Lloyd Hall - Major Contributions

Major Contributions

Hall devoted much of his efforts to the technologies behind curing meat, particularly to improving a curing salt marketed by Griffith Laboratories known as flash-drying. This product originated with German chemist Karl Max Seifert, developer of a process whereby solutions of sodium chlorine and one or more secondary salts were sprayed onto hot metal and rapidly dried, producing crystals of the secondary salts encased inside a shell of sodium chloride. Seifert patented the process in 1934 and sold the rights to Griffith Laboratories. The adaptation of Seifert's process specifically for meat curing was then patented by company owner Enoch L. Griffith, who proposed nitrates and nitrites, well-known curing agents, as the secondary salts.

Lloyd Hall is often falsely credited with the original invention of Seifert's process. However, Hall took a leading role in developing the patent after it was sold to Griffith Laboratories, adding hygroscopic agents such as corn sugar and glycerine to inhibit caking of the powder. Most of his patents in meat curing dealt with either preventing caking of the curing composition, or remedying undesired effects caused by the anticaking agents.

Hall also investigated the role of spices in food preservation. It was common knowledge that certain seasonings had antimicrobial properties, but Hall and co-worker Carroll L. Griffith found that some spices carried many bacteria, as well as yeast and mold spores. To counter these problems, they patented in 1938 a means to sterilize spices through exposure to ethylene oxide gas, a fumigant. This method was all but abandoned upon the discovery that ethylene oxide was a toxic carcinogen. Hall and Griffith later promoted the use of ethylene oxide for the sterilization of medical equipment, helping to advance an idea that had been around for several years.

Hall also invented new uses of antioxidants to prevent food spoilage, especially the onset of rancidity in fats and oils. Aware that unprocessed vegetable oils frequently contained natural antioxidants such as lecithin that slowed their spoilage, he developed means of combining these compounds with salts and other materials so that they could be readily introduced to other foods.

After retiring from Griffith in 1959, Hall consulted for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. From 1962 to 1964, he sat on the American Food for Peace Council. He died in 1971 in Pasadena, California. He was awarded several honors during his lifetime, including honorary degrees from Virginia State University, Howard University, and the Tuskegee Institute and in 2004 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work.

He was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.