Arie Jan Haagensmit

Vocation

Notable

Dutch chemist known by many as the "father" of air pollution control because he linked the smog in Southern California to automobiles and demanded measures to control it. He identified unburned hydrocarbons, ozone, and nitrogen oxides from automobile exhaust and industrial fuel combustion as primary precursors to smog, and he developed a test to measure the intensity of the smog. By the mid 1950s, the connection between automobiles and smog in Los Angeles became widely accepted in scientific circles. Haagen-Smit's research led the automobile industry to install positive crankcase ventilation, the first vehicle emissions control system, in 1961. After serving as an original board member of the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, formed in 1960 to combat the smog, Dr. Haagen-Smit became the California Air Resources Board's first chairman in 1968. He died of lung cancer on 17 March 1977 in Pasadena, California. Link to Wikipedia biography