Ernest W. Thiele (pronounced ; 1895–1993) was an influential chemical engineering researcher at Standard Oil (then Amoco, now BP) and Professor of Chemical Engineering at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

. He is known for his highly impactful work in

chemical reaction engineering Chemical reaction engineering (reaction engineering or reactor engineering) is a specialty in chemical engineering or industrial chemistry dealing with chemical reactors. Frequently the term relates specifically to catalytic reaction systems wh ...

, complex reacting systems, and separations, including distillation theory.

Early life and education

Ernest Thiele, born on December 8, 1895, grew up in Chicago, Illinois. In 1916, he earned an A.B. degree from Loyola University in Chicago. He was stationed at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

with the U.S. Army, where he completed a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1919. In the fall of 1922, matriculated to MIT where he began graduate studies under the direction of Professor Robert T. Haslam; he earned his M.S. degree in 1923 and a doctoral degree in 1925 with a thesis on steam-carbon reactions.

Career

Before starting his graduate degree at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, Thiele worked for six months for Swift and Company in Chicago and later in Baltimore as a process analyst, before being employed with Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company as a chemical engineer from 1920 to 1922. After completing his doctoral thesis on steam-carbon reactions, he developed (jointly with McCabe) a graphical method of design for fractionating (i.e.,

distillation Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separation process, separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distilla ...

) columns as a transformational publication in ''Industrial and Engineering Chemistry'' in 1925. This approach to the design of distillation columns was rapidly adopted in undergraduate textbooks and has remained the traditional approach to teaching distillation to undergraduate chemical engineers for almost a century. Thiele joined the

Standard Oil Company Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

of Indiana (then

Amoco Amoco () is a brand of fuel stations operating in the United States, and owned by BP since 1998. The Amoco Corporation was an American chemical and oil company, founded by Standard Oil Company in 1889 around a refinery in Whiting, Indiana, a ...

, now BP) as a chemical engineer in 1925. He continued with this company for 35 years becoming an assistant director for research in 1935 and associate director for research in 1950. During the period of World War II, he contributed to numerous technologies related to nuclear materials processing and atomic energy including a heavy water extraction facility, the Lexington Project for the design of nuclear-powered aircraft, and as a consultant to the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. During 35 years at Standard Oil, Thiele exhibited remarkable creativity and produced 17 landmark publications, and 27 U.S. patents that served as the foundation of chemical engineering. Classic engineering papers include his breakthrough paper on the efficient design of distillation systems via computational methods with co-author R.L. Geddes published in 1933 in '' Industrial and Engineering Chemistry''. Further work led to the development of solvent extraction of lubricating oils. Another landmark contribution was the 1939 ''Industrial & Engineering Chemistry'' paper that described the

Thiele modulus The Thiele modulus was developed by Ernest Thiele in his paper 'Relation between catalytic activity and size of particle' in 1939.Thiele, E.W. Relation between catalytic activity and size of particle. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 31 (19 ...

, a dimensionless quantity describing the boundary between reaction-controlled and transport-controlled catalytic particles. Following retirement from Standard Oil, Thiele became a professor of chemical engineering at Notre Dame where he taught courses in thermodynamics, reactions, instrumentation, process control, and simulation. Following 10 years at Notre Dame, Thiele returned to Chicago and lived the next 27 years in the Skokie-Evanston area. Thiele died November 29, 1993, in the Presbyterian Home in Evanston.

Honors

Thiele was awarded the Founders Award by the

American Institute of Chemical Engineers The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional organization for chemical engineers. AIChE was actually established in 1908 to distinguish chemical engineers as a profession independent of chemists and mechanical engineer ...

in 1966 and elected to the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

(NAE) in 1980. In 1971, the

awarded Thiele an honorary doctorate for his many contributions to chemical engineering. He was a member of the Chicago Chemists Club and the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

, in addition to being a fellow of the

(AIChE). In 1986, the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Notre Dame established the Thiele Lectureship in Chemical Engineering. The lectureship recognizes excellent contributions to chemical engineering by young members of the chemical engineering profession. The first Thiele lecture was presented by Professor Douglas Lauffenburger, with Ernest Thiele in attendance. The lectureship is given every year, with the presenter selected by the faculty of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Key publications

Ernest Thiele has authored numerous journal articles describing significant advances in

which includes but is not limited to: *W.L. McCabe, E.W. Thiele, "Graphical Design of Fractionating Columns", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 17, 605, (1925). *E.W. Thiele, "Prediction of Flash Point of Blends of Lubricating Oils", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 19, 259, (1927). *E.W. Thiele, R.L. Geddes, "Computation of Distillation Apparatus for Hydrocarbon Mixtures", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 25, 289 (1933). *E.W. Thiele, W.B. Kay "Densities of Hydrocarbon Mixtures", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 25, 894 (1933). *M.C. Rogers, E.W. Thiele, "Pressure Drop in Bubble-Cap Columns", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 26, 524 (1934). *E.W. Thiele, "Application of Graphical Method of Ponchon to Distillation and Extraction", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 27, 392 (1935). *M.C. Rogers, E.W. Thiele, "Bubble-Cap Column as a Liquid-Liquid Contact Apparatus", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 29, 529 (1937). *E.W. Thiele, "Relation Between Catalytic Activity and Size of Particle", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 31, 916 (1939). *E.W. Thiele, "Material and Heat Transfer between a Granular Solid and Flowing Fluid", Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 38, 646 (1946).

References

External links

Ernest W. Thiele, 1985-1993 by James P. KohnChemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thiele, Ernest W. 1895 births Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering American chemical engineers University of Notre Dame faculty University of Illinois alumni 1993 deaths