A Career in Catalysis: James A. Dumesic

After 43 years as a professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, James A. Dumesic retired in 2019. Jim is one of the most influential researchers in the field of heterogeneous catalysis. In this Account, we discuss the scientific discoveries that he made and the intellectual processes that he followed during his illustrious career to steer the field of heterogeneous catalysis into new frontiers. He began his career by fundamentally probing the nature of active sites on heterogeneous catalysts using in situ Mossbauer spectroscopy, electron microscopy, FTIR, and kinetic analysis. This tool kit was used to elucidate the "strong metal support interaction" (SMSI) effect. He developed new microcalorimetric tools to measure the energetics of adsorbates on catalyst surfaces. Jim pioneered microkinetic analysis as a tool to describe heterogeneous reaction kinetics incorporating the essential surface chemistry into kinetic analysis, thereby providing a novel strategy for kinetic assisted catalyst design. Density functional theory (DFT) was combined with FTIR and microcalorimetry to elucidate catalytic surface reactions which were then incorporated into microkinetic models. In the early 2000s, Jim developed the aqueous-phase catalytic processing of biomass-derived oxygenates into fuels and chemicals. This led to the development of new processes to make diesel fuel, jet fuel, gasoline, aromatics, and oxygenated chemicals from renewable resources, several of these technologies are in the process of being commercialized. Jim tailored nanostructured catalytic materials by atomic layer deposition and controlled surface reactions to withstand harsh aqueous-phase biomass processing conditions. He used careful selection and tuning of the solvent composition to achieve substantial control over the activity and selectivity of various biomass upgrading reactions and developed a theory to explain these solvent effects. Underlying these discoveries was a thought process that used fundamental surface chemistry to explain the relationship between the structure, properties, and performance of the catalytic system. Leveraging this thought process across many different reaction classes helped to establish both new tools for catalysis research and to develop new processes for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals.