William Merriam Burton

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William Merriam Burton (November 17, 1865 – December 29, 1954) was an American chemist who created the Burton process, a method of heating crude oil to crack it into gasoline. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and earned a B.S. from Western Reserve University in 1886 and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1889. Burton worked for Standard Oil's refinery in Whiting, Indiana, and later served as president of Standard Oil from 1918 to 1927. His thermal cracking patent, issued January 7, 1913 (U.S. Patent 1,049,667), doubled the gasoline yield from crude oil. He received the Willard Gibbs Award in 1918 and the Perkin Medal in 1922. Burton died in Miami, Florida.