Mooson Kwauk, the eminent professor of chemical engineering and emeritus director of the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, died Nov. 20, 2012. He was 92.
Kwauk graduated from the University of Shanghai in 1943, and in 1947 earned a master’s degree from Princeton in chemical engineering. In 1948, he published with Professor Richard H. Wilhelm of Princeton a paper, “Fluidization of Solid Particles,” which, for the first time, differentiated liquid-solid and gas-solid fluidization, designating one “particulate” and the other “aggregative.”
After Princeton, Kwauk worked in U.S. industry before returning to China as a professor at what is now the Institute of Process Engineering. There he established the first Chinese research laboratory on fluidization, which led to wide applications in Chinese chemical and metallurgy industries.
Starting in 1966, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Kwauk and his family suffered, his research was interrupted, and he was not permitted to conduct laboratory studies. Nonetheless, he worked at home. By 1972, his access to his laboratory began to be restored, and in 1980 he was appointed to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
During its centennial in 2008, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers chose Kwauk as one of 50 chemical engineers who “founded the profession and established the discipline.”
He is survived by his wife, Huichun; and three children.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.