Today is December 7, 2007 which is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

WENDER: December 7, 1942. Someone handed me a rifle, just brand new covered in oil and said “clean it up, take it apart a thousand times and put it together.” This is in the army. I just happen to remember it was December 7th.

Some of your recent work is the generation of hydrogen from renewable resources?
WENDER: Hydrogen gas from renewable resources, yes.

You hold eleven patents. What is their nature?
WENDER: They are all different. Some were with the U.S. Bureau of Mines, some with the Department of Energy. One patent was with a company near Cleveland that I consulted with on the synthesis of a chromium carbonyl. That one caused some trouble.

In what way?
WENDER: Although I had received permission to consult with the company on a very specific topic, Washington, on learning of the patent issued by the company with my name on it, advised me, as a government employee, to terminate any consulting and, if I wished, to go into teaching. Some years later, I did that.

And ultimately you did get the patent though?
WENDER: Yes, the patent was issued.

So it was news to them?
WENDER: Yes, news to me too. Well, you have to give credit to the people who do the work leading to the patent or else the patent is no good. The company had no choice, they had to put my name on the patent.

“You know you ought to major in chemistry, I think you’d be good at it.” I said okay and I did that. So your work and the patents were diverse.

WENDER: They were very diverse; I mean one was for the synthesis of phenethyl alcohol which we felt was a very good patent. It involved an unusual way of synthesis. A patent lawyer agreed to do the necessary work to file and continue the patent, agreeing to be reimbursed from any proceeds deriving from the patent. Things went well until a large chemical company contested the patent. We fought with them for a time and soon realized that they had company lawyers and more money than we had so we gave up on the patent.

Was this the recent one that related to the various forms of production of methanol?
WENDER: No. The most recent patent involves turning petroleum derived hydrocarbons and polymers into jet and diesel fuels. We also had three patents which involved synthesizing methanol at low temperatures— considerably lower than commercial methanol synthesizers.

Tell me what led to you becoming a scientist?
WENDER: That’s easy. I was taking chemistry in high school. And I remember my chemistry teacher, Dr. Whitsit. He was the typical chemistry professor, little white beard just like a chemistry teacher should look like. He came to me one day and he said

“You know you ought to major in chemistry, I think you’d be good at it.” I said okay and I did that.

And that was it.
WENDER: That was it. I never changed my mind. And I was happy with it.

In your youth, did you display chemistry–related interests?
WENDER: I don’t think so. My youth was spent in an orphanage— little chance for these interests.

How is your most recent work with hydrogen and methanol important today?
WENDER: The student who did the hydrogen work is getting his PhD in January. We had a rehearsal of his final defense yesterday. He’s been working on making hydrogen from carbohydrates and all kinds of naturally occurring sugars. The so–called hydrogen economy is a long way off and carbohydrates as a source of hydrogen will probably not become feasible. The student, in the last part of his PhD thesis switched to converting sugars and sugar alcohols to chemicals, rather than to hydrogen. The idea is to make chemicals, heretofore made from petroleum, from naturally occurring carbohydrates. The future for chemicals made in this way should lower our need for petroleum somewhat. Plants, of course, are renewable, they continue to grow and are CO2–neutral— you know what I mean by that, The future of chemicals from sugars and from plants in general is bright. There is much commercial interest in this.

And the work relating to methanol… ?
WENDER: We did early work on methanol. Methanol is manufactured at rather high temperatures and we worked on using a homogenous catalyst at very low temperatures. And it works. Unfortunately it’s susceptible to carbon dioxide and any alkali and we have to use alkali in the process. A lot of people followed up our work, trying to make it work after we published this. A great many people did and received all kinds of patents from that. But it can’t compete with high temperatures in spite of what we did.

Was one of the potentials of it that it would be an inexpensive fuel?
WENDER: Well that was one of them. Methanol used to be called wood alcohol; it is somewhat toxic and could affect the eyes. Car manufacturers do not use it although it has been used in racing cars. Huge quantities of methanol are used to make chemicals. It can, however, be used as a motor fuel; if this happens, methanol use would grow greatly. Dr. George Olah, a Nobel laureate, advocates greater use of methanol. I think China is using methanol as a motor fuel.