder Professor of chemical engineering.

--Kurt Pfitzer