L. K. Doraiswamy

Laxmangudi Krishnamurthy Doraiswamy (1927–2012) was an Indian-American Chemical Engineering journal of McGraw Hill listed him among the 10 most distinguished chemical engineers in the world in 1988. He was the author of nine texts in chemical engineering, including Organic Synthesis Engineering, a 2001 publication which is known to have introduced the topic as a definitive scientific stream and Heterogeneous reactions: Analysis, Examples, and Reactor Design, reportedly the first comprehensive text in chemical engineering.

He was a recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from University of Salford, and University of Wisconsin, besides several other awards and honors which included Om Prakash Bhasin Award, Richard H. Wilhelm Award, William H. Walker Award and Homi Bhabha Medal. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1990, for his contributions to science.

Early life Laxmangudi Doraiswamy, born in Karnataka, did his schooling at Methodist Boys High School, Hyderabad before graduating in chemistry (BSc) from Nizam College, then under the University of Madras. from Alagappa College of Technology, one of the only two Indian institutions offering chemical engineering for advanced studies at that time. His performance in the engineering examinations earned him a scholarship from the Government of Andhra Pradesh which helped him to pursue further studies at the University of Wisconsin and the twenty one-year old reached Wisconsin when the winter of 1948 was its peak in December. After completing his master's degree in 1950, he continued at the university to secure his doctoral degree in chemical engineering in 1952 for which Hougen reportedly assisted him in getting permission from the Nizam government of Hyderabad, who wanted Doraiswamy to return to India to start serving the government. His tenure at NCL lasted a quarter of a century, rising in ranks as a senior scientist, assistant director (1961), deputy director (1966) and superannuating in 1989, as the first non-chemist to head the organization, after holding the post of the director since 1978. but he declined the offer to stay with NCL. It is reported that Reilly persuaded Doraiswamy to join the university as the Glenn Murphy Visiting Professor of Engineering which he agreed to and, later, joined the institution as a permanent faculty in 1992 as the Herbert Stiles Professor. During his stay in Iowa, he was involved in various visiting lectures and symposia and became the Anson Marston Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honour for engineering academics at the university. He continued his association with the university even after his retirement in 2001 till his death 2012. The book emphasized on catalysis and the role of process intensification in enhancing overall productivity and explained the applications of catalysis in organic synthesis. It was during his tenure as the head of NCL, a Centre of Excellence in Catalysis was established which eventually returned several scientific contributions. Verma-Doraiswamy method for the estimation of Standard enthalpy of formation is another process that bears his name. The invention jointly made with Thomas Wheelock of a calcium based sorbent for coal gas desulphurization, introduction of zeolite catalysts, the development of a xylene isomerization process and a new methodology for the alkylation of benzene with alcohols are some of his other contributions. Apart from Organic Synthesis Engineering Excellence in an Overlapping Culture: The Big History of India’s National Chemical Laboratory (2011) and Chemical Reaction Engineering : Beyond the Fundamentals (2014). The lectures delivered by Doraiswamy in the Hougen Lecture Series were compiled by the University of Wisconsin and published in 1988 under the title, Across Millennia : Some Thoughts on Ancient and Contemporary Science and Engineering. Frontiers in Chemical Reaction Engineering (1984), Transport processes in Fluidized Bed Reactors (1987), Recent Advances in the Engineering Analysis of Chemically Reacting Systems (1987), and Transport in Fluidized Particle Systems (1989) are the four books edited by him.

Social contributions Doraiswamy was reported to have contributed in bringing order to various departments at NCL and in recruiting talents. As the head of the organization, he introduced the scheme of preferential recruitment of widows of the former NCL employees and established a local school and shopping centre in NCL campus. and the Indian National Science Academy followed suit in 1977. The Chemical Engineering magazine of McGraw-Hill listed him among the 10 most distinguished chemical engineers in the world in 1988. and the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1991.

The Indian National Science Academy awarded him the Syed Hussain Zaheer Medal in 1983 and he was awarded the Om Prakash Bhasin Award for Science and Technology of the Om Prakash Bhasin Foundation in 1986. He received the Jawaharlal Nehru Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987, followed by the Personal Achievement Award of Chemical Engineering magazine in 1988. and IIChE repeated the honor with Dr. B. P. Godrej Life Time Achievement Award in 2003. He received another award, the William H. Walker Award, for Excellence in Contributions to Chemical Engineering Literature from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2004. He was also a recipient of the Homi Bhabha Medal. in Doraiswamy's honor. The Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers have instituted an annual oration, Padma Bhushan Prof. L. K. Doraiswamy Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award, in his honor, running since 2001. Two of the institutions he was closely associated with, viz. Iowa State University and the National Chemical Laboratory, honor Doraiswamy by jointly organizing a US-India lectureship every year.

Personal life Doraiswamy was born in a Brahmin family as the only brother of three sisters born to Laxmangudi Krishnamurthy and Kamala in Bengaluru on 13 May 1927. Krishnamurthy was the head of Geological Survey of India at their Hyderabad branch and the young Doraiswamy was brought up in Lingasugur, a small hamlet near Hatti Gold Mines and home to many archaeological sites, in the south Indian state of Karnataka. He was married to Rajalakshmi, the marriage taking up place in 1952 after his return to India from Wisconsin, and the couple had a son, Deepak, a doctor in chemical engineering and a daughter, Sandhya, an MPhil and CPA holder. Both continue to live in Pennsylvania, Deepak at Landenberg and Sandhya at Danville. Doraiswamy, towards the later days of his life, suffered from heart ailments and underwent a bypass surgery. However, he could not survive for long and died on 2 June 2012, while recuperating from the surgical trauma, survived by his children; his wife had preceded him in death. Though the latter part of his life was spent mostly in US, he retained his Indian citizenship till the end. Dr Kallam Anji Reddy the founder of Dr Reddy's Laboratories obtained his Phd in Chemical Engineering from National Chemical Laboratory under supervision of Doraiswamy.