Letter dated 29th January, 1945.
War still on.
… practical action at no distant date …
… new School of Chemical Engineering …
… inaugurated … next October.
1945
2008
(equivalent)
Immediate protagonists
John Oriel of Shell, Professor R.G.W. Norrish
Capital
Studentships
£435,000
£2,500 p.a.
until further
notice
£50m
£300,000
p.a.
… Norrish alleged that the whole scheme was
cooked up between him and Oriel in London pubs
during the blackout. To anyone who knew them,
the milieu seems entirely credible.
From The Cambridge Review, Feb. 1983, by P.V. Danckwerts.
T.R.C. Fox. Shell Professor 1946-1978
Innovations:
1. Chemical Engineering Syndicate…
one of those rich anomalies which
flourish in Cambridge to the
despair of the Administrators.
(P.V.D.)
2. 4 year course.
3. Tripos research projects. No large
teaching equipment.
4. Basic Science applied to chemical
engineering.
5. Staff with a range of backgrounds: chemistry, engineering,
mathematics.
4 year course started 1948
2 years
Natural Sciences Tripos
Part I
2 years
Mechanical Sciences Tripos
Part I
Year 3
Qualifying Examination
Chemical Engineering
Year 4
Chemical Engineering
Tripos
6 Papers
4 year course gave MEng after 1989.
MEng available in retrospect to those who took the 4 year course before 1989.
Cost £6 or £0.
No large equipment for teaching.
Fund of £50,000 invested.
Subsequently helped with:
1.
2.
First computer, 1960
Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 1980s
Research projects part of Tripos course from 1950
onwards, e.g.:
1.
2.
Chlorella: early biotechnology, 1952-3
Fluidisation, started 1957-8
4 year Tripos Course 1948
Basic science applied to chemical engineering
Chemical Thermodynamics
Fluid Mechanics
Reaction Engineering
Foreshadowed ‘ Transport Processes’ by Bird, Stewart & Lightfoot,
1960
Staff appointments
Knowledge of chemical engineering not essential
1948
Denbigh
Edinburgh. Imperial College. Queen Elizabeth College, London
Sellers
Swansea. Humphreys & Glasgow
Danckwerts
UKAEA. Imperial College
Kay
UKAEA. Imperial College
1951
Gray
Leeds. Gonville & Caius
1952
Armstrong
Davidson
1955
1956
1957
Hutchison
Davies
Birmingham
Turner
Exeter
Ratcliff
McGill
Harrison
Keele. Exeter. Selwyn
Wilkes
Ann Arbor
Research 1948-1959
Fox: no publications but encouraged research.
1. Hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell. F.T. Bacon.
CEGB funded for energy storage.
Larger unit at Marshall’s Airport.
Unit for Apollo project to the moon, developed by Pratt & Whitney
in USA.
2. Distillation of liquid hydrogen for HD separation. Sellers, Augood,
Ashmead.
3. Gas absorption, mixing, residence times. Danckwerts.
4. Fluidisation. Started from teaching experiment of J.M. Kay and
2 Tripos projects.
Tea breaks (after J.J. Thomson)
Togetherness.
Staff meet each other and meet research students.
Everyone exchanges ideas about science and engineering.
Autobiographical Note
By P.V. Danckwerts
I cannot claim that I was particularly diligent in my first two years, either, so that
in my third year it was necessary to do some serious work.
I did rather well in my examinations, a result which I believe gave my tutor the
idea that something was wrong with the system.
During the years 1948-54, although there was plenty of teaching to be done, I
sat on no committees and supervised only one graduate student. I look back
on this as my period of “academic indolence”, during which I had time to shove
my feet up on the desk and actually think. Such “insights” as I have experience
originated mainly in this period, stimulated by summer visits to chemical plants.
Alas, indolence is no longer in fashion in universities.
Gas-Liquid Reactions
Published 1970, McGraw-Hill
1. Established good links with IChemE – President 1965-6
Design Project included in Tripos Course.
2. Fluid Mechanics and Transport
Processes course in Part IB Natural
Sciences Tripos 1967. Parts I and II
Chemical Engineering Tripos.
3. Computer IBM 1620. Early 1960s.
4. Editor Chemical Engineering
Science.
P.V. Danckwerts GC
Shell Professor 1959-1977
Peter Danckwerts
Research Activities
1. Diffusion with and without chemical reaction, 7 papers
2. Gas Absorption and the Design of Absorbers, 17 papers
3. Reactions of Carbon Dioxide with Bases and Catalysts in
Aqueous Solution, 6 papers
4. Mixing, 6 papers
5. Residence Time Distributions and Related Topics,
6 papers. The central idea…came to me during a teabreak at Cambridge.