American Institute of Chemical Engineers - Northern California Section

The Chemical Engineering Excellence Award program has been instituted to recognize outstanding Northern California chemical engineering professionals and projects. The awards are offered in a number of categories. Selection is by committee vote and only nominations meeting minimum criteria are considered.

The awards, consisting of personalized plaques were presented during the luncheon at the NorCal AIChE April 29, 2003 One Day Symposium, which was held at the South San Francisco Conference Center facilities. Dr. Charles Musgrave and Dr. Chaitan Khosla of Stanford will receive their awards at the NorCal AIChE dinner meeting planned for June 19^th, 2003, at Spengers in Berkeley.

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE

Professional Development: Dr. Bruce C. Gates, Professor of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Davis, California.

Dr. Bruce C. Gates, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California at Davis, has won AIChEâs 2002 R. H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering. The R.H. Wilhelm Award, which recognizes an individualâs significant and new contribution in chemical reaction engineering, is sponsored by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Company. Dr.Gates' research sets a high standard for creativity and impact in catalysis and chemical reaction engineering. He pioneered the integration of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis into molecular surface catalysis and made lasting contributions to hydroprocessing and acid-base catalysis.

Dr. Gates is a prolific writer who has brought the whole field of catalysis to a wide readership. He wrote chapters on catalysis for the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technologyand the Encyclopedia of Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry. The Gates-Katzer-Schuit book Chemistry of Catalytic Processes is used extensively as a reference and textbook, and÷since computer records became available÷is the most cited catalysis book. Dr. Gates' widely used Catalytic Chemistry is the only textbook presenting catalysis as a unified field, integrating homogeneous, enzymic, and surface catalysis. Gates has edited Advances in Catalysis since 1995. His reviews of catalytic hydroprocessingand supported metal cluster catalysts are standards.

Dr. Gates has held high-level positions in both industry (as a research engineer at Chevron Research) and at other universities (as the H. Rodney Sharp Professor at the University of Delaware). Overall, he has more than 350 publications to his credit. Numerous societies have recognized him for his contributions in the field of catalysis and catalytic reaction engineering, including the Catalysis Society of North America (for whom he serves on the Board of Directors) and the American Chemical Society. He was one of the teachers for AIChEâs "Today Series" of short courses from 1975 to 1985. Dr. Gates earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley in 1961 and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1966

Academic Teaching: Dr. Charles B. Musgrave, Chemical Engineering Department, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Dr. Charles Musgrave is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received a bachelor's degree in Materials Science and Engineering from University of California at Berkeley in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Material Science from California Institute of Technology in 1994. He is recognized for his excellence in teaching and he is also involved with a fascinating research area at the forefront of electronics materials. He has received several awards including Charles Power Fellow Award from Stanford University for 1997-1999, the First Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology in 1993, and National Science Foundation Fellowship in 1989.

In his recommendation, Dr. Curtis Frank, Chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford, indicates that Charlesâ scores from student teacher evaluations are consistently high, and Charles is recognized to be an outstanding teacher. His instructor rating by Tau Beta Pi for 2002 teaching of a senior level materials/chemical engineering course was at the 100-percentile level in several categories. Senior colleagues in Stanford's Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering join Dr. Frank in recommending Dr. Musgrave for the NORCAL Academic Teaching Award.

Industrial Research: Dr. Chaitan Khosla, Chemical Engineering Department, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Dr. Chaitan Khosla is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1990, and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in 1985. He joined Stanford University as an Assistant Professor in 1992 and became a full professor in 2001.

For the past several years, Dr. Khoslaâs group has investigated the catalytic mechanisms of modular megasynthases such as polyketide synthases, with the concomitant goal of harnessing their programmable chemistry for the biosynthesis of new, pharmaceutically relevant natural products. Examples of natural products that have been studied include anthraquinones such as R1128 (a selective estrogen receptor antagonist) and macrolides such as erythromycin, rifamycin (both antibacterials), and epothilone (antitumor agent). Dr. Khoslaâs group continues to develop new technologies for heterologous production of polyketides in E. coli.

More recently, Dr. Khosla has undertaken a project aimed at understanding and modulating the chemistry and biology of Celiac Sprue, an HLA-DQ2 associated immune disorder of the gastrointestinal tract. Celiac Sprue is an increasingly diagnosed enteropathy that is induced by dietary exposure to gluten from common food grains such as wheat, rye and barley. Notwithstanding the seriousness of the disorder, little is known about the mechanistic underpinnings of this disease. No therapeutic agents are available to counter the toxic effects of the culprit cereals, and the only treatment for Celiac Sprue involves a lifelong adherence to a strict gluten-free diet. Dr. Khosla's goal is to understand the biochemical basis of Celiac Sprue, and to translate these insights into pharmacological agents that could allow patients to safely re-incorporate these otherwise nutricious and extremely common food grains into their diet.

Dr. Curtis Frank, Chairman of the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford has recognized Dr. Khosla as an outstanding researcher in their department. Dr. Khosla has won several recent national awards including the MDS PanLabs Award from the Society for Industrial Microbiology and ACS Award in Pure Chemistry in 2000, Deanâs Award for Academic Excellence at Stanford University and ACS Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry in 1999, and Allan P. Colburn Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1997. He has been the Founder & Chairman of Scientific Advisory Board of Kosan Biosciences Inc. since 1995. He is a member of several professional societies including ACS, Society for Industrial Microbiology and AIChE.

PROJECT AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE

Industrial Project of the Year:

David Moore, PE, CSP, is the President and CEO of the AcuTech Consulting Group, a process safety and security consulting firm based in San Francisco. Mr. Moore was the lead author of the recently published AIChE Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) "Guidelines for Managing and Analyzing the Security Vulnerabilities of Fixed Chemical Sites". This document has been published in August, 2002, and distributed internationally by AIChE, and is a primary textbook used for teaching the AIChE workshop for Security Vulnerability Analysis (SVA). The method is being referenced by the Department of Homeland Security, the American Chemistry Council, the USEPA, and others as a leading method for security assessments for the chemical industry. He also developed the American Chemistry Council (ACC) Security Vulnerability Analysis methodology for Tier 4 sites, and the American Petroleum Institute/National Petrochemical and Refinerâs Association (API/NPRA) SVA methodology and Version 2 of the American Petroleum Institute (API) Security Guidelines for the Petroleum Industry. The new API/NPRA SVA method is a being developed in cooperation with the Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security as a standard industry practice.

David is a frequent speaker on plant security, process safety management, human factors, and inherent safety, and is actively involved in chemical process safety and security. He has provided risk consulting services and training to industrial facilities worldwide, including oil refineries, chemical plants, pipelines, and manufacturing plants. He has taught process safety and security courses for over 15 years to many of the worldâs largest corporations. He is an instructor on process safety and security for AIChE, API, USEPA, and the NPRA.

Mr. Moore has over twenty-two years of specialized experience in process risk management and is a Registered Professional Engineer. He is a member of a number of organizations including AIChE and serves on the AIChE Center for Chemical Process Safety Technical Steering Committee, the CCPS Plant Security Committee, the Canadian Chemical Producerâs Association PSM Committee, and the Mary Kay OâConnor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University. He received a B.S. in Fire Protection Engineering from University of Maryland in 1979 and an MBA from New York University in 1987.

Research Project of the Year:

ChevronTexaco Energy Research and Technology Company (ERTC) has formed a joint venture with MEDAL, a leading membrane manufacturer and subsidiary of Air Liquide, to develop next-generation, advanced membrane materials for a range of applications. This joint venture aims to overcome the inherent limitations of polymeric and molecular-sieving membranes by combining the best features of each in a composite membrane structure or mixed matrix membrane. This approach proposes the incorporation of sieves into a processable polymeric matrix. In contrast to conventional polymeric materials, zeolites and carbon molecular sieves lie well beyond the productivity / selectivity tradeoff or "upper bound" first defined for many gas pairs by Lloyd Robeson of Air Products. Integrating these molecular-sieving entities into a polymeric matrix can potentially yield advanced membranes with enhanced effective properties lying above this "upper bound", offering very commercially attractive opportunities for industry. This concept combines the advantages of each medium: high separation capabilities of the molecular sieves and the desirable mechanical properties and economical processing capabilities of polymers. The expected product is a high-selectivity, high-productivity membrane that is superior to any existing membrane.

This ChevronTexaco/MEDAL partnership has been granted a prestigious and competitive Advanced Technology Program (ATP) Award by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The ATP award provides $2.7 million in matching funding to the research partners. In addition to this highly leveraged funding, the joint venture collaborates extensively with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin, who provide expertise in fundamental science. This partnership brings together a unique set of capabilities in zeolite synthesis, separation science, polymer chemistry, and membrane manufacturing, to execute an efficient technical program that will provide for expedient market introduction and commercialization. Although the target applications (production of N₂ from air and removal of CO₂ from natural gas) represent large-scale industrial processes, the new technology will be broadly applicable for many important industrial separations. Examples include paraffin/olefin separations, N₂ removal from natural gas, and countless others.

The project was successfully proposed and initiated at ChevronTexaco by Dr. Steve Miller, Corporate Research Fellow, and Dr. Curt Munson, Process Technology R&D Manager. Dr. Miller continues as Technical Lead on the project, and Dr. Paul Bryan, Process Science Team Leader, is the Project Manager. The project team at ChevronTexaco includes more than a dozen engineers, scientists, and technicians in the catalyst, process technology, analytical science, and technology marketing groups.