Abraham Ophir

1933–2010
Chief Technology Officer, IDE

One of the developers of vertical tube, vapour compression evaporators; in IDE before it existed. Desalination's most calmly cheerful man.

Abraham Ophir – Tom Pankratz
Abraham Ophir – Tom Pankratz

Abraham survived World War II Poland and childhood Siberian exile to move to a very young Israel in 1949. In 1960, he joined Alexander Zarchin's research group, which developed the Zarchin process and became IDE, of which Abraham became chief technology officer and VP of R&D.

Abraham was characterised by interests in research (he was an indefatigable conference presenter, and particularly proud of his award for a 2007 IDA Congress paper on thermal developments) and education (he trained generations of IDE engineers who participated in the remarkable rise of the company).

Never really retired, he died in 2010.

 

 
Before we begin to work, let’s find a nice beach and have a swim in the beautiful blue waters.
Abraham, on a troubleshooting trip to the Caribbean
Aqua-Chem lost a contract to IDE in the late 1960s. Too late, we learned their process was non-violent MSF. The concept was first observed by Fred Loebel and I. Later, we built a test unit and found other benefits of the process. We adopted and improved the concept, and coined the name, Spray Film. When Abraham and I would have some quiet moments together at a conference we would compare notes, and each, with a wink of an eye, claim to have been there first!
Gordon Leitner

Landmark plant:

  • Eilat (Israel, 1964, VC)
22 Feb 2012
by MADURAI LAKSHMIDURAI

I had interaction with Mr. A Ophir. He came to Curacao Refinery. He was insrumental in production improvement with Surfactant dosing in IDE's MED unit.

It is Great that I have seen him listed in this Hall of fame.

M.Lakshmidurai.