CPChem senior scientist Max McDaniel honored with Perkin Medal

Max McDaniel, senior scientist at Chevron Phillips Chemical's Bartlesville, Oklahoma Research and Technology Center and an expert in polyolefin catalysts, reached a lifetime goal this year - following in the footsteps of his mentor to win the Perkin Medal, the highest honor for applied chemistry in the nation.

McDaniel, 78, was honored Sept. 9 in Philadelphia by the Society of Chemical Industry America at a ceremony attended by three current and former CPChem CEOs, Mark Lashier, Bruce Chinn and current CEO Steve Prusak.

"For 50 years, I have had the great pleasure of working with some of the finest scientists and engineers in our industry both at home and around the world," McDaniel said in accepting the award.

Among those are two that McDaniel said had "an especially profound influence on my career," Paul Hogan, his mentor and fellow Perkin Medal recipient, and two CPChem scientists, Ashish Sukhadia, a polymer scientist, and Ted Cymbaluk in CPChem's production plant. McDaniel also expressed his gratitude to his lab assistant of 25 years, Kathy Clear.

"I want to thank [some of my fellow scientists here tonight] for their companionship in our long pursuit of mutual goals over the years," he said. "My company has always shared our technical developments with a large family of licensees, which practice our technology in hundreds of commercial reactors around the world. I owe many of them a great debt as well."

In concluding his Sept. 9 remarks, McDaniel quoted from his mentor, Hogan, who summed up his research this way:

"I came to regard research as discovering God's secrets, even thinking God's thoughts after him, as he revealed them in sometimes mysterious and surprising ways."

2024 has been a big year for McDaniel

In 2024, McDaniel was awarded his 500th U.S. patent, an achievement marked by a celebration in June, which was attended by CPChem executives and research and technology employees in Bartlesville.

"Max is far and away the most prolific inventor in the polyolefin industry in terms of granted U.S. patents," CPChem President and CEO Steve Prusak said.

While McDaniel is well known as an industry expert in polyolefin catalysis, especially in the areas of chromium catalysts and metallocene catalyst supports, his influence has extended across CPChem technologies, including the development of the 1-hexene process, the metallocene PAO process and more recently the reactivation process for the Aromax® II Catalyst.

"Above and beyond all of this, Max's greatest contribution to all of us and to CPChem is the inspiration and motivation that he has provided to generations of scientists, engineers, collaborators and company leadership throughout his almost 50-year career," Prusak said.

Creativity and innovation key for successful experimentation

New polymers are often made by inventing new catalysts - and catalysts are what first sparked McDaniel's scientific interest early in life, he said.

As a child growing up in North Africa, McDaniel crafted homemade rockets during the United States' space race with the Soviets. He became especially interested in catalysis by chromium, which made powerful propellants.

"My graduate studies dealt with chromium catalysis - and Phillips (Petroleum) was the home of chromium catalysts, so it seemed natural when I graduated that I would end up there working for Paul Hogan, known as one of the inventors of modern plastics," McDaniel said.

McDaniel's work philosophy emphasizes unrestrained creativity and innovation.

"The invention process is usually chaotic," he said. "It cannot be managed. One tries to do one thing, only to discover along the way something else that is much more valuable. This is a big part of the creativity process."

The PE industry has its roots in this creative chaos, McDaniel said. 

"The best management can do is to create an environment where this process is encouraged and its results are implemented. CPChem has inherited some of that value system from its earliest founders. It is important to keep that spirit alive," he said.

All of his accomplishments may seem technical, but McDaniel has a simple way of explaining them.

"I would tell anyone, 'Just look around you,'" he said. "Plastics are an essential part of the modern world - like steel or concrete. They are a fundamental building block of our world but also a material much more technically complicated and whose full potential is still unexplored."

Given that concrete and steel were inventions of the ancient world, McDaniel knows there is a long road of discovery ahead for polyethylene. In fact, he believes that the potential of the Phillips catalyst (Cr/silica, which is responsible for about 80% of CPChem's PE production) has barely been tapped.

What is at the heart of McDaniel's drive for innovation?

McDaniel gets up every morning thinking about the experiments he plans to run. At the end of the day, he's disappointed if he didn't get to run all the experiments he planned. When he returns home, he's preoccupied by the results of the experiments he completed.

"And when I go to sleep -- and I rarely sleep much -- I am wondering what I should do tomorrow to prove or disprove some point," he said. "You just can't let it go until you understand the issue."

Most successful researchers share a love of experimentation, a strong desire to resolve issues, and an inability to let go. And though it may take years, what happens when he finally solves the puzzle?

"It is the most rewarding, satisfying feeling," McDaniel said. "It has nothing to do with money, or fame, or even a pat on the back. It is a reward in itself, regardless of who else knows it."

The future is bright for CPChem and McDaniel

Plastics are as essential to modern life as concrete and steel, which means the future is bright for CPChem.

"The shale-gas technology has put the United States in a leadership role, quite unexpectedly to most of us. And our company is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it," McDaniel said.

To do that, CPChem must continue to invest in new products that its competitors cannot imitate. 

"I believe that CPChem has some of the most innovative technology in our industry," McDaniel said. "But because the pace of change in our industry is often fast, we must be able to implement new technology quickly. It's a difficult process that involves strong and coordinated commitment from all areas and levels of the company."

Read more about the Perkin Medal.

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