Hydrocarbon Processing - June 2022 - 68

Industry Pioneers
challenges were a lack of flexibility to make process changes
and the extensive time required to adjust these changes. Morley
managed to design the functions of a PLC that offered
advantages of uninterrupted processing, flexibility, fast reaction
time and direct mapping into memory-revolutionizing
manufacturing process control. The PLC was designed to be
robust under severe temperature and moisture conditions and
used large metal fins to transfer out air, keeping electronics dirt
free. The product was capable of operating as a modular digital
controller and was hence named Modicon, a brand now owned
by Schneider Electric.17
Morley has been widely recognized in numerous publications
and awards from the International Society of Automation,
Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, the
Franklin Institute, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and
the Engineering Society of Detroit.18
He was also inducted into
the Manufacturing Hall of Fame. The Society of Manufacturing
Engineers offers the Richard E. Morley Outstanding Young
Manufacturing Engineer Award for outstanding technical accomplishments
in the manufacturing profession by engineers
aged 35 and under.18
ODO JOSEF STRUGER
Odo J. Stuger, an Austrian engineer and
scientist, is recognized as the pioneer of
modern-day automation and shares the
credit as 'father of PLC' alongside Richard
Morley. During 1958-1960,19
Sturger
led his engineering team at AllenBradley
in developing the programmable
logic controller and also coined the acronym
PLC for programmable logic controllers.
Allen-Bradley became the pioneering leader in programmable
logic controllers in the U.S., and PLC remains a
registered trademark of the Allen-Bradley Company (now
Rockwell Automation).
Struger's work on PLCs was built upon the concepts studied
in his doctoral research in " The process for quantitative handling
of positioning errors in numerical control machines, " at
Vienna University of Technology.19
His invention proved to be
a 'rugged industrial computer' that, through precise numerical
control of machinery, soon became ubiquitous in manufacturing
environments across the world.
Struger was born in Carinthia, Austria, and studied at the Vienna
University of Technology. In 1958, he moved to Milwaukee,
Wisconsin (U.S.) to work as a research engineer at AllenBradley.
Struger grew within the company and held the position
of Vice President of technology until retirement in 1998.19
He
was associated with the development of the National Electrical
Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard for PLCs and
IEC 1131-3 programming language standard. Struger has 50
patents to his credit in the U.S. and Canada. He received the
Prometheus Award in 1996, authored more than 40 technical
papers and is an inductee to the Automation Hall of Fame at the
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. To honor Struger's
legacy, Rockwell Automation established the Odo J. Struger
Automation Award for future engineers' exceptional advancements
in the control and automation fields.20
68 JUNE 2022 | HydrocarbonProcessing.com
JOHN MOONEY AND CARL D. KEITH
John Mooney, an American
chemical engineer,
and Carl D. Keith, a
chemist,
created
the
three-way automotive
catalytic converter while
working at Engelhard
Corporation in 1973 and
solved a major environmental problem-making automobile exhaust
98% cleaner.21
one that helped save 100,000 lives and prevent many more cases
of lung and throat ailments.22
key-emissions control components in automobiles worldwide.
The earliest catalytic muffler was developed by Eugene
Houdry as a generic device that could convert carbon monoxide
(CO) and unburned hydrocarbons (UHCs) from automobile
and industrial exhausts. Houdry launched his company
Oxy-catalyst and his catalytic converter design was patented in
1962.23
However, fuel still contained tetraethyllead (TEL) as an
anti-knock agent, which poisoned the catalyst in the converter. It
took the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1970 and the ban of TEL
for converters to be recognized and become a piece of standard
equipment in automobiles.
Mooney and Keith, while working at Engelhard Corporation
(acquired by BASF in 2006)24
, developed the three-way catalytic
) are reduced to water, ni).
The inherent complexity of the
converter, where the exhaust gas components are UHCs, and CO
are oxidized and nitrogen oxides (NOx
trogen and carbon dioxide (CO2
reaction implied the need for a bulky two-stage converting system.
Mooney, however, theorized that if the fuel-to-air ratio was correct,
the exhaust would provide just the right amount of oxygen
for a one-stage converter to treat all three pollutants at once.
Equipped with his idea and a 'can-do' attitude, Mooney garnered
his supervisor Keith's support to allow him to convince
auto manufacturers to include an oxygen sensor to their engines.
The sensor was intended to monitor fuel-to-air ratio at a level
where the one-stage converter could function successfully. Volvo
agreed to the proposal and soon the sensors were successfully
incorporated into other automobiles, as well. The converter is a
small can-shaped device that installs at the exhaust pipe under vehicles.
A combination of rare-earth oxides and base metal oxides
along with platinum and rhodium were used together in the catalyst.
The engine exhaust passes over a specialized honeycombshaped
structure, where a washcoat of catalyst materials acts as
active sites for reactions. The design ensured an adequate amount
of oxygen was offered for the oxidation and allowed all three pollutants
to be targeted at once.
Both Keith and Mooney received the 2001 Walter Ahlstrom
Prize and earned the National Medal of Technology in 2002 for
their invention.24
development of automotive emissions catalysts.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Hydrocarbon Processing would like to thank several institutions/companies/
websites for the use of archived images of industry pioneers. These include the
National Inventors Hall of Fame, MIT Lemelson, Science History and The
National Academy of Engineers.
LITERATURE CITED
Complete literature cited available online at www.HydrocarbonProcessing.com.
Engelhard (now BASF) continues to lead the
An EPA report recognized this invention as
Today, catalytic converters are the
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