Warren Lewis (chemist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Warren Kendall Lewis (born August 21, 1882 in Laurel (Delaware) , † March 9, 1975 in Plymouth , Massachusetts ) was an American chemist and chemical engineer . He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Lewis studied chemical engineering at MIT and received his doctorate in 1908 at the University of Breslau under Richard Abegg with the work The complex formation between lead nitrate and potassium nitrate . Immediately afterwards he published an important work on fractional distillation , which later remained his field of research, with application particularly in the oil industry and almost twenty patents in this field. He worked briefly as a chemist in a tannery before becoming an assistant professor at MIT in 1910 . In 1914 he was given a full professorship and in 1920 he became head of the newly established department of chemical engineering at MIT. During the First World War he was involved in the defense against poison gas (such as the construction of gas masks). From 1948 he was Professor Emeritus at MIT, but continued to work at MIT until his death.

As part of the Manhattan Project , he was a member of several committees that were supposed to evaluate the development and research work carried out: in 1941 as a member of the committee headed by Arthur Holly Compton that was supposed to investigate the military importance of uranium , in 1943 in the evaluation of the work in Los Alamos and in 1944 in the assessment of uranium enrichment with gas diffusion.

The Lewis number is named after him.

In the early 1940s he was involved in the development of fluid catalytic cracking methods, which became important for the production of high-octane jet fuel during World War II. Standard Oil of New Jersey's pilot refinery in Baton Rouge operated from 1940.

In 1936 he received the Perkin Medal and in 1947 the Priestley Medal . In 1948 he received the US President's Medal of Merit and he received his Medal of Science and in 1949 the gold medal of the American Institute of Chemists. He also received the first American Chemical Society Award in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry in 1956, the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement from the American Petroleum Institute in 1957, and the Founders Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1958.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1938), the National Academy of Engineering (1955) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1915). He received four honorary degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Bowdoin, University of Delaware.

His son H. Clay Lewis was also a chemist and co-author of one of Lewis' books.

Fonts

  • with William H. Walker, William H. McAdams Principles of Chemical Engineering , McGraw Hill 1923, 3rd edition 1937 (with R. Gilliland)
  • with AH Radasch Industrial Stoichiometry , McGraw Hill 1926, extended edition 1954 with H. Clay Lewis
  • with L. Squires, G. Broughton The Industrial Chemistry of Colloidal and Amorphous Materials , McMillan 1942

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Warren K. Lewis at academictree.org, accessed on 7 March 2018th
  2. ↑ Lewis The theory of distillation , J. Ind. Eng. Chem., Vol. 1, 1909, pp. 522-533
personal data
SURNAME Lewis, Warren
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lewis, Warren Kendall (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Laurel (Delaware)
DATE OF DEATH March 9, 1975
Place of death Plymouth, Massachusetts