LEWIS, WARREN K. (1882–1975)

INTRODUCTION

As a central figure in twentieth century petrochemical technology, Warren K. Lewis is widely viewed as the father of American chemical engineering. His work opened up an entirely new and powerful engineering discipline applicable across a broad range of manufacturing industries, including chemical synthesis, steel production, and power generation.

Lewis had an enormous influence on the energy industries. Along with the Russian, Vladimir Ipatieff, Lewis was pivotal in advancing petroleum refining technology. As an instructor and mentor, Lewis left his mark on three generations of chemical engineering students, many of whom entered and influenced the U.S. petroleum and petrochemical industry. As a consultant and technological innovator, Lewis directly applied his principles of chemical engineering, an essentially American development, to revamping and extending the production capability of U.S. catalytic cracking facilities. Lewis' greatest single engineering achievement was his central role during World War II in the design of the fluid catalytic cracking process, an innovation of strategic and economic importance.

THE EARLY YEARS

Warren K. Lewis was born in 1882 on a small farm in southern Delaware. Farm life exerted a strong early influence on the future engineer. Believing that after college he would return to manage the family farm, his academic goal was to learn the fundamentals of agricultural science in order to apply them in a rational manner to improve the farm's productivity. To Lewis, this meant employing a thorough understanding of the mechanical operations of advanced (i.e., efficient) equipment and tools. In 1901 Lewis entered MIT as an undergraduate with a major in mechanical engineering.

THE MIT YEARS

Soon after entering MIT, Lewis came under the influence of Professor William H. Walker, who was instituting a new and innovative program in chemical engineering. In his sophomore year, Lewis transferred to the chemical engineering program, which at that time was part of the chemistry department.

After graduation, and at the urging of Walker, Lewis won a two-year fellowship for study in Germany. Studying under the great physical chemist Abegg at the University of Breslau, Lewis obtained his doctorate in 1908 while developing a thorough grounding in the theories of and mathematical structures associated with phenomena underlying numerous industrial engineering processes.

Spending only a brief period in industry, Walker urged Lewis back to MIT in 1910 to become an assistant professor of chemical engineering. Both Walker and Lewis sought to form closer ties between the chemical engineering program and industry. To this end, and with the cooperation of the great industrial chemist A. D. Little, they established in 1916, MIT's School of Chemical Engineering Practice. The Practice School, a successor to Walker's Research Laboratory of Applied Chemistry (established at MIT in 1908), centered around practical chemical engineering instruction within operating plants in and around the New England area.

In addition to being (by all accounts) a brilliant and riveting teacher, Lewis was an innovative administrator in the cause of furthering chemical engineering at MIT. In 1920, largely due to the efforts of Walker and Lewis, MIT's chemical engineering program became a separate department, with the Practice School becoming part of the newly-formed department. In that year, Lewis became the first head of the chemical engineering department. During his nine years as department head, Lewis fought successfully for a strong, independent chemical engineering program. In their path breaking text, The Principles of Chemical Engineering (1923), Lewis and Walker for the first time systematized the engineering study of unit operations and provided a model of instruction for burgeoning chemical engineering departments. Eventually, Lewis secured for the department approval by MIT to develop a curriculum leading to a B.S. in chemical engineering, one of the first such programs in the country.

ENGINEERING, CONSULTING AND PETROLEUM PROCESSING

Lewis' influence on the U.S. energy sector evolved from his career as a consultant to the petroleum refining industry, and in particular Standard Oil of New Jersey (currently Exxon). Lewis' success as a consultant rested in large part on his ability to apply to practical problems his knowledge of and experience in industrial chemical engineering. Between 1919 and 1927, Lewis virtually restructured Jersey Standard's manufacturing operations. His work spanned both oil production and refining.

One of Lewis' first assignments was to make the distillation process more precise and continuous. By the early 1920s, Lewis introduced to Jersey Standard the use of vacuum stills. These were able to operate at lower temperatures that limited coking and fouling of equipment. Thus production engineers did not have to periodically clean out and repair equipment, which in turn facilitated the transformation of distillation from batch to continuous operations.

Lewis directed subterranean reservoir studies to improve the efficiency of extracting oil from the ground. He designed the first bubble tower to effect more precise and efficient fractionation operations and provided important assistance in developing one of the first continuous thermal cracking process.

In 1927, Lewis and Frank A. Howard, head of the Development Department at Jersey Standard, established a research center at Jersey's Baton Rouge plant to research and commercialize advanced petrochemical technology. This development marks the beginning of the Southwest as a center of petroleum-based technology. Lewis populated the facility with colleagues and graduates from MIT's Chemical Engineering Department and the Practice School. These included Robert Haslam, the head of the Practice School, who became director of Baton Rouge R&D and Eger Murphree, a protégé of Lewis, who was made Manager of Development and Research for Jersey Standard's Development Department.

In the years leading to World War II, Lewis and Haslam hired fifteen additional MIT-affiliated chemical engineers to work at the Baton Rouge plant. These men felt great loyalty to Lewis who they considered their mentor. They were instrumental in championing Lewis and his style of chemical engineering at Jersey Standard. Through the 1930s and during World War II, Lewis and Jersey's R&D people at Bayway and Baton rouge worked closely together to develop some of the most important innovations in the history of petrochemical technology. The most significant of these was fluid catalytic cracking.

WORLD WAR II, FLUID CRACKING, AND THE LATER YEARS

Fluid cracking, which began operations in 1942 and was responsible for providing the Allies with sufficient supplies of aviation fuel and synthetic rubber, was Lewis' last and greatest engineering achievement. Its successful development depended on Lewis' engineering genius, on the close relationship established between Jersey Standard and MIT by Lewis, and the ability of his protégés both within MIT and Jersey Standard to transform his core ideas and designs into commercial reality.

In addition to his work on fluid cracking, Lewis served as Vice Chairman of the Chemistry Division of the National Defense Research Committee during World War II. In this capacity, he directed chemical engineering research on problems associated with the development of the atomic bomb. Lewis officially retired from teaching in 1948, although he continued to meet with students at MIT well into his eighties. Lewis died at the age of 92 in 1975. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers, in honor of his achievements in the academic arena, established an annual award in his name for those who have made significant contributions to education in the field.

Sanford L. Moskowitz

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