Eger Vaughan Murphree (November 3, 1898 – October 29, 1962) was an American chemist, best known for his co-invention of the process of

fluid catalytic cracking Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is the conversion process used in petroleum refineries to convert the high-boiling point, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum (crude oils) into gasoline, olefinic gases, and other petroleum prod ...

Biography

Murphree was born on November 3, 1898, in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Located in the Gateway Region, Bayonne is situated on a peninsula located between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York Bay to the east. As of ...

, moving as a child to Kentucky. He graduated from Kentucky University with degrees in chemistry and mathematics in 1920, and a master's degree in chemistry in 1921. Murphree played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

as Kentucky as a

tackle Tackle may refer to: * In football: ** Tackle (football move), a play in various forms of football ** Tackle (gridiron football position), a position in American football and Canadian football ** Dump tackle, a forceful move in rugby of picking ...

and was captain of the

1920 Kentucky Wildcats football team The 1920 Kentucky Wildcats football team represented the University of Kentucky as a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA) during the 1920 college football season. Led by first-year head coach William Juneau, the Wil ...

. After teaching physics and math and coaching football for a year at Paris High School in Paris, Illinois, Murphree spent several years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a staff assistant and research associate in the Chemical Engineering Department. In 1930, he joined what was then Standard Oil of New Jersey. During the Second World War Murphree was a member of the committee that organized the Manhattan Project and was widely recognized as a leader in the fields of synthetic toluene, butadiene and hydrocarbon synthesis, fluid cat cracking, fluid hydroforming, and fluid coking. He was also involved in the early Manhattan Project as a member of the

S-1 Section The S-1 Executive Committee laid the groundwork for the Manhattan Project by initiating and coordinating the early research efforts in the United States, and liaising with the Tube Alloys Project in Britain. In the wake of the discovery of nucle ...

. Murphree was head of the centrifuge project (soon abandoned) and overall engineer for the Manhattan Project in June 1942. He struck Deputy District Engineer Kenneth Nichols as "more like the industrial engineers I was accustomed to dealing with. He was stable, conservative, thorough and precise". He was to have been on the Lewis Committee reviewing the entire project in November 1942, but was sick. He (and James Conant) disagreed with the committee recommendation to build only a small electromagnetic plant, and a full-size plant was built. In the 1950s he served in the Defense Department on scheduling missiles and coordinating the programs of the three services (as Nichols had done earlier). From 1947 to 1962 he served as Vice President of research and engineering Standard Oil of New Jersey, the company later known as

Exxon ExxonMobil Corporation (commonly shortened to Exxon) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, and was formed on November 30, ...

. Among his awards were the Perkin Medal in 1950 and the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) Medal in 1953. The

E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry The E. V. Murphree Award is an annual award presented by the American Chemical Society for outstanding research of a theoretical or experimental nature in the fields of industrial chemistry or chemical engineering. The award comes with a $5000 pri ...

awarded annually by the American Chemical Society is named in his honor. Murphree died on October 29, 1962, at

Overlook Hospital A scenic viewpoint – also called an observation point, viewpoint, viewing point, vista point, lookout, scenic overlook,These terms are more commonly used in North America. etc. – is an elevated location where people can view scenery (often w ...

Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...

of coronary thrombosis.

Legacy

Murphree was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1999.

References

External links

Eger V. Murphree
* ''Method of and Apparatus for Contacting Solids and Gases'', October 19, 1948 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Murphree, Eger V. 1898 births 1962 deaths 20th-century American chemists 20th-century American educators 20th-century American inventors American football tackles High school football coaches in Illinois Kentucky Wildcats football players Manhattan Project people Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff Schoolteachers from Illinois Sportspeople from Bayonne, New Jersey Coaches of American football from Kentucky Players of American football from Kentucky