Edith Flanigen will receive the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award on Friday the 23rd of April during the 10th annual Lemelson-MIT Awards Ceremony. The award recognizes inventors for their cumulative bodies of work and their contributions to technological progress and invention.
"Many people may not know about Edith Flanigen's discoveries, but her inventiveness and creativity have greatly affected everyone's life," said Merton Flemings, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. "Dr. Flanigen's work is outstanding materials science and engineering. Her discoveries have resulted in more than 100 patents and have revolutionized the world of molecular sieve materials."
Molecular Sieves
Edith Flanigen began her distinguished career in 1952 as a research chemist at Union Carbide in Tonawanda, N.Y. Flanigen and her two sisters all worked at Union Carbide at a time when few women were making strides in the sciences. She eventually became the first woman to hold the company's highest technical position - senior research fellow.Flanigen's most important work led to the development of a new generation of molecular sieves, which are porous crystals that can separate molecules on the basis of size. They are used commercially in petroleum refining and petrochemical processes to reduce energy costs and industrial waste. They are also used to make certain types of motor oil and ethylene and propylene- key elements in many plastics.
Edith Flanigen and coworkers discovered many novel structures and compositions of molecular sieves, which enabled their use in a wider range of applications. Molecular sieves are now used in everything from crude oil conversion into gasoline to nuclear waste clean-up.
Edith Flanigen discovered the first practical way to manufacture zeolite Y, now one of the most commonly produced molecular sieves used to make gasoline and jet fuel commercially feasible. "To go from discovery of a new material, to scale it up to reasonable quantity, to commercialize the application is a big stretch," she said. "I worked out the process that went from the laboratory to the final manufacturing."
Edith Flanigen also co-invented a material called silicalite, which is widely used in environmental clean-up applications to selectively adsorb organic compounds.
Additionally, she developed a synthetic emerald that was designed for use in masers - a predecessor to the laser that was based on microwaves instead of light. Though lasers eventually had greater commercial implications, Union Carbide's Linde division still found a use for Flanigen's synthetic emerald. "They actually developed a line of jewelry called the Quintessa Collection that featured the hydrothermal emerald that we had developed and patented," she said.
