Martin L. Gorbaty

Henry H. Storch Award in Fuel Chemistry

sponsored by Exxon Research & Engineering Co.

From the beginning of his career as a research chemist 23 years ago to his present position as senior research associate with Exxon Research & Engineering's Resource Chemistry Lab, MARTIN L. GORBATY has been carrying out research and contributing new knowledge that have brought significant advances in chemistry, physics, and instrumentation to hydrocarbon science. His work during the past 19 years has centered on defining coal structures at the molecular level, relating those structures to coal reactivity, and ultimately using these structure-reactivity relationships to improve coal utilization and conversion processing. His recent accomplishments in speciating and quantifying the forms of organic sulfur present in coals by direct measurement using x-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and in defining their reactivities are particularly noteworthy, and provide a science base from which new procedures for coal utilization may emerge. Since joining Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in 1969, Gorbaty has been issued 30 U.S. patents, with five pending, in the areas of agricultural products, polymers, and coal utilization. He has authored or coauthored 43 papers on organic and coal chemistry, edited five books, and presented more than 50 lectures in the U.S. and abroad. Gorbaty has served on various advisory boards and review panels of the Department of Energy, where a colleague says, "Gorbaty has been a strong voice in recommending that DOE support high-quality research to investigate novel and revolutionary approaches to obtaining clean liquid fuels from fossil energy resources/' Another associate of Gorbaty's says he has been "an innovator in coal science and a major force in setting directions and priorities for government, academia, and industry." The award winner earned a B.S. degree with honors in chemistry from the City College of New York in 1964; in 1969 he received a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from Purdue University. An active ACS member, Gorbaty is past chairman of the Petroleum Chemistry Division, and currently serves as one of its councilors. He is also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been on the International Editorial Board of Fuel since 1983, and was chairman of the Gordon Conference on Fuel Science in 1988. Gorbaty received the R. A. Glenn Award for best paper presented at the fall 1990 ACS meeting of the Fuel Chemistry Division.