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T H E J O U R N A L OF I N D U S T R I A L A N D E,VGINEERING C H E M I S T R Y
associations is working in a very energetic manner to popularize the use of benzole as a motor fuel and also to stimulate its production. Toward the end of May, Lord Montague of Beaulieu brought together a number of people interested in gas undertakings, for the purpose of hearing the proposal of H. L. Doherty, of New York, relative to the extraction of benzole from coal gas. Briefly stated, the proposals were to extract the benzole from the coal gas for use as a liquid fuel and to supply gas having no illuminating power. To quote from the same source: “Now that the calorific standard for town’s gas is being more extensively adopted, and also having regard to the fact that the illuminating power is not of itself an important point, the presence of benzole in the gas is not essential, but whether it would pay t o extract it from coal gas is quite another matter . . . . . .no one seems to know how much benzole is contained in coal gas as produced under existing conditions. If the quantity is anything less than two and a half gallons per ton of coal,. . . .it will be seen that very little margin for profit will accrue to the gas works.” Brewer (Idem, 52, 572) showed, a t the meeting of the Institute of Inventors, that his experiments with benzole proved it to be a suitable carburant.
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costly, consequently an inferior leather is more expensive than a good leather.
A NEW HORN SUBSTITUTE A process which combines leather and celluloid has been devised in Germany for the production of a horn substitute. The hide is depilated and then extracted with amyl acetate and acetone, to remove fleshy matter and to produce a hardening effect. Subsequently it is coated with a solution of celluloid in amyl acetate and acetone. When the solvent has evaporated, the hide is placed in a bath of shellac dissolved in alcohol. It is said that hide thus treated is not only similar to horn, but also possesses its elasticity and strength; the product is strong and light, and is suitable for the manufacture of trunks, boats, and insulating materials.
SOME INDUSTRIAL USES OF SUGAR A list of the industrial applications of sugar, which illustrates the great diversity of manufactures in which this product appears quite apart from food economy, was contributed by Rolfe to The Chemical News, 107,2 1 j. French writers, especially Vivien, have recently made pleas A NEW PRODUCT FROH WHALE OIL! for the use of sugar as the cheapest form of pure carbohydrate, A German-Norwegian company, capitalized a t about $833,500, since it replaces, in many cases, glucose, starch and dextrin. organized to work a new German method for hydrogenating The French Government imposes a tax on sugar and glucose whale oil, commenced operations a t Fredrikstad, Norway, products used as human foods, but “denatured” sugar is exempt in May. The Hafslund Falls are being utilized to generate from taxation. As in alcohol denaturation, the substance the electric power required by the works and also to manufac- added is, if possible, some ingredient in the special process ture by electrolysis the hydrogen required for the hardening using the sugar. In France, an excellent quality of sugar known process to which the purified whale oil is submitted and-con- as No. 3 white sugar and polarizing over 99 per cent sells, when verted into a solid neutral fat. The daily consumption of oil denatured, at a lower price than does starch, glucose or dextrin, approximating what the refiners pay here for raw sugar. is about 300 barrels. [Bomer and Leschly-Hansen (Chsm. Rev. Fett. Ind., 19, 218, Sugar is a common ingredient of many compounds for re247) hardened whale oil by the method of Wilbuschewitsch, moving and preventing boiler-scale, and as these usually contain according to which the oil is mixed with the catalytic agent alkali, this is used as a denaturant. The shoe-blacking industry (nickel reduced on kieselguhr) and heated in an autoclave under uses sugar and molasses to a considerable extent. In Europe pressure while a current of hydrogen is introduced. The product there seems to be a tendency to use blackings of this older type possessed a melting point of 45.1~C.; a solidifying point of as less injurious to leather than the newer wax blackings, owing 33.9O C.; an acid value of 1.2; a saponification value of 192.3; to the solvents used in the latter. These shoe-blackings are an iodine number of 45.2; and a refractometer reading a t 40° C. made by the carbonization of sugar with sulfuric acid, neutralof 49.I.-w. A. H.] izing the product, and then incorporating. boneblack, oil, etc. Many tons of sugar are now used by manufactureTs of transTHE COMPOSITION OF SOME SOLE LEATHERS parent soaps; sugar soaps are less sticky than glycerin soaps. Investigations conducted by Veitch and Rogers (Bull. There are over thirty patents for explosives in which sugar is 165, Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, a component to the extent of from 6 to 40 per cent. This use 1913)show that weighting of leathers with useless or harmful of sugar has become so important in Germany that a special materials is largely practised in this country, with the result provision is made in that country for denaturing sugar employed that resources in leather materials are wasted and the public in the manufacture of explosives, paraffin being used. In the is defrauded. A large majority of the samples examined con- color and dyeing industries sugar is used as a reducing agent tained an unnecessary quantity of uncombined tanning mate- in indigo and chrome work, as a base for the manufacture of rial; in fact, Veitch and Rogers estimate that but little less than organic chromium salts, and as a vehicle or “filler” for solid $I,OOO,OOO worth of tannin is wasted annually in this way. aniline colors, giving them an attractive appearance. The Sixty-three per cent of the leathers examined were weighted European tanneries use large amounts of sugar in “filling” with glucose, with Epsom salts, or with both. The amount leather and, to some extent, in removing lime from the hides of loading varied from I to 7.3 per cent of Epsom salts, with in dehairing. This solvent action of sugar on lime, and the an average of 3 per cent; the maximum quantity of glucose easy recovery of the sugar by carbonization, has suggested its in the loaded leathers was 10.4 per cent, and the average 5.5 use in several processes where it is desirable to remove excess per cent. The maximum amount of these loading materials of caustic lime from calcined minerals, such as phosphates, found in any leather was 16 per cent and the average where magnesium oxide, etc. Tannin extracts are also “filled” with both were present was 8 per cent. The reylts obtained indicate sugar, as they are in the United States with glucose. Sugar pounds of glucose and Epsom is also used in several chrome tanning processes as a reducer, that not less than ~z,ooo,ooo salts are sold annually in sole leather to the American people. and, as in dyeing, for making acetates and formates. Still With regard to the weighting of leather, Veitch and Rogers other uses are in the manufacture of copying inks, printers’ conclude that the materials add absolutely nothing to the wear- rolls, hektograph pads; silvering of mirrors, hardening of mortar ing value of the leather and where present in large quantity may and plaster; as a source of pure carbon for use in the manufacture positively decrease its wear. Shoes made from these leathers of pure carbon monoxide or sulfurous acid; and as a source of are readily penetrated by water. Loading makes leather more sucrose octonitrate, or nitrosaccharose, a product analogous
