Hydrocarbon Processing - June 2022 - 65

100th Anniversary
Industry Pioneers
SUMEDHA SHARMA, Technical Editor
Industry Pioneers: Catalysts, polymer processing
technology, synthetic lube oils, control systems
ROBERT WALTON GORE
Robert W. Gore was an American engineer,
inventor and entrepreneur who is
best known for his breakthrough invention
of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene
(ePTFE). Gore's discovery that PTFE
could be transformed into an entirely different
physical state led to a phenomenally
new direction in material science, resulting
in commercially well-known
products such as GORE-TEX fabric, a water-resistant and
breathable fabric known for its applications in sporting and outdoor
activities. Several important products have grown from
ePTFE such as new electrical cables, industrial filters, medical
implants, textiles woven from ePTFE fiber for space exploration,
laminated fabrics for outdoor activities, emergency response,
defense and ELIXIR guitar strings.
Gore's father was a Dupont employee and he often experimented
with DuPont materials in his basement exploring new
ways to use them. While he was a sophomore at the University
of Delaware in 1957,1
Gore helped his father develop a successful
process to use PTFE to insulate multiple copper conductors
to create the ribbon cable, a product highly applied in the growing
computer industry. Gore's process resulted in the product
MULTI-TET cable and led his family to found W.L Gore & Associates
in 1958,1
operating from the basement of their home.
The company expanded its capacity with the growing demand
and applications of MULTI-TET and TETRA-ETCH, a pipe
thread tape, and Gore earned his first patent as the inventor. After
completing his doctorate in chemical engineering, he joined
W.L. Gore & Associates as the technical and research leader.
In 1969, while researching a process for stretching extruded
PTFE into pipe-thread tape, he discovered that the polymer
could be expanded. Gore's discovery of ePTFE resulted from
a 'frustrated hard yank' after a series of failed experiments to
stretch heated rods of PTFE by 10%. This serendipitous discovery
was that instead of slow stretching, the application of a
sudden accelerating yank stretched the PTFE by 800%, creating
a microporous PTFE that was 70% air.
Gore's earned nine patents for his phenomenal work with
fluoropolymers and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering
in 1995 for his technical achievements.2
He was also
awarded the highest award in the United States designated for
an industrial chemist, the Society for Chemical Industry's Perkin
CHARLES PLANCK AND
EDWARD ROSINSKI
Charles J. Plank and Edward
Rosinski invented
a zeolite catalyst for catalytic
cracking that revolutionized
the petroleum
Medal
in 2005 and the 2003 Winthrop-Sears Medal, from The
Chemists' Club and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, now
the Science History Institute.2
industry by
from
increasing the yield of
gasoline by 40%3
every barrel of oil run through a catalytic cracker. Thermal
cracking, or the application of heat to petroleum, is the process
by which the larger molecules " crack " or break down to form
simpler molecules like those found in commercially useful
products like gasoline. Plank and Rosinski, while researching
catalysts for Mobil Oil (now ExxonMobil) in the 1950s,4
idealized
the use of porous clay-like zeolites that bear microscopic
channels close to the hydrocarbon length as catalysts for petroleum
cracking. In 1961, it was discovered that certain crystalline
zeolites could be combined into a binder and converted into a
super-efficient cracking catalyst.3
Zeolites present superior activity
and selectivity at low severity, resulting in significantly
high gasoline yield. Moreover, the increased yields are obtained
without increasing gas or coke formation, the undesired byproducts
of cracking. With higher efficiency and fewer process
risks than traditional methods during those times, their process
marked a major step forward for the petrochemical industry.
In July 1960, Plank and Rosinski's patent " Catalytic Cracking
of Hydrocarbons with a Crystalline Zeolite Catalyst Composite "
was submitted and was officially patented on July 7, 1964.
Mobil named it " Zeolite Y " and used it in commercial processes
in 1964.4
Through the mid-1980s, nearly 35% of U.S. gasoline
was being produced via zeolite catalytic cracking.4
Today this catalyst, the first containing crystalline zeolite,
is extensively used in all cracking units in the U.S. and around
the world. Although catalysts had long been used in oil refining,
Plank and Rosinski's catalyst made a significant impact on the
efficiency of the cracking process and provided a remarkable
increase in gasoline yield from crude oil.
Charles J. Plank was born in Calcutta, India and later moved
Hydrocarbon Processing | JUNE 2022 65
Hydrocarbon Processing - June 2022

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