Chemical Engineering October 2011 - 5

Winner of Eight Jesse H. Neal
Awards for Editorial Excellence
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Perkin Award reflects ChE trend
L
ast month, at a dinner at the Hyatt Hotel in Philadelphia, Pa., the SCI
America International Group (Philadelphia, Pa.; www.soci.org), presented
its Perkin Medal to Dr. Rodney H. Banks, a research fellow at
Nalco (Naperville, Ill.; www.nalco.com). As Stephanie Burns, honorary president
of SCI explains, " This award recognizes his fundamental contributions
to new sensor technologies that have led to improved water and energy efficiencies
for a variety of industries. "
In the mid-1980s, Banks and his co-workers at Nalco identified the
need for improved control of industrial water treatment and commercial
processes. He and colleague John Hoots subsequently led the invention
and commercialization of TRASAR fluorescent tracing technology. When
Chemical Engineering covered the introduction of the TRASAR in the
November 21, 1988 issue, the technical description read like this: " In the
original Nalco technique, a florescent tracer material - around 4 ppm of
an organic disulfonic acid - is blended into the cooling water products and
fed to the system. A 1-3 gal/min sample stream is continuously withdrawn
and pumped at high velocity through a fluorometer that detects fluorescence.
The amount of fluorescence measured is proportional to the amount
of treatment chemicals. "
During the past decade, Banks invented a broad suite of technologies
incorporating chemical and mechanical sensors for intelligent monitoring
and control of industrial water and process applications that have saved
more than 300 billion gallons of fresh water at thousands of industrial
locations around the world.
The current generation, 3D TRASAR automation technology has won a
U.S. Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for its cooling water
application (CE, August 2008, p. 16). Its use is being expanded to a variety
of additional applications, including boiler water treatment, membrane
operations, papermaking and petroleum-refinery process applications.
In addition to TRASAR sensing and control, Banks has also created various
electrochemical, optical, quartz-crystal microbalance-based sensors for
not only chemical treatment levels but also for corrosion, scale and microbial
fouling detection. These sensors detect system performance in realtime
and allow tighter control of chemical treatments, increasing the longevity
of equipment, improving process and worker safety, optimizing water and
energy usage and minimizing impact on the environment.
Banks's recognition by SCI is notable for many reasons, but two float to the
top of my list given the context of this readership. The first is the nod that this
award gives to the growing importance of water supply and reuse overall.
Meanwhile, I find it worth pausing to reflect on the fact that an award designed
to highlight accomplishments in applied chemistry is honoring an individual
who ultimately developed hardware designed to minimize the use of
chemicals in the first place. After all, the award and its namesake commemorate
the discovery of the first synthetic dye (the so-called Perkin mauve) by
Sir William Henry Perkin in 1856, which was a significant step forward in
organic chemistry that led to the birth of a major segment of the chemical
industry (for more, see this page, October 2006).
My point is by no means a criticism of the honoree
or the award itself. In fact, I applaud Banks and have a
sense of gratification myself in the award choice. It reinforces
an important realization that I rarely find in the
general, non-ChE public: The little known fact that today's
chemical engineering profession is nearly as much
about minimizing the use of chemicals as it is about producing
them.
■
Rebekkah Marshall
ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com oCtober 2011 5
http://www.soci.org http://www.nalco.com http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering October 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering October 2011
