Photograph

O. Edwin Hileman, Jr.

December 23, 1936 - September 4, 2013

Professor Emeritus

B.S.Ed. (Bowling Green State), Ph.D. (Case Institute of Technology), F.C.I.C.

Studies in Applied and Analytical Chemistry

Professor Emeritus O.E. "Ed" Hileman passed away early in the morning of September 4, 2013 following a brief hospitalization.

Ed retired in 1996, at the end of a 32-year career at McMaster, but maintained a regular presence in the department until about a year ago. He was a great friend to many in the McMaster community and a strong advocate of the Chemistry department.

Ed's family has held a small, private service. A Celebration of Life in his honour will take place on Saturday, September 21 at 2:00 p.m. at St. Paul's Church, 29 Park St. W., Dundas, ON, followed by a reception.

     Three major projects are being carried out in our research group:

     About fifty named technologies for the desulfurization of fuel gases and process and residual off-gases are available in the market-place. Chemically, these can be classified into four distinct categories: gas-phase conversion, tail gas clean-up, liquid claus, and liquid redox. Research work in our group is focused on fundamental and empirical studies of technologies based on liquid redox chemistry. The goals of the research effort are the establishment of a rational basis for innovative process development, improvement to existing technologies, process selection, and process monitoring, control and optimization. Our research group works closely with process designers, fabricators, operators, and suppliers of process chemicals. The techniques being used to carry out these studies include 51V, 50V, 13C, and 17O FT-nmr, ESR, HPLC, HPIC, Raman and uv/vis spectroscopies, and voltammetry. Laboratory-scale batch and pilot plant reactors, designed and constructed in this research group, are also used extensively in these studies.

     All desulfurization technologies currently available in the market-place convert the captured H2S to sulfur and water - the chemical and fuel values of hydrogen are lost as waste heat. The development of new processes that allow the co-production of hydrogen and sulfur from hydrogen sulfide is the goal of our fundamental studies on the electrochemical behaviour of H2S as a liquid and when dissolved in conductive solutions. With the latter approach, we are currently working at the "proof-of-concept" stage using a laboratory-scale pilot unit.

     Water purification involves a number of steps, one of which is the coagulation/flocculation process for the removal of contaminants. This step is commonly accomplished by the precipitation of amorphous iron or aluminum hydroxides which effectively removes the contaminants by the dual mechanisms of adsorption and co-precipitation. It is essential to understand the chemical stability of the resultant precipitates/sludges in order to evaluate the environmental hazard associated with the disposal of the sludges into landfill.

     It is known that the metal hydroxides transform into various crystalline modifications that are much less soluble than amorphous hydroxides. It would be useful to explore the factors controlling the transformation and dissolution rates of sludges containing Cu, Zn, Cd or As in order to determine if the effort should be made to transform amorphous sludges into a more crystalline-and much less soluble-form before disposal to landfill. The most obvious benefit would be a slower rate of release of contaminants into ground water systems.

Selected Publications:

  1. O. E. Hileman, Jr., "GRI / Radian / McMaster Screening Study on Reoxidation Catalysts for Liquid Redox Sulfur Recovery Processes - A Report on the Results of Phase I of the Project," Invited paper-Stretford Users' Conference - 87, Austin, Tx, USA (October, 1987).

  2. O. E. Hileman, Jr., S. Petrovic, J.C. Donini, A.B.P. Lever, S. Szynkarczuk, and S. Third, "Liquid Phase Hydrogen Sulfide Electrolysis." Invited paper - 6TH International Conference in the Chemical Industry, Gainsville, FL, USA (1992).

  3. O. E. Hileman, Jr., "Laboratory Studies on the Impact of Citrate Addition on Stretford Process Chemistry.", Invited paper - Brandeis/British Gas Stretford User's Conference, Monterey, CA, USA (1994).

  4. C.R. Paige, W.A. Kornicker, O. E. Hileman, Jr., and W.J. Snodgrass, "Study of the Dynamic Equilibrium in the BaSO4 and PbSO4 / Aqueous Solution Systems Using 133Ba2+ and 210Pb2+ as Radiotracers.", Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 57, 4435-4444, (1993).

  5. J.L. Luo, O.E. Hileman, Jr., and M.B. Ives, "Salt Film Development During Pitting of Nickel", Corrosion Science, 35, 73-81, (1993).

  6. C.R. Paige, W.A. Kornicker, O. E. Hileman, Jr., and W.J. Snodgrass, "Uranium Ore Processing: Kinetics of the Growth and Dissolution of a Potential Host Solid from a Model Surface", J. Radioanal. and Nucl. Chem., Articles, 178, 261-271, (1994).

Chemistry Faculty
Department of Chemistry.

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