Lloyd Albert Quarterman (May 31, 1918 – July 1982) was an American
chemist working mainly with
fluorine
Fluorine is a chemical element with the symbol F and atomic number 9. It is the lightest halogen and exists at standard conditions as a highly toxic, pale yellow diatomic gas. As the most electronegative reactive element, it is extremely reacti ...
. During the
Second World War he was one of the first
.
Life and career
Born on May 31, 1918, in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he later attended
St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1943.
After earning his degree, Quarterman was hired to work on the
Manhattan Project. As one of the few African Americans to work on the Manhattan Project, Quarterman was chiefly responsible for the design and construction of a special distillation system for purifying large quantities of
hydrogen fluoride
Hydrogen fluoride (fluorane) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . This colorless gas or liquid is the principal industrial source of fluorine, often as an aqueous solution called hydrofluoric acid. It is an important feedstock i ...
. This hydrogen fluoride would be used to separate the
Uranium isotope U-235 for the construction of the
atomic bombs. The
U-235 that Quarterman helped accumulate was used to make
Little Boy, the uranium bomb that was exploded over
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, in 1945. After the war, Quarterman was presented with a certificate of recognition for his development of the Atom Bomb and his contribution to the conclusion of World War II.
There were two laboratories: one at the University of Chicago and one at Columbia University. At the University of Chicago, Quarterman worked under Dr. Enrico Fermi, a notable Italian physicist, while at Columbia, he worked under thee, Albert Einstein. After the war, Quarterman worked at the then newly established
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...
in
Chicago,
Illinois, where he continued to work for over 30 years. At Argonne, Quarterman was an assistant to the associate research scientist and chemist from 1943 to 1949. He assisted with the first
nuclear reactor for atomic-powered submarines. Quarterman graduated from
Northwestern University with a
Master of Science in 1952. After graduating, Quarterman continued his work with F, synthesizing new compounds by reacting F with noble gases, especially xenon. These compounds were surprising because noble gases were considered unable to combine with other atoms at the time. After several years of influential work, Lloyd Quarterman received an honorary Ph.D. in chemistry from St. Augustine’s College in 1971. He was a member of the Chicago chapter of the NAACP and gave frequent talks inspiring African Americans to pursue education in the sciences.
Notes
External sources
Black History Pages: Dr. Lloyd Quarterman
African-American scientists
Manhattan Project people
1918 births
1982 deaths
Argonne National Laboratory people
Scientists from Philadelphia
20th-century American chemists
St. Augustine's University (North Carolina) alumni
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