Hydrocarbon Processing - September 2022 - 141

Industry Pioneers
catalysts for chemical reactions. These compounds find numerous
applications in the refining and petrochemical industries.
Flanigen joined Union Carbide in 1952 and began working
During her 42-yr career at Union
on molecular sieves in 1956.49
Carbide and UOP, Flanigen invented or co-invented more than
200 novel synthetic materials but is best known for her substantial
contributions to the development of zeolite Y, an aluminosilicate
sieve used to make oil refining more efficient, cleaner
and safer.50
of crude oil to produce commercially valuable products like
gasoline and diesel in a cleaner and more efficient manner. Her
invention finds application in purification and contaminant removal
and can be used to make ethylene and propylene, which
are important raw materials to the petrochemical industry.
Besides her work on molecular sieves, Flanigen co-invented
a synthetic emerald and pioneered the use of mid-infrared spectroscopy
for analyzing zeolite structures. She has been quoted
to say that one of her strengths throughout her career has been
her ability to discover new material and see it through to commercialization,
from envisioning processes for manufacturing it
on a large scale to developing it for industrial application.
Flanigen became the first woman to hold the position of Senior
Corporate Research Fellow at Union Carbide in 1982. She
retired in 1994 with 108 U.S. patents in the field of petroleum
research and product development.50,51
In 1992, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious
Perkin medal, the most distinguished honor in applied
chemistry.22
Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 and was
inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the same
year.22
National Medal of Technology and Innovation for her contributions
to science and technology.51
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 wellknown
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 1957,52
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 MULTITET
cable and led his family to found W.L Gore & Associates in
1958,52
Flanigen was the recipient of the $100,000
In 2014, President Obama presented Flanigen with the
Zeolite Y is essentially employed in the cracking
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.53
He was also
awarded the highest award in the United States designated for
an industrial chemist, the Society for Chemical Industry's Perkin
Medal in 2005 and the 2003 Winthrop-Sears Medal, from The
Chemists' Club and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, now
the Science History Institute.53
CHARLES PLANCK AND
EDWARD ROSINSKI
Charles J. Plank and Edward Rosinski
invented a zeolite catalyst for
catalytic cracking that revolutionized
the petroleum industry by increasing
the yield of gasoline by
40%54
from 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,55
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.54
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
1964.55
Through the mid-1980s, nearly 35% of U.S. gasoline was
being produced via zeolite catalytic cracking.55
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
operating from the basement of their home. The company
expanded its capacity with the growing demand and applications
to Lafayette, Indiana. In 1936, he received a BS degree in mathematics,
chemistry and physics from Purdue University.5
He later
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