Leo Brewer, 85; UC Berkeley Chemistry Professor, Member of Manhattan Project
Leo Brewer, a UC Berkeley chemistry professor who worked on the Manhattan Project and later specialized in high-temperature thermodynamics, has died. He was 85.
Brewer died Feb. 22 of natural causes at Deer Hill Care Home in Lafayette, near Berkeley, the university announced.
Practical applications of Brewer’s research have ranged from crucibles to contain molten plutonium during construction of the atomic bomb in World War II to development of corrosion-resistant stainless steel.
“It is probably fair to say that he has contributed significantly to our understanding of the chemistry of almost every element of the periodic table,” former Berkeley Vice Chancellor Robert E. Connick, a Brewer colleague, said in a statement released by the university. “He created the field of modern high-temperature chemistry.”
Known for his imagination, keen judgment and ability to combine theory with experimentation in chemistry, physics and metallurgy, Brewer earned the E.O. Lawrence Award of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1961, the Coover Award of the American Chemical Society in 1967, the Palladium Medal of the Electrochemical Society in 1971, the Hume-Rothery Award of the Metallurgical Society in 1983, and a National Medal of Science.
Brewer taught chemistry at Berkeley from 1946 until his official retirement in 1989 and headed its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (formerly Radiation Laboratory) inorganic materials research division from the section’s inception in 1961 until 1975.
A native of St. Louis, Brewer earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry at Caltech. On the recommendation of department head Linus Pauling, Brewer moved to UC Berkeley, where he completed his doctorate in 28 months.
In 1943, he was recruited for the Manhattan Project -- the program to develop the atomic bomb. His assignment was to create crucibles to hold molten plutonium without contaminating it. After examining the properties of available materials at high temperatures, Brewer used sulfides of thorium and cerium to invent a workable substance.
Brewer’s wife, Rose, died in 1989. He is survived by three children, Roger of Portland, Ore., Gail Brewer of La Canada Flintridge and Beth Gaydos of Cupertino; and six grandchildren.
The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the UC Berkeley Department of Chemistry, 420 Latimer Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1460, or the California Native Plant Society, 2707 K St., Suite 1, Sacramento, CA 95816-5113.
