Biographical Memoirs Volume 67 (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Paul Hugh Emmett
Paul Hugh Emmett
Pages 118-129
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From page 119... ...
His work is distinguished by the use of highly ingenious experimental methods to probe the basic mechanisms in catalytical processes. His studies on the adsorption of gases on solids led to a method of measurement of the surface area of catalysts and laid the foundation for the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller theory of adsorption, which has been of fundamental significance in the field of heterogeneous catalysis.
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From page 120... ...
There he launched a successful research career in adsorption and catalysis. In 1937 he accepted an appointment to organize the chemical engineering department at Johns Hopkins
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From page 121... ...
He continued as a consultant to the Atomic Energy Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for the rest of his career. In December 1944 he joined the Multiple Petroleum Fellowship at the Mellon Institute as a senior fellow and carried on a long series of experiments directed toward the unclerstanding of catalytic processes using radioactive tracers.
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From page 122... ...
Throughout his career Emmett tried to obtain independent evidence for confirming the values for surface areas as deduced from the BET method. He and his colleagues, for example, applied it to nonporous finely divided carbon blacks whose size could be estimated from electron microscope measurements and to virgin glass spheres whose size and surface area could be estimated by direct microscopic measurements.
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From page 123... ...
Since then, these results have been repeated and confirmed by other investigators. Tracer work was also applied to cracking catalysts with the objective of determining to what extent olefins, paraffins, and aromatic products of the cracking process undergo secondary reactions before exiting from the catalytic reactor.
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From page 124... ...
Emmett and his group devoted a significant amount of their effort to studying the mechanism of ammonia synthesis over iron catalysts. This program included a study of the solid iron nitricle-iron-nitrogen system from a thermodynamic and phase rule approach; a study of the chemisorption of nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide; an examination of the poisoning of iron catalysts by water vapor; a study of the distribution of promoters on the surface of the reduced catalyst; and a study of the kinetics of ammonia synthesis and decomposition.
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From page 125... ...
The outstanding nature of Paul Emmett's work was recognized by many awards, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences (1955~; honorary doctorates of
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From page 126... ...
THE WRITER OF THIS biographical memoir expresses his appreciation to the archives of Johns Hopkins University, to Alfred S Levinson of Portland State University, and to John M
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From page 127... ...
The use of van der Waals adsorption isotherms in determining the surface area of iron synthetic ammonia catalysts.
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From page 128... ...
Fischer-Tropsch synthesis mechanism studies. The addition of radioactive alcohols to the synthesis gas.
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From page 129... ...
Carbon-14 tracer studies of the secondary reactions in the cracking of hexadecane over zeolite catalysts.
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