About Richard Oriani
Richard A. Oriani was an El Salvador-born American chemical engineer and metallurgist who was instrumental in the study of the effects of hydrogen in metal. He also made significant contributions to the field of cold fusion. Oriani's theory on the diffusion of hydrogen through metal and its tendency to embrittle metals by concentrating at certain defects became the first to reconcile the widely scattered observations and interpretations of hydrogen embrittlement. While serving as the director for the Corrosion Institute at the University of Minnesota, Oriani pioneered the use of the Kelvin probe to study corrosion of metals in a wide range of environments, including corrosion induced by humidity. In 1943, Oriani graduated from the College of the City of New York with a degree in chemical engineering.
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