People

People

OBITUARY

Alan Heywood

Bodo Albrecht, BASF writes: Among the many sad news of 2020 is the passing of Alan Heywood, a leading authority in the advancement of nitric acid catalysts and recovery systems. At the time I first met Alan in 1997, he already had 6 patents to his name ranging from improved aircraft gas turbine igniters and “ZGS” grain stabilized precious metal composite materials to PGPs “cartridge” catalyst, arguably the first true catalyst system ever produced.

To label Alan as a creative metallurgist would, however, miss the mark. Like few others, Alan was relentless in constantly optimizing the products he was concerned with, thereby helping to make the companies he represented stand out from the crowd. With the cartridge catalyst, for example, came the “stretcher”, a device making catalyst exchanges quick and easy. The product became a cornerstone to the success of what then was PGP, a company that launched an office in the UK and a precious metals plant in Shannon, Ireland, under his leadership. It also became famous for another one of his creations, a highly customized chemical catalyst branded as “Silocat”.

At the time, back in the ’90s, nitric acid catalysts were sold by the troy ounce, discouraging innovation since any kind of cost savings to the customer also reduced revenue. The catalyst system, often integrated with platinum recovery features and even the refining built in the price, changed all that allowing for continuous product improvement and convenience to customers while incentivizing the innovators.

Joining me at what was Degussa back in 1997 meant gaining access to the company’s latest three-dimensional knitting technology. It was like a dream come true for him: the technology allowed for nearly limitless opportunities to evolve his “cartridge” concept using different knitting patterns, metal alloys and even wire diameters for each layer of the product. Alan’s forensic intellect, sharpened by having worked with the aircraft industry prior to nitric acid, guided the team around him to look at these new designs from every conceivable angle to ensure safe operation, and high efficiency. “If you allow it to go wrong, it will” was his maxim, and it explains Alan’s pedantic approach to quite literally putting every part of a new catalyst system under a microscope. I remember a time back in the 90s when he and I travelled with a metal guillotine to cut out precise samples from spent catalysts at customer sites, directly upon removal from the reactor. Sadly, the TSA eventually put an end to this.

Having grown up in the UK under the inspiration of a father who excelled at fixing mechanical devices of all kinds, Alan developed a lifelong passion for cars (the ‘imperfect’ kind from Italy, preferably – I never managed to convince him of the ‘boring’ perfection of Made in Germany), aircrafts, clocks and guns, and the beauty of the components they were made of. Some of you may also recall his genuine interest in the people he met, inquiring about the places people were from, and details of their lives.

Alan passed away in December of last year after having battled cancer for several years, growing weaker and weaker over time but refusing to give up. He is leaving a void to his family, his friends, and to the nitric acid industry which he impacted like few other people have.