He was born on January 10, 1877, in Oakland, California, to Cynthia (née Durfee) and Henry Cottrell, both prominent families going back to the settlement of America.
A notation in his diary, dated January 15, 1900, reads: “Week for lunch and yard duty at school.” At the time, it was common for American scientists to conduct their graduate studies abroad.
To that end, Cottrell left for Europe in July 1900 on the German steamer Waesland and made land in England where he visited the “Cavendish labs…Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Crystal Palace” in London; and “the Bodleian Library, Sheldonian Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology” in Oxford.
The following year, van’t Hoff was awarded the first-ever Nobel Prize in chemistry “in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.” Cottrell then moved to Leipzig University[3] where he studied with Wilhelm Ostwald, undertaking a theoretical study of the effect of the counterflow of an electrolyte on the migration of ions through a diaphragm in an electrolytic cell.
When he proposed, Cottrell declared his love, with the proviso, “but my work comes first.” After two difficult pregnancies and the loss of two children, they settled into a quiet, solitary life.
[4] Shortly after returning to Berkeley, Cottrell began consulting for the DuPont Company at its explosives- and acids-producing facility near Pinole, California, 20 miles north of the University.
Using an electrical method similar to one envisioned by Sir Oliver Lodge in England, Cottrell began experimenting with electrostatic precipitation as a means of collecting sulfuric acid mists.
The result of Cottrell's work was the electrostatic precipitator, a device which could collect fly ash, dust and fumes, acid mists and fogs that spewed from turn-of-the century plants, and which became a primary means for controlling industrial air pollution.
Cottrell made it work by developing a reliable high-voltage power supply and electrodes that permitted electrical energy to leak across a gas-filled chamber from many small points.
The board of directors shared Cottrell's goal of acquiring inventions and patents, developing them, making them available to industry under licensing, and applying all profits to support investigations in fundamental scientific research.
In 1920, Cottrell's search for an inexpensive process for recovering helium from oil well gases resulted in its commercial availability at a cost as low as 1 cent per cubic foot.
After the war, production had been converted from explosives to fertilizer manufacturing and Cottrell's recommendation that the government continue to operate it as an experimental facility was ultimately incorporated in the plans for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Among its projects were Brackett headlights, detergents, heat wave roasting of Fullers earth, the Greger fuel cell and Royster stoves and deodorizers.
The failure of Research Associates resulted in a long, difficult depression and marked a decline in Cottrell’s previously unbounded fervor and enthusiasm.
Daniels and associates were trying to develop a thermal process for nitrogen fixation using a regenerative pebble-bed furnace, which they hoped would be an inexpensive alternative to the Haber ammonia synthesis.
On November 16, 1948, Research Corporation’s founder, Frederick Gardner Cottrell, died while attending a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences held at his alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley.