Murray Raney Award
Daniel J. Ostgard received his first doctorate in 1987 from József Attila Tudományegyetem (József Attila Science University) in Szeged, Hungary under the supervision of Professor Miháy Bartók. This was followed with a Ph.D. at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale with Professor Gerard V. Smith, where he was awarded the Sigma Xi Rose and Essie Padgett Scholarship for student research. He later performed his post doctorial studies with Professor Wolfgang M. H. Sachtler at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Ostgard joined the catalyst group of Degussa Corporation in 1991, where he developed precious metal powder and fixed bed catalysts for industrial applications initially in New Jersey and later on in Kentucky. In 1998 he transferred to Degussa AG (currently know as Evonik Industries) in Hanau, Germany where he took over the global R&D group for the activated base metal catalysts (Ni, Co and Cu catalysts à la Murray Raney) and these responsibilities eventually were expanded to include precious metal powder catalysts and the marketing of these products. Dr. Ostgard is the author of more than 25 patents, 36 publications and 63 presentations at international scientific conferences. Dr. Ostgard’s group has developed ensemble specific activated base metal catalysts with tailor-made active sites for the selective transformation of organic compounds. By controlling the average number of surface metal atoms per reaction site (i.e., the ensemble size) via the deposition of carbonaceous materials, they were able to improve the selectivity of nitrile hydrogenations to practically 100% with the minimal use of bases. This was found to be most useful for the hydrogenation of pynitrile during the synthesis of vitamin B1 and the selective hydrogenation of unsaturated fatty nitriles to unsaturated fatty amines for the production of surfactants and emulsifiers. They were also able to use tailor-made ensembles to elucidate the hydrogenation mechanism of fructose as well as those of glucose and xylose. The concentration of the more active furanose anomers influenced the potential activity of the sugar and the catalyst’s activity is governed by its ability to swing the equilibrium of the 1,3 intramolecular hydrogen shift at the anomeric carbon away from the hydrogenolysis of the hemi-ketal to the hydrogenation of the ketose. Since this reaction occurs with retention to the anomeric carbon, the mannitol selectivity of fructose hydrogenation was found to be controlled by the relative hydrogenation activity of α-furanose to β-furanose. Dr. Ostgard’s group also developed activated base metal fixed bed catalysts with flexible characteristics such as the activated hollow spheres and the activated coated supports.