Editors

Editor-in-Chief
  • Robert A. Meyers

About the Editor

Robert A. Meyers Dr. Meyers was manager of Energy and Environmental Projects at TRW (now Northrop Grumman) in Redondo Beach, CA, and is now president of RAMTECH Limited. He is coinventor of the Gravimelt process for desulfurization and demineralization of coal for air pollution and water pollution control and was manager of the Department of Energy project, leading to the construction and successful operation of a first-of-a-kind Gravimelt Process Integrated Test Plant. Dr. Meyers is the inventor of and was project manager for the DOE-sponsored Magnetohydrodynamics Seed Regeneration Project which has resulted in the construction and successful operation of a pilot plant for production of potassium formate, a chemical utilized for plasma electricity generation and air pollution control. He also managed TRW efforts in magnetohydrodynamics electricity generating combustor and plasma channel development. Dr. Meyers managed the pilot-scale DoE project for determining the hydrodynamics of synthetic fuels. He is a coinventor of several thermo-oxidative stable polymers which have achieved commercial success as the GE PEI, Upjohn Polyimides, and Rhone-Poulenc bismaleimide resins. He has also managed projects for photochemistry, chemical lasers, flue gas scrubbing, oil shale analysis and refining, petroleum analysis and refining, global change measurement from space satellites, analysis and mitigation (carbon dioxide and ozone), hydrometallurgical refining, soil and hazardous waste remediation, novel polymers synthesis,modeling of the economics of space transportation systems, space rigidizable structures, and chemiluminescence-based devices. He is a senior member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, member of the American Physical Society, and member of the American Chemical Society and has served on the UCLA Chemistry Department Advisory Board. He was a member of the joint USA-Russia working group on air pollution control and the EPA-sponsored Waste Reduction Institute for Scientists and Engineers. Dr. Meyers has more than 20 patents and 50 technical papers in the fields of photochemistry, pollution control, inorganic reactions, organic reactions, luminescence phenomena, and polymers. He has published in primary literature journals including Science and the Journal of the American Chemical Society and is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. Dr. Meyers’ scientific achievements have been reviewed in feature articles in the popular press in publications such as The New York Times Science Supplement and The Wall Street Journal as well as more specialized publications such as Chemical Engineering and Coal Age. A public service film was produced by the Environmental Protection Agency of Dr. Meyers’ chemical desulfurization invention for air pollution control. Dr. Meyers is the author or Editor-in-Chief of a wide range of technical books including the Handbook of Chemical Production Processes, the Handbook of Synfuels Technology, the Handbook of Petroleum Refining Processes (now in 4th edition), and the Handbook of Petrochemical Production Processes (McGraw-Hill) (now in 2nd edition); the Handbook of Energy Technology and Economics, published by John Wiley & Sons; Coal Structure, published by Academic Press; and Coal Desulfurization as well as the Coal Handbook published by Marcel Dekker. He served as chairman of the Advisory Board for A Guide to Nuclear Power Technology, published by John Wiley & Sons, which won the Association of American Publishers Award as the best book in technology and engineering. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of three editions of the Elsevier Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology. Most recently, Dr. Meyers serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry as well as Reviews in Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine and a book series of the same name both published by John Wiley & Sons. In addition, Dr. Meyers currently serves as Editor-inChief of two Springer Nature book series, Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science Series and Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series.