Murray Raney
Encyclopedia
Murray Raney was an American
mechanical engineer
born in Carrollton, Kentucky
. He was the developer of a nickel
catalyst that became known as Raney nickel
, which is often used in industrial processes and scientific research for the hydrogenation
of multiple covalent bond
s present in molecule
s.
, he obtained his Bachelor's degree
in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky
in 1909. Following his graduation he became a teacher
at the Eastern Kentucky State Normal College
and was also in charge of the heating and lighting facilities there until 1910.
From 1910 until 1911 he worked in the beater
room of the Fort Orange Paper Company in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York
. In 1911 he moved to Springfield, Illinois
to work in the production of steam engine
s at A. L. Ide Engine Company, where he stayed until 1913. That same year he moved to his final residence in Chattanooga, Tennessee
, to work for the Chattanooga Railway, Light & Power Co as a power
salesman.
Raney joined the Lookout Oil & Refining Company in 1915. He was assigned to work as an assistant manager in the production of hydrogen
used in the hydrogenation
of vegetable oils. It was during this time he started to work in the preparation of what later became known as "Raney" catalysts. He left Lookout Oil in 1925 to take a sales manager position at Gilman Paint and Varnish Co., eventually becoming president of the company. In 1950 he left Gilman Paint and founded the Raney Catalyst Company. He then started to dedicate full time to the production of his catalysts. This company was bought by W.R. Grace and Company in 1963 and still produces Raney nickel
to this day.
Raney was twice married, first on June 12, 1920, to Katherine Elizabeth Macrae (d. June 13, 1935) with whom he had one daughter. His second marriage was to Laura Ogden McClellan (d. April 13, 1953) on March 31, 1939. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science
degree in 1951. He was member of the American Chemical Society
and the American Oil Chemists' Society. He was granted a total of six American and five Europe
an patent
s for the development of his catalysts and metallurgical processes needed for their preparation.
. Believing that better catalysts could be produced, around 1921 he started to perform independent research on this matter while still working for Lookout Oil. In 1924 he produced a nickel-silicon
alloy
which, after being treated with sodium hydroxide, was found to be five times more active than the best catalyst used in the hydrogenation of cottonseed oil
. He was granted a US patent for this discovery in 1925.
In 1926 Raney produced a nickel-aluminium
alloy, also in a 1:1 ratio
, following a procedure similar to the one used for the nickel-silicon catalyst, and he found that the resulting catalyst was even more active than the previous one. This catalyst, now commonly known now as Raney nickel
, was the subject of a patent he obtained in 1927.
It may be of interest to note that Raney's choice of nickel-aluminium ratio was fortuitous and without any real scientific basis. However, this is the preferred alloy composition for production of Raney nickel catalysts currently in use. To this, Raney himself said in an interview "I was just lucky... I had an idea for a catalyst and it worked the first time."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mechanical engineer
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
born in Carrollton, Kentucky
Carrollton, Kentucky
Carrollton is a town in Carroll County, Kentucky, at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Kentucky River. Its population was 3,846 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Carroll County....
. He was the developer of a nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
catalyst that became known as Raney nickel
Raney nickel
Raney nickel is a solid catalyst composed of fine grains of a nickel-aluminium alloy, used in many industrial processes. It was developed in 1926 by American]] engineer Murray Raney as an alternative catalyst for the hydrogenation of vegetable oils in industrial processes...
, which is often used in industrial processes and scientific research for the hydrogenation
Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation, to treat with hydrogen, also a form of chemical reduction, is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a catalyst. The process is commonly employed to reduce or saturate organic compounds. Hydrogenation typically...
of multiple covalent bond
Covalent bond
A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms when they share electrons is known as covalent bonding....
s present in molecule
Molecule
A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...
s.
Biography
Raney was born in Carrollton, Kentucky, to William Wallace and Katherine Raney. Without having attended high schoolHigh school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
, he obtained his Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
in 1909. Following his graduation he became a teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
at the Eastern Kentucky State Normal College
Eastern Kentucky University
Eastern Kentucky University, commonly referred to as Eastern or by the acronym EKU by local residents, is an undergraduate and graduate teaching and research institution located in Richmond, Kentucky, U.S.A.. EKU is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools...
and was also in charge of the heating and lighting facilities there until 1910.
From 1910 until 1911 he worked in the beater
Beater
Beater may refer to:*Beater , a tool used to force woven yarn into place*Various types of percussion mallets** A rute** The striking part of a bass drum pedal*A position in the fictional game of Quidditch from the Harry Potter series...
room of the Fort Orange Paper Company in Castleton-on-Hudson, New York
Castleton-on-Hudson, New York
Castleton-on-Hudson is a village located in the southwestern part of the town of Schodack in Rensselaer County, New York. The population was 1,619 at the 2000 census. The village is southeast of Albany, New York.- History :...
. In 1911 he moved to Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
to work in the production of steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
s at A. L. Ide Engine Company, where he stayed until 1913. That same year he moved to his final residence in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
, to work for the Chattanooga Railway, Light & Power Co as a power
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
salesman.
Raney joined the Lookout Oil & Refining Company in 1915. He was assigned to work as an assistant manager in the production of hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
used in the hydrogenation
Hydrogenation
Hydrogenation, to treat with hydrogen, also a form of chemical reduction, is a chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen and another compound or element, usually in the presence of a catalyst. The process is commonly employed to reduce or saturate organic compounds. Hydrogenation typically...
of vegetable oils. It was during this time he started to work in the preparation of what later became known as "Raney" catalysts. He left Lookout Oil in 1925 to take a sales manager position at Gilman Paint and Varnish Co., eventually becoming president of the company. In 1950 he left Gilman Paint and founded the Raney Catalyst Company. He then started to dedicate full time to the production of his catalysts. This company was bought by W.R. Grace and Company in 1963 and still produces Raney nickel
Raney nickel
Raney nickel is a solid catalyst composed of fine grains of a nickel-aluminium alloy, used in many industrial processes. It was developed in 1926 by American]] engineer Murray Raney as an alternative catalyst for the hydrogenation of vegetable oils in industrial processes...
to this day.
Raney was twice married, first on June 12, 1920, to Katherine Elizabeth Macrae (d. June 13, 1935) with whom he had one daughter. His second marriage was to Laura Ogden McClellan (d. April 13, 1953) on March 31, 1939. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
degree in 1951. He was member of the American Chemical Society
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society 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 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...
and the American Oil Chemists' Society. He was granted a total of six American and five Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s for the development of his catalysts and metallurgical processes needed for their preparation.
Development of Raney nickel
During his time at Lookout Oil and Refining Raney was responsible the production of hydrogen which was used in the hydrogenation of vegetable oils. During that time the industry used a nickel catalyst prepared from nickel(II) oxideNickel(II) oxide
Nickel oxide is the chemical compound with the formula NiO. It is notable as being the only well characterized oxide of nickel . The mineralogical form of NiO, bunsenite, is very rare. It is classified as a basic metal oxide...
. Believing that better catalysts could be produced, around 1921 he started to perform independent research on this matter while still working for Lookout Oil. In 1924 he produced a nickel-silicon
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
alloy
Alloy
An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...
which, after being treated with sodium hydroxide, was found to be five times more active than the best catalyst used in the hydrogenation of cottonseed oil
Cottonseed oil
Cottonseed oil is a cooking oil extracted from the seeds of cotton plant of various species, mainly Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium herbaceum...
. He was granted a US patent for this discovery in 1925.
In 1926 Raney produced a nickel-aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
alloy, also in a 1:1 ratio
Ratio
In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...
, following a procedure similar to the one used for the nickel-silicon catalyst, and he found that the resulting catalyst was even more active than the previous one. This catalyst, now commonly known now as Raney nickel
Raney nickel
Raney nickel is a solid catalyst composed of fine grains of a nickel-aluminium alloy, used in many industrial processes. It was developed in 1926 by American]] engineer Murray Raney as an alternative catalyst for the hydrogenation of vegetable oils in industrial processes...
, was the subject of a patent he obtained in 1927.
It may be of interest to note that Raney's choice of nickel-aluminium ratio was fortuitous and without any real scientific basis. However, this is the preferred alloy composition for production of Raney nickel catalysts currently in use. To this, Raney himself said in an interview "I was just lucky... I had an idea for a catalyst and it worked the first time."
The Murray Raney Award
In 1992 the Organic Reactions Catalysis Society (ORCS) created the Murray Raney Award "for contributions in the use of sponge metal catalysts in organic synthesis". The award is given out every two years at the annual ORCS conference. the following scientists have been recipients of the award:- 1992 – Stewart Montgomery
- 1994 – Pierre Fouilloux
- 1996 – Mark WainwrightMark WainwrightMark Wainwright AM is an Australian academic. He served as seventh Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of New South Wales from July 2004 until June 2006. Prior to this appointment, Wainwright had been the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University from mid-April 2004...
- 1998 – Anatoly Fasman
- 2000 – Jozsef Petró
- 2002 – Akira Tai
- 2004 – Jean Lessard
- 2006 – Isamu Yamauchi