Inventor - Edward Goodrich Acheson

Born: March 9, 1856 in Washington, Pennsylvania

Died: July 6, 1931, age 75 in New York City, New York

Inventor of the Acheson process to synthesize silicone carbide  (carborundum) and graphite

Raised in the coal fields of Pennsylvania, Edward Goodrich Acheson attended Bellefonte Academy from age 13 to 16. His father died in 1872 so he left school to help support his family, taking a job as a surveyor's assistant for the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad.  

In his spare time, he dedicated his time to electric experiments. In 1880, he invented a type of battery, pitched it for sale to Thomas Edison and he got hired on September 12, 1880 to work in Edison's lab in Menlo Park NJ. While there, he experimented maing a conducting carbon for Edison to use in his electric light bulbs.

In 1881, he went with a team of other Edison inventors to the Paris Exposition of Electricity and stayed there to install demos of Edison's electric light system in Belgium and in Milan.  In 1884, he left Edison's employ to be a supervisor of a plant that manufactured electric lamps while he continued working on other inventions.

He produced an artificial diamond using an electric furnace then further perfected it by heaing clay and coke in an iron bowl with a carbon arc light which produced hexagon crystals which was silicon carbide which he called carborundum.

In 1891, at Edison's suggestion, he built an electricity plan in Port Huron and used the electricity to experiment further with carborundum. In 1893 he received his first patent and went on to accummulate over 70 more patents relating to graphite products, oxides, and abrasives.  

The Electrochemical Society presents an award in his name every two years to inventors who make contributions to electricity and abrasives.  Edward Goodrich Acheson received the first award shortly before he died in 1931.

In 1953, the Pennsylvania Historical Commission put a historical marker outside his home as acknowledgement for his many achievements.  In 1997, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and his home in Monongahela, Pennsylvania is now a National Historic Landmark.