Ralph Landau
Ralph Landau (born May 19, 1916 - April 6, 2004 ) was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur. He founded the engineering company Scientific Design Corporation (later Halcon), which worked for the petro-industry.
Life
Landau studied chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (bachelor's degree in 1937) and received his doctorate from MIT in 1941 . He then worked for WM Kellogg (he headed the chemistry department of Kellogg's Kellex Corporation), which developed equipment and processes for oil refineries and the chemical industry. During the Second World War, he was also active in Oak Ridge in this context to install systems for the production of fluorine for uranium hexafluoride in uranium processing and enrichment. After the Second World War, Landau and the engineer Harry Rehnberg, whom he knew from Oak Ridge, founded Scientific Design, which developed for the petrochemical industry.
First they developed a process for the production of terephthalic acid , which is used to make polyester . They made it by oxidizing p- xylene (paraxylene) with bromine as a catalyst and sold the process to Standard Oil of Indiana (now BP Amoco). Another early success was a process (1962) for the production of propylene oxide (Oxirane process), an important preliminary product (for polyols ) in the polyurethane industry, in which they teamed up with Arco Chemical (now BP Amoco) (Oxirane joint venture) . Scientific Design and its successors (Halcon International) developed many other processes in the petrochemical industry and planned industrial plants worldwide. Landau was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980.
In 1982 he sold Halcon to the Texas Eastern Corporation and turned to an academic career. He studied the economic and social environment of technological renewal at Stanford University's business faculty and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Honors
In 1997 he was the first to receive the Othmer Gold Medal and in 1985 he was one of the first to receive the National Medal of Technology . He also received the Founders Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers , the Chemical Pioneer Award (1981), the Chemical Industry Medal, and the Perkin Medal . He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Philosophical Society .
He was married and had a daughter.
Web links
- Biography at the Chemical Heritage Foundation
- Ralph Landau: Engineer, Entrepreneur, Scholar, National Academies Press
- Biographical Memoirs, American Philosophical Society, pdf
References and comments
- ↑ Founded in 1966. Halcon sold its stake to Arco in 1980
- ↑ Founded out of Scientific Design in the 1960s to market the propylene oxide process
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Landau, Ralph |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American chemical engineer and entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 19, 1916 |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 6, 2004 |