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SRNL Researcher Honored By National Chemical Engineering Society

Submitted by: Angeline French on Dec 20, 2007 at 2:32 pm Tagged with: award, Chemical Engineering, energy security Source: Savannah River National Laboratory

Dr. William Rhodes of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was honored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, receiving the AIChE Nuclear Engineering Division’s Robert E. Wilson Award, which was presented at the Institute’s annual meeting in November. Dr. Rhodes is a principal engineer with SRNL’s Energy Security Directorate, working on new approaches to meeting the nation’s energy needs, such as the use of nuclear energy to produce hydrogen to fuel future vehicles. Further, Dr. Rhodes is the SRNL principal investigator of a DOE Office of Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy-funded $2 million fuel cell project with Clemson University to uncover the fundamental influence that impurities such as carbon monoxide have on the long-term performance of hydrogen-powered fuel cells.

The Robert E. Wilson award is made to an individual for outstanding chemical engineering contributions and achievements in the nuclear industry. Dr. Rhodes was recognized for outstanding chemical engineering contributions to the nuclear industry spanning the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, Liquid-Metal Fast Breeder Reactor technology development, and leadership roles at the divisional and national levels within AIChE that promote the role of chemical engineers in addressing the nation’s energy security.

The award is given in memory of Dr. Robert E. Wilson, a noted chemical engineer, board chairman of Standard Oil of Indiana, and member of the former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. At the time of his death in 1964, Dr. Wilson was serving as an advisor to the U.S. delegation at the Third Conference on Peaceful Uses of the Atom. Previous award recipients include Crawford Greenewalt, President of E.I. DuPont de Nemours Corporation, for leading DuPont's efforts to build and startup the Hanford Project.

Dr. Rhodes lives in Aiken, S.C., and works for Washington Savannah River Company, which operates SRNL for the DOE. SRNL is the applied research and development laboratory at DOE’s Savannah River Site, putting science to work to develop and deploy practical solutions to the nation’s needs in the fields of energy security, national and homeland security, and environmental cleanup and protection.

WSRC-07-30