Murphree, Eger

The Houdry fixed-bed cyclic units were soon displaced in the 1940s by the superior Fluid Catalytic Cracking process pioneered by Warren K. Lewis of MIT and Eger Murphree and his team of engineers at Standard Oil of Newjersey (now Exxon). Murphree and his team demonstrated that hundreds of tons of fine catalyst could be continuously moved like a fluid between the cracking reactor and a separate vessel for... 

The committee—Briggs, Compton, Lawrence, Urey, Eger Murphree and Conant—concluded by judging the bomb project important beyond all previous estimates We have become convinced that success in this program before the enemy can succeed is necessary for victory. We also believe that success of this program will win the war if it has not previously been terminated. ... 

The four American scientists who invented fluid catalytic cracking, Donald Campbell, Homer Martin, Eger Murphree, and Charles Tyson, had to wait almost eight years, from December, 1940, to October, 1948, for their U.S. Patent No. 2,451,804 to be granted after filing it. 

In 1942, Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil) commercialized the fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) process, which dramatically increased a refiner s ability to convert heavy gas oils into gasoline. The four inventors of this process, which still produces more than half of the world s gasoline, were Donald L. Campbell, Homer Z. Martin, Eger V. Murphree, and Charles W. Tyson. During 1942-45, several FCC-based refineries were built in the United States to produce automotive and aviation gasoline during World War II. 

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