Don Freshwater

Donald Cole Freshwater (21 April 1924 – 2 August 2004), known as Don Freshwater, was a British professor of chemical engineering.

Education Freshwater was born in Brewood, where he attended the Grammar School. He gained a degree in chemistry at Birmingham University in 1944, then took a course in fuel technology at the University of Sheffield, a conversion course to chemical engineering at Loughborough College and a PhD at Birmingham in 1955.

Career Hired as a chemist he worked for the Ministry of Fuel and Power on industrial coke, which led him to take courses and convert to chemical engineering, working for APV and Midland Tar Distillers before going to Birmingham to lecture and take his PhD.

Life, honours and achievements In 1950 he was a winner of the IChemE Junior Moulton Medal for the best paper by a member under 40 in an IChemE publication. In 1986 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and in 1990 received an honorary degree from Loughborough University, the first to one of its own staff. Donald Freshwater died 2 August 2004, survived by his wife, Eleanor.

Publications D. C. Freshwater (1955) Bubble cap phenomena : a study of the mechanism of operation of bubble cap plates (PhD Thesis) University of Birmingham D. C. Freshwater (1997) "People, Pipes and Processes" IChemE, Rugby