|
Items in cart [4] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 146
OCR for page 147
PERCIVAL CLEVELAND KEITH, JR
1900-1976
BY MANSON BENEDICT
.
PERCIVAL CLEVELAND KEITH JR retired Founder and President of
Hydrocarbon Research, Inc., died in Peapack, New Jersey, on July
9, 1976. Throughout his long professional career, he was a brilliant
engineering innovator. He pioneered in the development of petro-
leum refining processes, first thermal cracking and reforming, then,
in the years just preceding and during World War II, in catalytic
processes for converting petroleum to aviation and automotive fuels
and to chemicals such as ammonia, methanol, and butadiene. Later
he did original work on synthetic fuels and the use of hydrogen for
improvement of petroleum derivatives and reduction of ores to
metals. His most notable engineering achievement was the inspiring
leadership he gave to development and engineering of the K-25
Gaseous Diffusion Plant for production of uranium-235, whose suc-
cessful operation did so much to bring victory in World War II.
Percival C. Keith, fir., was born in Tyler, Texas, on December 24,
1900. His father was a well-to-do pharmacist, born in Scotland. His
mother wrote poetry in her free moments. Both parents were deter-
mined that their precocious son should have the best education
obtainable in Sherman, Texas, where the family had moved. A local
retired French engineering officer, Captain LeTellier, who had been
a French military attache in Washington and later taught in Sher-
man, was engaged as young Keith's tutor. LeTellier instilled in
Percival Keith his lifelong interest in history, philosophy, and sci-
ence. Many of Mr. Keith's professional associates remember the
147
OCR for page 148
148
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
quotation from Heraclitus framed on his office wall: "There is noth-
ing permanent but change." Without formal schooling, Percival
Keith entered Austin College in Sherman at age sixteen and gradu-
ated in three years with an A.B. degree in English.
His interest in engineering was kindled by the growing oil p~roduc-
tion of Texas. He entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in 1919 and spent three exciting years there taking all the
courses he could manage in mathematics, chemistry, and engineer-
ing. He was greatly influenced by MIT's legendary chemical engi-
neer, Warren K. Lewis, whose dynamic personality so closely
matched his own. It was at MIT that Percival Keith acquired the
nickname "Dobie," which he was called for the rest of his life.
Mr. Keith's professional advancement was rapid. He worked in
the research laboratory of the Texas Company for a year and in the
field for Universal Oil Products Company for two years. From 1925
to 1927 he was Vice-President for Operations for the Cross Engi-
neering Company. In 1927 he joined the M. W. Kellogg Company,
one of the leading U.S. engineering firms, as Chief Engineer. In
1929 he left Kellogg to form his own company, Refinery Engineers,
in Kansas City. In 1932 he returned to Kellogg in New York as Vice-
President for Research and Engineering. The early 1930s was the
period of rapid growth for petroleum refining, and Keith and Kel-
logg pioneered in the development of thermal cracking and reform-
ing and delayed coking. Later, with other companies, Keith and
Kellogg contributed to the development of catalytic cracking, cata-
lytic reforming, and catalytic polymerization of olefins. Kellogg's
catalytic reforming process, under the trademark Hydroforming,
was a major source of toluene for production of TNT during the
early years of World War II. Prior to 1946 Mr. Keith was issued
more than forty patents on petroleum refining processes.
Mr. Keith's involvement with uranium-235 began immediately
after Pearl Harbor, late in 1941. At that time he was invited to join
the planning board of the S-1 Committee of the Office of Scientific
Research and Development, headed by Eger V. Murphree, Vice-
President for Research of Standard Oil Company (New Jersey),
who had worked with Mr. Keith on petroleum refining projects. Mr.
Keith was asked to evaluate and undertake engineering develop-
OCR for page 149
PERCIVAL CLEVELAND KEITH, JR.
149
ment of the gaseous diffusion process for separating uranium-235,
one of the several processes being considered for production of mate-
rials for an atomic bomb.
The work of Mr. Keith and his associates at Kellogg in 1942 was
reviewed in December of that year by a committee, headed by W. K.
Lewis, which had been appointed by Leslie R. Groves, Command-
ing General of the Manhattan Project. Mr. Keith convinced first
Lewis and then Groves that the gaseous diffusion process could
succeed. Kellogg was asked to form a subsidiary company, the Kel-
lex Corporation, to complete development and engineering of a full-
scale diffusion plant to produce uranium-235. Mr. Keith served as
Vice-President and Technical Director.
The task was monumental. The only compound of uranium that
could be used was the hexafluoride, a corrosive gas that reacted with
water and attacked steel. Although gaseous diffusion appeared to be
the best process, it was very inefficient. A plant to produce useful
amounts of uranium-235 would have several thousand stages and
would use enormous amounts of electric power. It would be neces-
sary to develop a special diffusion barrier with ultrafine holes made
of material that would not react with uranium hexafluoride. Pumps,
valves, heat exchangers, and instruments of novel design would have
to be developed. And a smoothly operating plant with thousands of
stages of such novel equipment would have to be designed, built,
and put into operation in two years.
The success of this unprecedented engineering venture would
have been impossible without Mr. Keith's dynamic leadership. He
understood the exacting requirements of the process. His personal
conviction that the plant would be successful and the example he
gave of determination to overcome enormous difficulties persuaded
some of the best chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineers of
the country to join the Kellex Corporation and, with him, to solve
the many technical problems of the Oak Ridge diffusion plant. He
led this team of expert engineers with consummate skill, setting
overall objectives, making key decisions, and contributing many
original ideas.
To this day, the gaseous diffusion process that he pioneered is the
process most widely used for enriching uranium-235.
OCR for page 150
150
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Even while he was leading the Kellex team, Mr. Keith was plan-
ning his postwar activities. In 1943 he formed a new company,
Hydrocarbon Research, Inc. (HRI), to develop new processes for
synthesizing liquid fuels from natural gas or coal. He served as
President of this company from 1943 until his retirement in 1964.
The Carthage Hydrocol plant, built by Hydrocarbon Research at
Brownsville, Texas, in the 1950s to convert natural gas to gasoline by
the Fischer-Tropsch process, proved uneconomical. But the partial
oxidation process, originally developed for production of synthesis
gas (carbon monoxide plus hydrogen) at Brownsville, was adapted
to make synthesis gas from residual oil or coal and was licensed by
HRI and its partner, Texaco, in more than seventy plants through-
out the world. The principal use has been to make hydrogen for
ammonia synthesis and other commercial purposes. Another off-
shoot from Brownsville was the H-Iron direct reduction process for
making powdered iron from iron oxides in a fluid bed.
Two other processes utilizing hydrogen were commercialized dur-
ing Mr. Keith's later years as President of HRI. One of these was
the H-Oil process for hydrodesulfurization and hydrocracking of
heavy and residual oils. The other was the HDA process, jointly
developed with Atlantic-Richfield, for the manufacture of benzene
from toluene by hydrodealkylation. After retirement in 1964, Mr.
Keith remained active in engineering through work on projects for
secondary recovery of petroleum by injection of carbon dioxide.
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1968.
He was also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engi-
neers, American Chemical Society, American Gas Association, Soci-
ety for Chemical Industry (American Section), and American
Association for the Advancement of Science. He obtained more than
seventy patents and wrote several articles on petroleum refining, the
Manhattan Project, oxygen production, and synthetic fuels. He
received honorary Ph.D. degrees from Austin College in 1946 and
from Colby College in 1947.
Mr. Keith was an extraordinarily dynamic man, with a restless,
far-reaching mind. He worked long hours and expected similar dedi-
cation from his associates. Stories of his absorption in his work are
legend. He once gave a design problem to one of his mechanical
OCR for page 151
PERCIVAL CLEVELAND KEITH, JR.
151
engineers. Two days later Mr. Keith called and asked for the solu-
tion. The engineer told him that he had been too busy to work on it.
Said Keith, "God bless you my friend. What do you think about
when you shave in the morning?"
Despite his absorption in his work, he had a full personal life. The
Keith family home, Windfall, was a small farm with an apple
orchard, where sheep, cattle, chickens, and turkeys were raised. He
kept horses and rode with the Essex fox hounds. He was a gourmet
cook, and a very proud possession was a rare original edition of the
classic cookbook written by the legendary French chef, Escoffier. He
is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and by his children, Percival III,
Christopher, and Martha (by his wife Martha, who died in 1939)
and Mac and Dennis (by his wife Ann, who died in 1974.)
Representative terms from entire chapter:
petroleum refining
