Over a period of 30 years, Dr. Sinor has accumulated a broad background in process engineering and development for the energy industry. Since 1985, he has been responsible for engineering activities at J. E. Sinor Consultants Inc. Before that, as manager of the Engineering Services Group for the Pace Company Consultants and Engineers, he directed a group of chemical engineers, mining engineers, environmental engineers and geologists.

As a member of the C-b Project Design Committee for Atlantic Richfield, Dr. Sinor participated in a review and analysis of surface oil shale retorting processes available for license to the C-b Project. The comparison included yields, energy balances, oil properties, limitations and probable costs. Dr. Sinor had specific responsibilities for running the economic analysis computer program utilizing both C-b and colony site input data.

At Rockwell International, Dr. Sinor invented the "Rockwell Flash Hydropyrolysis Process" for coal conversion which was developed for several years under Department of Energy funding. He was charged with finding applications for company technology in all areas of coal conversion processes.

As a process development engineer at Rockwell, he participated in the pilot-scale development and production of advanced ingredients, solid and liquid, for propellants and explosives. This required solution of problems in corrosion and materials compatibility, hazards analysis, remote control and operation, and continuous processing.

As senior engineer of the process engineering group he provided technical leadership for all chemical processing projects in the company. Initial process design and economic evaluations were prepared for a large number of chemicals, with more than a dozen carried through to actual pilot-scale production and large-scale economic analysis.

Following are selected examples of individual process engineering projects he has either carried out personally or directly supervised.

• Performed a feasibility analysis for installing a low-Btu coal gasifier system at an existing industrial and commercial park.



• Technical evaluation of a process for manufacture of formcoke.



• Project monitoring of Colony Oil Shale Project for U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation. Provided third party verification of construction progress to satisfy loan guarantee.



• Project monitoring of Asamera oil refinery expansion for the Royal Bank of Canada. Required regular verification of installation of equipment, process vessels, process piping, instrumentation, etc. according to project blueprints and schedules.



• Feasibility study for a Colorado ethanol plant.



• Technical consultant to the World Bank for an overseas oil shale development project.



• Evaluation of retorting technology. Assigning a net worth to a major oil shale retorting process which had been developed through large-scale pilot demonstration.



• Evaluation of technologies for recovery of oil from diatomaceous earth. Comparison of available processes to that under development by the client.



• Feasibility of a retorting process for eastern shale. Analysis of pilot plant data and recommendations for future development.



• Retort comparison. An evaluation of the Lurgi and Chevron processes. Thermodynamic and kinetic analysis with computer simulation of the effect of shale grade.



• Feasibility analysis of a near-surface retorting concept. Preliminary design and cost estimate.



• Evaluation of a solvent extraction process for Utah oil sands. Conducted for an oil company considering investing in a process which had been developed through the pilot plant scale.



• Project evaluation for a New Mexico natural gas liquids extraction plant.



• Development of process flow diagrams for a mild gasification process.



• Preliminary engineering and economic evaluation of continuous process for producing Xanthan gum.



• Evaluation of future worth of a sulfuric acid plant.



• Engineering and market analysis for a wave-driven electricity generation system.



• Feasibility of a phosphate slurry pipeline.



• Environmental impact of proposed Alaska petroleum refinery.

Pilot plants designed, built and operated for:

• Multi-phase reactions
• Liquid-liquid extraction
• Distillation
• Fluorinations, gas-liquid reactions
• Filtration, solid-liquid separation
• Coal drying