Eugene Houdry

Dates: 1892–1962.

Summary: Eugene Houdry was a mechanical engineer from France who was responsible for developing the catalytic cracking process to derive gasoline and other products from crude oil.

Eugene Jules Houdry was born in Domont, a French town some 16 miles away from Paris in northern France, on April 18, 1892. His father, Jules Houdry, was the owner of a successful steel plant in the Domont region. Eugene wished to continue in his father’s footsteps and thus joined the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers in Paris, where he majored in mechanical engineering. He was only nineteen years old when he graduated, and he received a gold medal in 1911. He subsequently joined his father’s business, where he worked as an engineer.

In 1914, France entered World War I. Houdry was drafted in the French Army and served as a lieutenant in the Tank Corps. In 1917, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War), a French gallantry award given to soldiers who have “distinguish[ed] themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with enemy forces” for his bravery in directing tank repairs while severely injured.

After the end of the war, Houdry returned to civilian life with a newfound passion for automobiles and car racing. He traveled to the United States of America in 1922, where he visited the factory of the Ford Motor Company and the Indy 500. While in the United States, Houdry saw that the boom in the automobile industry had given rise to the need for a fuel with a higher octane value, which would improve the quality and performance of the car.

At that time, France was suffering from a major shortage of crude gasoline. Houdry was contacted by the French government to try and convert bituminous coal and lignite, which France possessed in large quantities, to a usable form of gasoline. In 1925, Houdry had developed such a method, known as cracking. In this method, lignite or a similar fossil fuel was heated to a very high temperature. This caused large, saturated hydrocarbons with complex molecular structures (and low octane numbers) to break up into smaller hydrocarbons which had simpler molecular structures (and higher octane numbers). Unfortunately, it was not economically viable to produce gasoline like this. However, it did show Houdry that it was technically possible to obtain high-octane gasoline from sources other than crude petroleum. He quit his job at his father’s steel plant and began devoting his time to working on fuels.

In 1927, Houdry discovered that it was possible to create gasoline efficiently by introducing a catalyst into the process. He used an alumina catalyst that did not only improve the efficiency of the cracking process, but could also be reused after heating the catalyst to a certain temperature in a hydrogen-oxygen rich environment.

In 1930, Houdry moved to the United States after the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company (later renamed the Mobil Oil Company) and Sun Oil offered to finance the continuation of his research. In 1931, he set up the Houdry Process Corporation, and by 1936, the Houdry Process was producing over 2,000 barrels of high-octane gasoline fuel per day from its first plant in Paulsboro, New Jersey.

After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Houdry was the only source of 97-octane gasoline that was needed to fuel the aircraft of the United States Air Force. Thanks to the better quality of fuel in Allied aircraft, they had 30 percent more engine power, could carry 25 percent more payload, and could fly 10 percent faster and 12 percent higher than any Axis aircraft.

In 1942, Houdry became a U.S. citizen, and his two sons, Jacques and Pierre, served in the U.S. Army in World War II. He was an outspoken opponent of the Vichy Regime in occupied France and started France Forever, an organization that aimed to gather support for Free French forces fighting the Nazis.

Post-War Inventions

After World War II, Houdry began working on improving the impact of gasoline on the health and well-being of motorists. He realized that automobiles that burned gasoline were releasing cancer-causing chemicals into the air, and were probably responsible for cases of lung cancer in many automobile owners of the era.

Houdry was known as “Mr. Catalysis” by people in the oil refining industry. He was awarded with both the Potts Medal of the Franklin Institute, and the Perkin Medal of the Society of Chemical Industry (American Section) in 1948. He was also awarded the E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 1962, and in 1990, was posthumously elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Houdry was awarded with Honorary Doctorates in Science from the Pennsylvania Military College and Grove City College. The Catalysis Society of North America established the Houdry Award in Applied Catalysis in his honor. Houdry died on July 18, 1962, at the age of 70, survived by his sons and his wife, Genevieve Quilleret. His contributions to the world of fuel technology were vital in allowing the Allies to win World War II, and subsequently in the design of the modern global economy.

Bibliography

Aftalion, Fred. A History of the International Chemical Industry. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Bookrags. “Biography of Eugene Houdry.” http://www.bookrags.com/biography/eugene-houdry-woc/.

Bowden, Mary Ellen. Chemical Achievers: The Human Face of the Chemical Sciences. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Houdry, Eugene, et al. “The Houdry Process.” Oil and Gas Journal, Engineering and Operating Section 37 (November 24, 1938).