(137a) Some Color Commentary on Innovation

In the last 29 years, CR&L/CDTECH has successfully commercialized twenty-three ?first of a kind? processes, with more on the way. Innovation is our livelihood, yet efforts to define exactly how we invent yield a laundry list where ?serendipity? is still included. However, judging from our track record, its not all luck, and some of the other ingredients to innovation are worth examining to see how they contribute to our being so fortunate.

CR&L/CDTECH is best known for Catalytic Distillation; however, we are not a ?one trick pony?. The talk will include graphics and video of some observations that have led to our most recent developments in reactive separations, including liquid continuous distillation and vapor induced pulse reactors. (Professor Fair/Dr Seibert and Dr Cross will present more about these technologies later in the program).

It is worth noting that our experience in innovation demonstrates that there are a lot of smart people in this world and good ideas sometime come from the most unlikely sources. Underlying all is our motivation to earn our keep by making ourselves useful.