David Talbot Day

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David Talbot Day (born September 10, 1859 in Rockport (Ohio) , † April 15, 1925 in Washington, DC ) was an American chemist and geologist.

Day was the son of a clergyman of the Swedenborgians, grew up in Baltimore and studied chemistry from 1878 at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore with a bachelor's degree in 1881 and a doctorate in 1884. He was there assistant to Ira Remsen , while giving chemistry lessons at a school and lectured at the University of Maryland (1884-1886 as a demonstrator in chemistry). In 1885 he became a member of the US Geological Survey in Washington, DC and headed the statistical department there from 1886 as the successor to Albert Williams. From 1896 he was director of the mining department there. In 1907 he became advisor to the petroleum department at the Geological Survey and in 1914 to the petroleum department at the Bureau of Mines. From 1920 he gave up his offices and had his own private institute in Santa Maria (California) . There he researched, among other things, cracking and the extraction of oil from oil shale.

As a chemist he initially examined minerals and ores in particular, and during the Geological Survey from 1885 to 1912 he created detailed overviews of the deposits of mineral resources in the USA. In doing so, he also made estimates of the oil shale deposits (which only became more important later, since the focus was initially on the exploitation of conventional crude oil sources). Later he dealt with petrochemicals and wrote a handbook of the petro-industry.

In 1897 he found a way to separate petroleum fractions from one another by running them through limestone (which can be seen as an early form of chromatography).

From 1893 to 1900 he was Vice President of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.

In 1886 he married Elizabeth Keeler.

Fonts

  • Handbook of the Petroleum Industry, 2 volumes, New York 1922

literature

personal data
SURNAME Day, David Talbot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist and geologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Rockport, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1925
Place of death Washington, DC