Farrington Daniels, was an American educator, author, chemist, and solar energy proponent, who is noted as one of the pioneers of the modern direct use of solar energy.
Background
Farrington Daniels was born on March 8, 1889 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. He was the eldest of three children of Franc Birchard Daniels, a district superintendent for the American Express Company, and Florence Louise Farrington.
Education
Daniels attended public schools in Minneapolis. His teachers were struck by his intensity, maturity, and immense concentration, traits he carried into adulthood.
At an early age, Daniels showed an interest in science; he experimented with making explosives and acid batteries for running electric motors. He especially enjoyed chemistry and physics at East Side High School and decided to choose chemistry as his major in college. From 1906 to 1911 he attended the University of Minnesota, receiving a Bachelor of Science and an Master of Science in chemistry. In 1911, Daniels elected to attend Harvard University for a doctoral study. He worked under Theodore W. Richards, who later became the first American to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Daniels received a Doctor of Philosophy in physical chemistry from Harvard in 1914 and was awarded a Parker Fellowship to study in Europe. He was accepted by Fritz Haber to study at the Kaiser Wilhelm Laboratory for Physical Chemistry Research in Berlin. The beginning of World War I prevented him from going.
Career
Daniels began his caree as an instructor in chemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts. His first paper, "An Adiabatic Calorimeter, " published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was based on research done at WPI. It was in this period that he began work on nitrogen fixation.
In 1918, while still teaching at WPI, Daniels decided to join the army. He received a commission as first lieutenant in the Chemical Warfare Service. During the war Daniels worked with Charles A. Krause to improve gas masks at Clark University in Worcester. Their model was later approved for use in World War II. Daniels was discharged from the army December 31, 1918.
His teaching contract was not renewed at WPI. In 1919, Daniels was employed in Washington, D. C. , by the Bureau of Soils (later the U. S. Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory) to study nitrogen fixation by a low-temperature electrochemical technique. Additionally, he studied the decomposition of nitrogen pentoxide and wrote a paper establishing that the rate process was first order independent of the concentration. This was an important finding because it helped debunk the radiation theory of reaction rates, which held that the minimum energy required for reaction (or activation energy) was proportional to the frequency of radiation, and to advance the study of chemical kinetics.
In 1920, Daniels joined the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as an assistant professor. He became associate professor in 1924 and full professor in 1928, continuing in this position until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1959. From 1952 to 1959, he served as department chair. During his tenure as chair, he was instrumental in the construction of two chemistry buildings, one of which was named for him in 1972.
In 1944, Daniels was appointed associate director of the chemistry division of the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago and then director in 1945. He thus played a major role in the development of the atomic bomb and in eventually converting the Met Lab to Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), a facility housed in nearby Dupage County, dedicated to exploring peaceful uses of atomic energy and other basic research. Daniels served as chair of Argonne's board of governors (1946 - 1948). Later, he was a consultant at both ANL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Daniels also served as chair of an advisory committee on isotopes for the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Daniels was one of the first scientists to design a nuclear reactor for peacetime use of nuclear energy. His design--the "Daniels pile"--was unique in that it used helium as a heat exchanger; though never built, it was patented by the AEC in 1957.
He also did seminal work on the decomposition of organic halides; he contributed to applications of natural thermoluminescence in geochemistry and to thermoluminescence dosimetry and induced thermoluminescence as a way of measuring exposure to ionizing radiation.
In the 1940's, with support from the Cottrell Foundation, he contributed to the development of what became known as the Wisconsin process for converting atmospheric nitrogen into chemicals for producing such varied products as fertilizers and explosives.
Daniels was the author or coauthor of scientific texts on diverse topics, among them Experimental Physical Chemistry (1929), Outlines of Theoretical Chemistry (with Frederick Getman, 5th ed. , 1931), Physical Chemistry (with R. A. Alberty, 1955), and Outlines of Physical Chemistry (with Frederick Getman, 7th ed. , 1943), and coeditor of Solar Energy Research (1955), among others.
From 1932 to 1942, Daniels was an associate editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.