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AMERICAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES ~~~
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Plants of the General Ceramics Company
General Ceramics Company KOGKESS in the d r e r r u c a l iudustry creates a demand for better materials of constructiou and more efficient manufacturing equipment, and to meet this demand various industries have heen established for the production of highly specialized materials and equipment. Many of these industries have attained considerable magnitude by seeking and, as a general rule, finding useful application for their products outside the chemical field. One of the most interesting examples of this development is the manufacture of acid-proof clay products for industrial cliemical purposes. The chemical stoneware industry was established pximarily to take care of the demand for a material of construction in which acids and other corrosive materials could be manufactured a n d h a n d l e d . Most of the chemical ware m a n u f a c t u r e d today is still used for this purpose, but it has also found very wide application in t h e manufacture of foodstuffs and v i n e g a r , sirups, distilled water, and soft drinks; and for storage batteries, photographic equipment, photo-engraving, electroplating, b l e a c h i n g and dyeing, metal-relining, and for sinks, drainage a n 8 ventilating lines in s c h o o l s , hospitals, n e w s p a p e r p r i n t i n g offices, and other institutions. Like many industries in the chemical field, the manufacture and use of chemical stoneNicolaus B. Junneblut
P
ware has been largely a German development. In the United States the application of this product t o American requirements has been, t o a considerable degree, the work of the General Ceramics Company, and the history of this corporation is an interesting example of the Americanization of an imported industry. This industry is almost one hundred YmTS old. the first plant having been established in Germany in 1836. As the demand for chemical ware increased, various competitive plants were established in Europe which %.ere ultimately consolidated into one large organization, the Dcntsche Ton- und Steinzeugwerke of Charlottenburg. A graphic picture of the growth of this organization by the gradual accretion of established plants in a similar line of business is shown in thc accompanying diagram. This remarkable a c h i e v e ment is the work of N. B. Jungeblut, now chairman of the board of the General Cera.mics Company. Tn.1907 the importation of chemical ware by the Deutsche Tonund Steinzeugwerke to the United States indicated the desirability of manufacturing o n this s i d e , a n d t h e y organized the DidicrMarch Company in cooperation with another German corporation manufacturing fire-clay shapes. A plant was s e l e c t e d at Keasbey near Perth Amboy, N. J., where t h e s e t w o products were manufactured. I n 1912,owing t o t h e steady Fred A. Whirsker
May, 1928
INDUSTRIAL AND E,VGISEERING CHEMISTRY
551
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEiMISTRY growth of the chemical ware business, it was found disadvantageous to carry on both lines of manufacture under the same management, and the German-American Stoneware Works was incorporated to take over the chemical ware business under the control of the German corporation. In 1919 the German holdings were taken over and ultimately sold by the Alien Property Custodian and the name was changed t o the General Ceramics Company. The stock is now 94.5 per cent American-owned; of the remainder 5 per cent is held by the Deutsche Ton- und Steinzeugwerke and 0.5 per cent by the Steatit-Magnesia Corporation in consideration of the privilege of utilizing all improvements made in equipment and in methods of manufacture a t the German plants. The General Ceramics Company have therefore at their disposition the accumulated experience of practically the entire European industry and are in touch with the latest developments in stoneware equipment throughout the world. Full advantage is taken of these facilities by frequent visits of their technical men to the European plants and to the chemical and other factories where the products of these plants are in service. The great fund of technical information thus made available has to be supplemented by constant investigation in the laboratory of the various raw materials used (all of which are of American production), as it is found that batches taken from the same mine may differ widely in physical and chemical properties. The development of special clay bodies to meet certain specific requirements is another important branch of this work. How successful this has been is indicated by a comparison of the physical properties of special bodies made in 1921 with similar ware made in 1927: 1921 1460 65,000 7,900,000 0.0000027
Specific heat Thermal conductivity, K
0.188 0.8
1927 4080 113,000 5,900,000 0.0000019 0.199 2.0
To Fred A. Whitaker, superintendent of the Keasbey, N. J., plant, is due the credit for the high standard of material and workmanship maintained in the chemical ware products of the General Ceramics Company. He has been with the company more than twenty years, having gained his experience a t the German plants.
Vol. 20, No. 5
From 1907 the business of the General Ceramics Company was almost entirely with the chemical industry. The war caused an enormous increase in the demand for their products for use in the manufacture of explosives and poison gas, and to meet this demand their manufacturing facilities had to be very greatly augmented. The armistice consequently found them, like many other manufacturing concerns in this country, with a plant much larger in capacity than their normal business would justify. Efforts were therefore made t o find outlets for their product outside the chemical industry, and the success of these efforts is evidenced by the fact that every year since the armistice has seen a substantial increase in their sales, with the exception of 1924 when the total of the previous year was not quite reached. This steady increase in the consumption of acid-proof clay products is the more remarkable when we consider the large array of so-called acid-resistant materials that have been offered to the chemical industry during the past twenty years which might have been expected to affect adversely the consumption of chemical ware. These favorable results are also due in part to a change in the mental attitude of the chemical industry to the use of chemical ware. Before the General Ceramics Company entered this field only simple shapes of comparatively small dimensions were made in this country, and when large or complicated equipment was required, or where exceptional conditions had to be met, the stoneware had t o be imported. Consequently the chemical manufacturer looked t o other materials of construction and chemical ware was used only where nothing else would stand up. Now that a high-grade product is made here, this prejudice has practically disappeared and the chemical manufacturer has been persuaded that clay products are among the most permanent and least expensive materials in which to manufacture acids and other corrosives. The user of these chemicals has also been made t o realize that the logical material in which t o handle corrosives is the material in which they are manufactured. The potential field for the use of acid-proof clay products is so broad that there is no reason to doubi that the success that has attended this industry will be even more remarkable in the future. PERCY C. KINGSBURY
A Simple Automatic Control of Vacuum' S. P. Miller and P.V. McKinney THECOLLEGE OF WOOSTER, WOOSIER,OHIO
N T H E course of a recent investigation in the vacuum Inecessary fractionation of petroleum lubricating oils it was found to have an automatic control of the vacuum pressure. After a search of the literature the Bureau of Mines method2 was selected. I n adapting this method to a college laboratory, rather more restricted in its engineering facilities than the bureau, the valve presented some difficulty. The following is therefore offered as a workable modification which can be constructed in any college or industrial laboratory. The vacuum produced by a standard pump is to be controlled by a valve to the atmosphere. The simple device of a fine capillary opening closed by a solid rubber stopper seating against it is used for this valve. The stopper is mounted on the end of the arm of an electromagnet. The vibrator of an old bell was reconstructed for this purpose. It is operated by platinum contacts in the mercury of the manometer, which is so adjusted as to close the circuit when 1
Received February 29, 1928.
* Bur. Mines, Repts. Invcsfigalions 2819 (July, 1927).
the desired pressure is attained. The electromagnet is mounted vertically and the arm bent down to a right angle. The lower end of the rubber To M L n o m a t r r stopper is smoothed and softened by washing with s o d i u m hydroxide. The inner tube of a blast lamp makes an excellent capillary and is supported by wooden cleats. The nozzle is filed to a rather sham tir, and has an opening ofabout 0.4 mm. diameter. To ~9actcl.r This device held vacuum reduced to 5 mm. pressure, a t which the p l a t i n u m points of the manometer ~ V d c ~ ~ had ~ d been ~ k set and autobRd Manometer matically controlled within 0.3 mm.
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