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.

Biography

Murphree was born on November 3, 1898, in Bayonne, New Jersey, 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 as Kentucky as a tackle 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 Paris is a city in Edgar County, Illinois, south of Chicago and west of Indianapolis. The population was 8,291 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat and largest city of Edgar County. History Paris was established in 1826 on land donated ...

, Murphree spent several years at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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 ...

as a staff assistant and research associate in the Chemical Engineering Department. In 1930, he joined what was then

Standard Oil of New Jersey ExxonMobil, an American multinational oil and gas corporation presently based out of Texas, has had one of the longest histories of any company in its industry. A direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the company traces its roo ...

. During the Second World War Murphree was a member of the committee that organized the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

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. 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 Major General Kenneth David Nichols CBE (13 November 1907 – 21 February 2000), also known by Nick, was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb du ...

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. Among his awards were the

Perkin Medal The Perkin Medal is an award given annually by the Society of Chemical Industry (American Section) to a scientist residing in America for an "innovation in applied chemistry resulting in outstanding commercial development." It is considered the ...

in 1950 and the

Industrial Research Institute Innovation Research Interchange (IRI) is a division of the National Association of Manufacturers, a nonprofit association based in Washington, D. C., United States. IRI was founded as a private non-profit in 1938 and merged with the NAM in 2022. ...

(IRI)

Medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...

in 1953. The E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry awarded annually by 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 ...

is named in his honor. Murphree died on October 29, 1962, at Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey of

coronary thrombosis Coronary thrombosis is defined as the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel of the heart. This blood clot may then restrict blood flow within the heart, leading to heart tissue damage, or a myocardial infarction, also known as a heart at ...

Legacy

Murphree was inducted into the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...

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