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Britt receives American Chemical Society’s Storch Award

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 24, 2016 — Phillip Britt, director of Chemical Sciences Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has won the 2016 Henry H. Storch Award in Fuel Science from the Energy and Fuels Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Britt was honored for his “elucidation of new fundamental insights into the complex mix of free-radical, ionic and concerted reaction paths of oxygen functional groups in organic energy resources, which is crucial to devising improved methods for converting fossil and biomass resources into fuels and chemicals.”

Since joining ORNL in 1988 as a physical organic chemist, Britt has focused on uncovering the fundamental kinetics and mechanisms of thermochemical decomposition reactions in the processing of low-rank coal, biomass and oxygen-rich energy resources. His research combines meticulous experimental studies with computational modeling to provide predictive insights into reaction rates and mechanisms.

Britt has been an author on more than 145 peer-reviewed articles and preprints and has delivered more than 200 scientific presentations. He is a fellow of the ACS and has twice won the Richard A. Glenn Award for best paper presented in the ACS Division of Fuel Chemistry, received the ACS Division of Fuel Chemistry Distinguished Service Award and presented at seven previous Storch Award Symposia. He has also served as chair of the Gordon Conference on Hydrocarbon Resources and as treasurer, chair and director-at-large of the ACS Division of Fuel Chemistry.

Britt received the award at a two-day symposium held in his honor during the American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition in Philadelphia.

ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.