A little history today.  Not too far back.

Back around 1900, a new chemical company was forming- Engelhard.  Right about the time industrial chemists were finding out they needed a lot more engineering to scale up and produce the chemicals the world would need.  And, chemical engineering was born about the same time.

I’m old enough (or started school early enough) to have been educated as a ChemE by folks who never earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering.  Because back in the 10’s, 20’s, and even the 30’s, there were no (and then only two) schools that offered such a degree.  One of the smartest ChemE’s I ever met was Hoyt C. Hottel- a non-PhD ChemE who elucidated the “science” of combustion, and was among the first (and oldest) professors of ChemE at MIT.

But, I digress.

Let’s go back to Engelhard.  This Fortune 500 entity dealt with chemicals and metallurgy.   They had the great fortune of hiring John J. Mooney, a local New Jersey fellow.

Mooney was a poorish fellow, who started out working for New Jersey’s Public Service Gas and Electric (where his dad worked) and eventually graduated from a local college- Seton Hall University- with a degree in chemistry.  But, he continued on, earning a Master’s in ChemE (1960) from the Newark College of Engineering.  (NCE was never in the upper echelons of education, but managed to graduate engineers who made things happen.  [My cousin, Eddie Singer, was one such fellow, too, performing great services to GE’s aviation division.])

(By the way, Mooney also earned a Master’s degree in marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson, years later in 1992.)

About 10 years after Mooney earned his ChemE degree and was working for Engelhard (his first year there, he invented a process to recover hydrogen from liquid ammonia, which let the Air Force use the material for its weather balloons) car emissions became a big issue.  Not only were we powering our vehicles with leaded fuel, but incomplete combustion was filling the atmosphere with all sorts of pollutants.  America began outlawing leaded fuel, so car manufacturers had to retool their engines to run on unleaded fuel and to emit far less pollutants.  (Except for Chrysler Corporation, which was (perpetually?) on the brink of financial disaster, which got a pass for five years, tweaking its engines to emit far less pollutants even with leaded fuel- giving it the cash and time to join the rest of the automotive industry with its ‘great leap forward’.)

What was this great leap forward?

A catalytic converter.  This three-way converter has been deemed by the Society of Automotive Engineers to be among the 10 most important innovations in the history of cars and trucks.  Invented by none other than John Mooney.  This first device is credited with reducing 99% of the smog components and soot than those that prevailed in 1970.

The first converters only dealt with carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons- but the 1970 Clear Air Act also stipulated that nitrogen oxides emissions needs to be stopped, too. That’s just what Carl Keith and John Mooney developed (with assistance from Antonio Eleazar and Phil Messina)- proving the device’s worth by testing it on a 1973 Volvo station wagon.

The big problem?  To eradicate the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, the solution was to add oxygen.  Oops- to reduce the nitrogen oxide levels required one to remove the oxygen.  Cross purposes for sure.  But Mooney’s team solved that dilemna.  Using  a honeycombed structure, comprised of ceramics, coated with platinum and rhodium oxides.

Why a honeycomb?

The geometry of the honeycomb minimizes the material needed, which means minimal costs and weight.  The hollow cells ensure that the tortuous flow through the structure contacts the walls (ensuring gas reaction with the catalysts, eradicating the pollutants).

Oh, wait.  I forgot to tell you something else Mooney et. al.  did.  They added a computerized feedback loop to the engine, which afforded a 12% increase in fuel savings!

And, so, in 1976, Engelhard was helping put one of these devices on every car traveling down the assembly line.

Over the course of his 43 year association with Engelhard, Mooney developed 17 patents. In 2002, the year before he retired, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his catalytic converter.

Mooney and his team didn’t stop with cars, either.  They solved the pollution dilemna for two-stroke engines (hand saws, leaf blowers, weed trimmers, and some lawn mowers).  Knocking the emissions down by 60%, increasing their power and fuel efficiency- and lowering the noise pollution by some 80%!

A few years later, BASF swallowed up Engelhard- and you now see the BASF logo along the side of the New Jersey Turnpike in northern New Jersey.

More importantly- especially to John- was his world-wide campaign to eradicate the use of lead-augmented fuels. (He told the American Institute of Chemical Engineers how important he considered this mission [2005].)

John died on 16 June 2020, at the age of 90, due to complications of a stroke.

His sobriquet?   ‘If you don’t think there’s a solution, then you just haven’t asked the right questions.’

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