Richard Yeo Swee Chye () is an American
scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...
with 17 U.S. patents, best known for his research on
disposable diapers.
Research
Disposable diapers
Yeo co-invented US patent 5,356,626: "Synthetic fecal fluid compound." At the time, Yeo was a senior research scientist working in
Roswell, Georgia
Roswell is a city in northern Fulton County, Georgia, United States. At the official 2010 census, the city had a population of 88,346. The 2020 estimated population was 94,884, making Roswell the state's ninth largest city. A close suburb of Atla ...
for
Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand n ...
,
makers of
Huggies. He, along with Debra Welchel, developed the material to help the company produce better disposable diapers.
Yeo described his research as:
Yeo conducted extensive research & developed various disposable diapers &
personal care products having new features: breathable back sheets, colorful/embossed backsheets, improved BM flaps and better BM containment, better body liners, flushable materials for constructing diapers, odor control, and better tampons.
Nafion & fuel cells
From 1970-75, Yeo conducted doctorate thesis research on
Nafion
Nafion is a brand name for a sulfonated tetrafluoroethylene based fluoropolymer- copolymer discovered in the late 1960s by Dr. Walther Grot of DuPont. Nafion is a brand of the Chemours company. It is the first of a class of synthetic polymers wi ...
under the supervision of Adi Eisenberg (Otto Maass Professor of
McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
). In 1977, Yeo and Eisenberg published the earliest
peer-review
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
ed journal article on Nafion.
Yeo continued to publish on Nafion, conducting several comprehensive theoretical studies of the swelling properties of Nafion membrane in various organic and
methanol-containing solvents. Yeo found that these perfluorinated
ionomer membranes exhibit dual
cohesive
Cohesion may refer to:
* Cohesion (chemistry), the intermolecular attraction between like-molecules
* Cohesion (computer science), a measure of how well the lines of source code within a module work together
* Cohesion (geology), the part of shear ...
energy densities. This was referred to by McCain and Covitch as the ''Yeo Envelope''. The commercial importance of Yeo's earliest studies of the unique swelling behavior of Nafion membrane was cited and described by Doyle and Rajendran in the ''Handbook of Fuel Cells'' as:
Publications
Book chapters and editing
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* ''A Guide to Advanced Level Physics'' (published in Singapore).
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Articles
* "Survey on Separators for Electrochemical Systems," Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Report # 18937, US Department of Energy, 1984.
* "Electrochemical Separation Processes – Industrial Needs," in Tutorial Lectures inElectrochemical Engineering and Technology – II, American Institute of Chemical Engineers Symposium Series, Ed. By R. Alkire and D-T. Chin, (1983), pg. 205.
* "Membranes and Diaphragms in Industrial Electrochemical Processes," in Proceedings of the Workshop on Electrochemistry Research Needs for Mineral and Primary Materials Processing, Ed. By T. J. O'Keefe and J. Evans, Rolla, Missouri, (1983), pg. 51-58.
* "Novel Hybrid Separators for Alkaline Zinc Batteries," in Proceedings of Advances in Battery Materials and Processes, Ed. By J. McBreen, R. Yeo, and D-T Chin, Electrochemical Society, 1984, pg. 206. & "Research on separators for alkaline zinc batteries" LBL Report.
* "Transport Properties of Nafion Membranes in Electrochemically Regenerative Hydrogen/halogen Cells," J. of Electrochem. Soc.,126, 1682 (1979).
* "Ruthenium-Based Mixed Oxides as Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution in Acid Electrolytes," J. of Electrochem. Soc., 128, no. 9, (1981)
* "Perfluorosulphonic Acid (Nafion) Membrane as a Separator for an Advanced Alkaline Water Electrolyser," J. of Applied Electrochem, 10, 741 (1980).
* "A Hydrogen-Bromine Cell for Energy Storage Applications," J. of Electrochem. Soc., 127, 549 (1980).
* "An electrochemically regenerative hydrogen-chlorine energy storage system: electrode kinetics and cell performance," J. Applied Electrochem., 10, 393 (1981).
* "An Electrochemically Regenerative Hydrogen-Chlorine Energy Storage System: A Study of Mass and Heat Balances, J. Electrochem. Soc., Volume 126, Issue 5, pp. 713-720 (1979)
* "Swelling Properties of Nafion and Radiation Grafted Cation Exchange Membranes," J. Membrane Sci., 9, (1981) 273.
* "Sorption and transport behavior of perfluorinated ionomer membranes in concentrated NaOH solution Electrochimica Acta (December 1985), 30 (12), pg. 1585-1590
* "Corrosion of polymer–concrete composites in hydrochloric acid at elevated temperature," J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 26, 1159 (1981).
* "Gas-Solid Exchange Reactions: Zinc Vapor and Monocrystalline Zinc Telluride," Canadian J. of Chemistry, 49, 1953 (1971).
Patents
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References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yeo, Richard
Living people
American people of Chinese descent
Hokkien scientists
Year of birth missing (living people)