At Corning Glass Works, Lachman was a member of the team that invented the first inexpensive, mass producible catalytic converter for automobiles operating internal combustion engines. In addition to Irwin Lachman, the team consisted of engineer Rodney Bagley and geologist Ronald Lewis.While working at Corning, Irwin Lachman co-invented the ceramic substrate found almost in all catalytic converters. The catalytic converters provide cleaner automotive emissions, which greatly reduce the amount harmful pollutants. Lachman, along with his colleagues were critical with developing an efficient and feasible catalytic converter. Later did he realize ceramics could be ideally suited to meet the demands placed on a catalytic converter. The composition he worked on offered better resistance to sudden and extreme temperature fluctuations. Lachman’s fundamental ceramics technology ultimately decreases pollution released into the environment. Their work was a response to the Clean Air Act and reduced polluting emissions from the combustion process by 95%. Additionally, because the catalyst they used in their invention, platinum, required removing lead from gasoline as an additive, their device offered a secondary benefit to the environment by reducing lead pollution. Working together in the early 1970s at Corning Inc. in Corning, N.Y., Lachman, Bagley and Lewis all used cellular ceramic technology to create the ceramic honeycomb that became the essential core component of catalytic converters. Lachman and Lewis worked on the project for two years to develop a new ceramic material that had all the key characteristics they had been in need of: high temperature durability, low thermal expansion, low thermal conductivity at high temperatures, light weight and controlled porosity. Lachman, along with Bagley and Lewis, were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 and received the 2003 National Medal of Technology at a White House ceremony. The team also won the International Ceramics Prize of 1996 for Industry and Innovation "Advanced Ceramics." Lachman received a B. Eng. from Rutgers University in 1952 and a Ph.D. in ceramic engineering from Ohio State University in 1955, holds 47 U.S. patents and has authored numerous technical papers.
