[1] Bell studied chemical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and got his bachelor's degree in 1964 and his PhD in 1967.
[1] A lot of Bell's work was done with an infrared spectrometer and studying the rate of oxidative reactions over metal catalysts.
[1] In 1975, Bell became the principal investigator in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Bell was known for his process when performing research: "identify important questions; master the spectroscopic and numerical tools needed to address the problem; determine the detailed reaction chemistry; and then share with the community the relationship between the reaction chemistry and process performance.
The main purpose of this work was to truly understand the rate determining steps and how hydrocarbons form at the silica-Ru surface from Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.
[12] This work helped Bell determine the key rate-determining steps happening at the surface of the metal catalyst.
[13] Bell's work started looking at mathematical based methods to describe resist spin coating.
[15] By the end of the 1980s, Bell was incorporating Raman and NMR spectroscopy techniques to analyze zeolite structures in alumina-silicate solutions.
Bell was able to thermodynamically and mechanistically describe the absorption of aromatic hydrocarbons on the surface of silicate zeolites.
[20] In the early 2000, Bell submitted his work on heterogenous catalysts and could describe the reduction and oxidation of nanoparticles through catalytic reactions to reduce the amount CO pollution.