Bruce Beaver

• Ph.D., Chemistry, UMASS/Amherst, 1984
• B.A., Chemistry, SUNY Binghamton, 1979
• A.S., Chemistry, Broome Community College, 1977

My work is addressing an increasingly important problem in middle distillates with a new perspective. This work focuses upon understanding the basic organic chemistry responsible for the complicated problem of oxidative instability of middle distillates. Both thermal oxidative and storage stability are areas of interest. Recent publications have proposed that the mechanism for middle distillate thermal oxidative degradation can be described as regenerative autoxidative oligomerization in the language of organic chemistry. In the language of fuel chemistry this concept is best described as the SMORS hypothesis of Hardy and Wechter. If this premise is correct, then new chemical methods can in principle be developed for stabilizing middle distillates. Thus, we are pioneering the new frontier in terms of a chemical mechanistic understanding of middle distillate oxidation to promote rational designs for a new class of practical oxidation stabilizers.