Frederick Wells Leavitt: a pioneer in adsorption technology

Frederick Wells Leavitt emerged as a pioneer in adsorption technology. Fred joined the Molecular Sieve Group at Linde Air Products Company in 1957. Fred, uniquely qualified with a combination of excellent mathematical and engineering skills and a driving curiosity, was positioned at the opportune time. He responded by laying out a fundamental ground-work for adsorption processes. He also authored more than 40 detailed internal development documents covering essentially the entire range of adsorption topics required to successfully implement real processes, such as steady state transfer zones, multi-component isotherms, thermal regeneration and thermal pulse desorption, non-isothermal effects in large beds, and adsorptivemass transfer.