OKCHE SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS SCIENCE THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

CONTENTS MAY 1975

This project's a gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . 2

His name is Sam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Alumni notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 CEMS notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I 1

Energy related research.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I 2

This projects a gas Cavemen worked t h e hardest; they rubbed sticks and rocks together. Later some intelligent or tired soul invented matches and made life a little easier. Then later we had gas and coal and oil and eventually Franklin with his kite brought us electricity. Fancier and fancier--the human mind is never content to rest, particularly when saving human energy is a goal.

Energy these days is a sore subject. Where once it was simple, with sticks, gas, and electricity, our needs have escalated and it is now a political issue.' An interesting point is that while our needs are more sophisticated, some of the solutions to our energy p ro -b l ems s e e m m o r e simplistic. The engineering isn't simplistic, but the energy resources are.

O n e o f t h e m o r e f u n d a m e n t a l of those

resources has been responsible in recent months for the strange odors emanating from CEMS labs. It's the odor of cow manure being bio-gasified to methane, a project which is being developed as an entry into a national competition c a l l e d SCORE-Student Competitions on Relevant Engineering.

This year's theme is Energy Resource Alternatives, and C E M S s t u d e n t s h a v e submit ted a proposal in competition with students from other universities. They have won a $2,000 grant to help fund the project.

Bio-gasification of wastes into methane, while not a new idea, has not been extensively developed in the U.S. The process actually occurs in two stages with each stage performed by a different

FEED

H20

HEAT

Overall Process: Anaerobic

URINE

MANURE

group of bacteria. The first group, called the "acid formers," converts complex organics such as fat, proteins, and carbohydrates into soluble organic acids. A second group of bacteria, called "methane formers," converts the organic acids to gaseous products, mainly methane and carbon dioxide.

The process (illustrated) has been previously considered economically unfeasible. H o w e v e r , s o m e n e w technology is being developed t o i m p l e m e n t t h e bio-gasification process on an economical basis, and Calorific Recovery Anaerobic Process in Oklahoma City is building a bi o -gasification plant near several feedlots in the panhandle area of Oklahoma. The proposed anaerobic digestion facility will produce

methane at double the current price, but the process has become more justifiable in the light of upcoming energy shortages.

The CEMS project calls for design of a small-scale unit which will produce and process methane gas into direct use in a dairy. Data acquisition on a pilot unit (right photo) is presently being carried out to provide some basis for the design and subsequent fabrication of the proposed unit, and farmers who use the unit will advise the CEMS students on the convenience and value of the ' apparatus so that the group can effect improvement.

A remarkable feature of this system is that 1% cost is relatively low. Raw materials cost nothing and their abundance is staggering. Furthermore, the by-produd can be utilized as valuable fertilizer sludge. There are

many possibilities of which the farmer could make use at a cost far less than that of other energy sources. Experience gained from the operation of this apparatus will provide the basis for further decreases in energy production cost.

Lower costs are imperative. One of the major problems with a l t e r n a t i v e energy resources has always been cost. This particular system not only has the possibility of competing with current energy systems, but it also has a coincident neatness-using the by-products of farming to further the process.

tion of Manure to Methane METHANE

ANAEROBIC DIGESTER

ACID FORMERS METHANE FORMERS

BUGS (BACTERIA)

4 Qin

FERTILIZER * Where )I = growth rate of each bacterial species

Glen Blackburn, senior, (left), Mike Brulk, senior, and Bernie Van Wie, junior, at work on the bio-gasification project. The tank holds the cow manure and the water bed in the frame b e h i n d Bernie holds the product-methane gas.

*

His r Those of you who saw the lame is Sam movie, "The Sound of Music," will remember the irrepressible

Author: Anonymous Maria a b o u t whom the convent nuns sang. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" Well, we have our own will-o'-the-wisp in CEMS--his name is Sam.

Sam Sofer came to us from the University of Texas. He had cut his hair and wore a sport coat with tie for his interview in April 1974, and we thought CEMS was getting a fairly square young faculty member. We should have been suspicious when he was so turned on by the fact that we encourage our faculty to experiment with new teaching methods at every opportunity. And, when on his recruiting trip, Sam talked the Graduate College, t h e Engineering College and CEMS out of $3,000 each for seed money t o s e t u p his enzyme t e c hnology laboratory, we should have realized that more-much more--would follow. But what the heck, we thought he might help the CEMS four-mile relay team so we hired him.

Sam arrived on campus a month before classes (and his contract) were to begin in the fall of 1974. He said he wanted to get a head start in setting up his laboratory. In retrospect he was probably just broke for midway through August he pointed out what an enormous amount of work he was doing at zero pay and "just wondered" if there might be a few dollars hidden somewhere to help him. What could we do? Let Sam work so hard for nothing? Of course not.

In our scheduling of courses for the 1974-75 academic year , we had accounted for the fact that Art Aldag would be on leave a t P h i l l i p s Pe t ro leum Company by offering Kinetics

over the Televised Instruction System (from Bill Crynes at OSU) and having Sam teach Rate Operations. Then, in August, Sam explained how much time it would take for him to prepare for Rate Operations and how much he loved and wanted to teach Kinetics. What a small problem. We merely hired Mohamed El-Kaissy as a visiting assistant professor t o teach in the Rate Operations area, and allowed Sam to teach Kinetics. We also a l lowed Sam t o teach Introduction to Engineering (just a 2-hour course) to our incoming freshmen. We figured this would still give him plenty of time for tennis.

Somehow Sam fooled the naive s tudents with his teaching. Course evaluation forms showed t h a t his s t uden t s considered his teaching effectiveness far above the Engineering College average. Why t h e high ranking? Could i t have been due to the fact that Sam encourages the freshmen to get out on their own and i n t e r v i e w p r o f e s s o r s University-wide and invite as speakers those professors who are do ing energy-related research and other things in which they are interested? Or, for the seniors, could it be the exciting projects in which they are involved?

Between jogging, tennis and bike riding, Sam somehow has found time to carry out some other activities. He and a number of undergraduates, including freshmen, decided to just have a good time developing and manning C E M S s c i e n c e . d a y demonstrations for visiting high school students last fall.

The visitors voted the CEMS demonstrat ions tops and Sam's bunch won the keg of beer supplied by Engineering College Dean Upthegrove. Sam also got interested in the SCORE project competition (see related article) and talked senior Mike Brule' into writing a proposal concerning the d e v e l o p m e n t o f a bio-gasification unit using cow manure to produce methane. The proposal received the maximum grant of $2,000. By the end of February and Engineer's Week, our students had been able to get only a few items for the SCORE project, mostly surplus, but somehow they put together a pro t o t y p e digestor which yielded combustible gas to power a gaslight and won second prize in the Open House competition.

Sam and Jim Christensen took eight students to the AIChE national meeting, March 16-20, by renting and driving an OU station wagon instead of flying to Houston. The students thought that was a very congenial gesture.

Bull shooting, of the verbal kind, is another of Sam's attributes. He has put some of it on paper in the form of seven research proposals. The National Institute of Mental Health evidently recognizes his sort of bull shooting because they rejected his proposal. So did t h e American Chemical S o c i e t y . However, t h e National Institutes of Health and The National Science Foundat ion are seriously co nsidering funding major projects in enzyme technology u n d e r Sam's d i rec t ion . Internally, Sam is batting a high percentage, for although his equipment grant proposal was not submitted t o NSF by OU, Sam was awarded a grant for research by the OU Research Council and is one of

t e n professors in t h e University who have been awarded Jun io r Faculty S u m m e r R e s e a r c h Fellowships.

Try as we might, it just hasn't been possible to keep Sam out of departmental a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a n d decision-making activities. He wants to help Mark Townsend s e l e c t n o m i n e e s f o r undergraduate scholarships. He pushed for about six s t ra ight weeks in CEMS faculty meetings until we finally approved our PhD G e n e r a l E x a m i n a t i o n Procedures. He wanted to see . us do a better job with student employment. He wanted to make about a zillion changes in the graduate program.

How do you solve a problem like Sam? Well, we found a way. We made Sam coordinator of the CEMS graduate program to give him something to do between jogging, tennis, bike riding, courses, research, papers and proposal writing. As CEMS graduate program coordinator, he will be directly responsible fo r graduate recruitment, g r a d u a t e f e l l o w s h i p administration, hiring of graduate assistants, graduate advising, graduate curriculum d e v e l o p m e n t , and t h e development of the CEMS g r a d u a t e p rog ram f o r non-curriculum BS students. Gotcha Sam!

Alumni notes We are vitally interested in knowing where you are and what you're doing. Please fill out one o f the enclosed information cards and send it to us. We will publish the i n f o r m a t i o n in our fall newsletter.

W. JACK ANDERSON, B.S., '43, is manager of operations manufacturing of Amoco International Oil Company ( S u b of S t anda rd Oil Company) in Chicago. He and his wife have two sons, ages 24 and 29. He is a 197475 OkChe member.

LEO L. BAKER, B.S. '38, is self employed and lives in Dallas. He was the first engineer recipient of Alumni Hall of Fame in October 1973. He is also a 1974-75 Century Club member of OkChe.

THOMAS D. BARBOUR, B.S. '50, is president of Allied Materials Corporation in Oklahoma City. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

ALLEN L. BLANCETT, B.S. '61, M.S. '62, Ph.D. '66, is research and development supervisor of Dacron Research Lab with DuPont in Kinston, North Carolina. He and his wife, Gail, have two children, Kent, 1 1 and Karen, 7. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

JOHN H. BLEY, B.S. '73, is base fuels officer in the United States Air Force at Bergstron Air Force Base, Texas.

Zane J o h n s o n , a 1947 graduate of the University with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering, has been elected president of the OkChe Board of Directors. He is executive vice president of Gulf Oil Corporation and has been with t h e c o m p a n y s ince his graduation. Johnson, his wife Jean, and their three children now live in La Jolla, California.

Elected to membership on the OkChe board of directors this spring was Richard (Dick) G. Askew (B.S. '47, M.S. '48). Dick is manager in charge of

Zane Johnson Chemicals Group Planning and Budgeting o f Phillips Petrole- u m Company in Bartlesville.

Other members of the board are Harold Bible (B.S. ' 3 8 ) , Monsanto Company; Garman Kimmell (B.S. '36, M.S. '37), Kimrey Corpor- ation; William P. Orr (B.S. '40), L u m m u s Company; Charles Perry (B.S. '51), Perry Gas Processers, Inc. ; Bob Vaughan (B.S. '63), California Institute of Technology; and Frank Wolf (B.S. '61, M.S. '62), Esso Production Re- search company. Ken Starling, CEMS director, is an ex off icio member.

DOUGLAS J. BOURNE, B.S. '44, is executive vice president of Duval Corporation in Houston. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

JOHN W. BOWLES, JR., B.S. '54, lives in Flint, Texas, and i s s a l e s m a n a g e r f o r Howe-Baker Engineers Inc. in Tyler, Texas. He is married and has three children. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

JASPER A. BRUNDEGE, B.S. '54, lives in Roanoke, Virginia, and is employed with Hayes, Seay, Mattern and Mattern. He is a 197475 OkChe member.

JOSEPH A. BURKE, B.S. '51, is manufacturing and technical manager-plastic products with DuPont in Wilmington, Delaware . He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, B o b b y e (University of Pennsylvania, B.A. '68, M.A. '71) who is an assistant professor of Art History at Philadelphia Community College. They have a daughter, Monica, who graduated from Alfred University in Spring '74.

RANDY BUTTRAM, B.S. '72, M.S. '75, is a chemical engineer with Continental Oil Company in Ponca City.

CHEN-HWA CHIU, M.S. '64, Ph.D. '70, is senior process engineer in t h e Process D e p a r t m e n t , Cryogenic System Division of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Nai-Hui, have a son, Edison, born January 1974.

DEAN B. CUNNINGHAM, B.S. '63, resides in Everson, Washington, and is a project e n g i n e e r w i t h A n v i l Corporat ion in Ferndale, Washington. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

GILBERT W. DENISON, B.S. '57, M.S. '58, Ph.D. '62, is an e n g i n e e r i n g labora tory manager for TREMCO, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio. He and his wife, Rene, have 4 children, Brian 17, who is planning on entering OU in September 1975, Greg 15, Alice 1 3 and Ronald 9.

RICHARD A. HALL, B.S. '63, is soap operations manager for P r o c t e r a n d G a m b l e Manufacturing Company in Chicago. He lives in Arlington Heights with his wife and two children, Kim 11, and Scott 8. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

WALTER M. FORD, B.S. '71, resides in Bullhead City, Arizona, and is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

CHARLES E. FRANKLIN, B.S. '50, is vice president of sales with Occidental Chemical Company in Houston.

G. I. FREEZE, B.S. '43, is employed wi th Phillips Pe t ro leum Company in London, England.

ROBERT G . GOINS, B.S. '58, is director of manufacturing f o r In te rna t iona l Paper Company in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

CHUCK GILMORE, B.S. '70, is a project engineer with T r e n d C o n s t r u c t i o n Corporation in Oklahoma City. He and his wife, Shirley, have a daughter, Amy, 2. He is a 197475 OkChe member.

LARRY E. GLASGOW, B.S. '58, is an engineer with Howe-Baker Engineers, Inc. in Tyler, Texas. He and his wife, R u t h Ann, have th r ee children.

FRED HALL, B.S. '71, is an ins t rument engineer with Universa l Oil Products Company in Des Plaines, Illinois. He and his wife, Glenda, reside in St. Croix, U.S.V.I. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

MONTE D. HART, B.S. '73, lives in Milwaukee and is a metallurgical engineer for Ladish Company in Cudahy. He married Valarie Hobson May 25,1974.

HENRY W. HENNIGAN, B.S. '45 , is section director, p e t r o l e u m engineering, computing department for Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville. His youngest son will be entering OU as a freshman in September 1975. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

WARREN HUANG, Ph.D. '71, lives in Anaheim, California, a n d w o r k s f o r F luor Corporation in Los Angeles. He is a 1974-75 Century Club member of OkChe.

KHOSROW JATALA, M.S., is a research and development engmeer with Dow Chemical Company in Freeport, Texas. He and his wife, Peggy, have a daughter, Sara, 1 3 months.

V. WAYNE JONES, B.S. '51, is executive vice president of Perry Gas Companies, Inc. in Odessa. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

GARY A. KILPATRICK, B.S. '66, M.S. '68, is senior project analyst engineer for Phillips Pe t ro leum Company in Bartlesville. He is a 1974-75 OkChe member.

ROBERT A. KING, B.S. '35, is president of King-Wilkinson, Inc. in Houston. He is a 1 9 7 4 - 7 5 Century Club member of OkChe.

continued on page 9

Lectureship The Harry G. Fair Memorial established Lecture has been established by Mrs. Jane Swift Fair as a memorial to her late husband, an outstanding alumnus of the Univers i ty and former president of the board of directors of OkChe. The lectureship is provided by the Harry G. Fair Memorial Fund and will feature each year a distinguished guest speaker who has excelled in the atmosphere of corporations involved in engineering-related activities.

In Memoriam-Harry Fair

A major motivation in the establishment of the lectureship was that future e n g i n e e r s h a v e t h e opportunity of exposure to individuals with backgrounds similar to that of H ~ G Fair. Mr. Fair recognized the need t o translate the seeming complexity in corporations to the technical training of an engineer and had expressed the wish to spend some of his time after retirement visiting with future engineers and discussing this side of their careers. His death at age 58 did not allow him to carry out this wish. Through Mrs. Fair's contribution, however, it is significant tha t Stanley Learned, corporate executive and an individual known and admired by Harry Fair, accepted the invitation to present the first guest lecture.

Harry Fair was a native of Okmulgee and a 1939 graduate of OU with a B.S. d e g r e e i n c h e m i c a l engineering. He had joined Phillips Petroleum Company following his graduation and had worked his way up to the position of vice president for supply and transportation and, concurrently, president of Phillips Pipeline Company. In 1966, he joined the M. W. Kellogg Company, a division of Pullman Incorporated, as executive vice president. As such he was in charge of engineering, procurement and cons trudion activities. He b e c a m e executive vice president of Pullman Inc. in 1968 and then in 1971, joined Coastal States Gar Corp. as president, the position he held at the time of his death in July 1974. He was a member of a number of professional societies and was a licensed professional engineer.