Murray Raney

Murray Raney ( born October 14, 1885 in Carrollton, Kentucky; † March 3, 1966 ) was an American mechanical engineer. He developed named after him Raney nickel catalyst, which is often used for hydrogenation.

Life

His parents were William Wallace and Katherine Raney. Without having attained a high school, he attended the University of Kentucky, where he took his BA in 1909 in mechanical engineering. He then became a teacher at Eastern Kentucky State Normal College where he was responsible for the heating and lighting system also to 1910. From 1910 to 1911 he worked at the Defibrillator space of the paper mill Fort Orange Paper Company in Castleton -on-Hudson, New York. In 1911, he moved to Springfield ( Illinois) to work in the manufacture of steam engines in the AL Ide Engine Company, where he remained until 1913. In that year he moved to his permanent home to Chattanooga, Tennessee to work at the Chattanooga Railway, Light & Power Co. as a power seller.

In 1915 he came to the Lookout Oil & Refining Company, where he took up the position of Deputy Head of the hydrogen production plant for the hydrogenation of vegetable oil. During this time he began to deal with the production of what later became known as Raney catalyst. He left Lookout Oil to accept a position as a senior salesman at the Gilman Paint and Varnish Co. and later became director of the company. In 1950 he left Gilman Paint and founded the Raney Catalyst Company. He then devoted himself entirely to the production of catalysts. This company was later acquired by WR Grace and Company and produced to this day Raney nickel.

Raney married twice, firstly on June 12, 1920 Katherine Elizabeth Macrae († June 13, 1935 ), with whom he had a daughter. On March 31, 1939, he married Laura Ogden McClellan († April 13, 1953 ).

He received an honorary doctorate in 1951 and was a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Oil Chemists Society. He received six American and five European patents for the development of its catalysts and the metallurgical process for their presentation.

The development of Raney nickel

During his tenure at Lookout Oil Raney was responsible for the production of hydrogen for the hydrogenation of vegetable oils. At that time, a catalyst based on nickel ( II) oxide for hydrogenation used in the industry. Since he believed that better hydrogenation catalysts were prepared Raney began around 1921 - even during his time at Lookout Oil - with independent research in this area. In 1924 he established a alloy of nickel - silicon, which was five times more active after treatment with sodium hydroxide solution as the best known catalyst for the hydrogenation of cottonseed oil and in 1925 received a patent for it.

1926 he presented an alloy of nickel and aluminum here, also in a 1:1 ratio, according to a method similar to the nickel -silicon catalyst. This was again active. For this catalyst, which is known as Raney catalyst, he received a patent 1927.

Raneys choice of nickel / aluminum ratio was purely accidental and without any scientific background. Nevertheless, precisely this composition is used to this day. Raney said about it: "I was just lucky ... I had an idea for a catalyst, and it worked the first time ."

The Murray Raney Award

Since 1992, awards the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society ( ORCS ) the Murray Raney Award in recognition of services to the use of metal sponge catalysts in organic syntheses. The following scientists have so far been awarded:

• Mechanical Engineer
• University teachers (Richmond, Kentucky)
• Americans
• Born 1885
• Died in 1966
• Man