Prof Robert Simpson SilverCBEFRSE FIP MIME was a Scottish physicist and mechanical engineer, awarded the Unesco Prize for Science in 1968 for his discovery of a process for the demineralisation of sea water. Prior to his work there had been no commercially viable desalination process that involved continuous flow; plants had to be stopped and emptied of accumulated salt from time to time, such as when a passenger liner using desalination was in port. Silver performed a thermodynamic analysis showing that reverse osmosis and "multi-stage flash" were the optimal processes for purification of water. As reverse osmosis technology was less advanced in the mid-20th century he designed multi-stage flash equipment, of which the first operational large-scale installation was in Kuwait. Silver was also a poet and playwright whose work was performed at the Edinburgh Festival.
Life
He was born in Montrose, Angus on 13 March 1913 the son of Alexander Clark Silver and his wife, Isabella Simpson. He was educated at Montrose Academy. He studied Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University graduating MA in 1932, BSc in 1934 and gaining his doctorate in 1938. From 1936 to 1962 he worked in Industrial Research and Design. His first post was in ICI's Explosives Division. For the duration of the Second World War he was Head of Research for G & J Weir in Glasgow. Here he became an expert in desalination whilst working with the Admiralty. After the war he worked consecutively for the Gas Research Board, Federated Foundries Ltd, John Brown Land Boilers Ltd then back to G & J Weir in 1956 as Chief of Research and Development and becoming Director in 1958. In 1962 he moved to academia and became Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Heriot-Watt College. In 1964 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Hugh Bryan Nisbet, John Ronald Peddie, Frank Bell and William Harold Joseph Childs. In 1966 he moved to Glasgow University to take the James Watt Chair in Mechanical Engineering and Thermodynamics. He retired in 1979. In 1982 he won the Water Supply Improvement Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work bringing clean water to many arid countries. He died on 21 April 1997.
