I l i D U S T R I A L AND E N G I S E E R I S G CHE+XIXTRY
13CO
1-01.
21, No. 12
AMERICAN CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES The Newport Company
The Newport C o m p a n y , Carrollville, Wis.
HE principal plant of The Newport Company is located a t
T
Carrollville, Wis., about thirteen miles south of Milwaukee The property area is about 300 acres with Lake Michigan frontage of nearly 5000 feet. The present plant actually occupies 34 acres of this area with buildings devoted to the various processes involved in the manufacture of heavy chemicals, solvents, detergents, intermediates, and dyes. Other plants of The Newport Company are located a t Passaic and New Brunswick, N. J., Pensacola, Fla., Bay Minette, Ala., and De Quincy, La. The number of employees, floor space in use, as well as total acreage are given in the following table: NUMBER OF
TOTAL FLOOR SPACE
EMPLOYEES
Passaic, N. J. Carrollville, Wi5. New Brunswick, N. J. Pensacola, Fla. Bay Minette, Ala. De Quincy, 1.a.
TOTAL REAL
ESTATE
--
Souare = . feel 90,809 728,836 44,006 202,000 72,000 105,000
__--
Acres 3.4 298.0 3.88 39.4 15.5 18,936.0
1350
1,242,651
19.296.18
123 669 37 226 99 196
The actual beginning of the Carrollville plant was coincident with the beginning of the World War, a t which time two temporary buildings were erected, employing about fifty men, the principal article of manufacture being phenol. A t the start only a few tons a day of this commodity were produced, but shortly after the United States entered the war the productive capacity for phenol was enlarged to the point where the Carrollville plant was able to deliver something over 130 tons per day. One of the controlling factors in the development of this dyestuff and intermediate plant a t Carrollville was the desire to conserve after the war the highly trained technical staff which had been built up under war-time necessities, and from this small beginning the Carrollville plant has developed steadily year after year t o its present size and importance.
The principal manufacturing buildings a t Carrollville are as nearly fireproof as it is possible to make them and are of brick and steel construction or reenforced concrete. A separate building of substantial construction and special design houses the research department and has been completely equipped with everything needful for carrying on this important phase of the company’s activities. At the very outset it was realized that a research staff of the first quality was essential and Newport engaged the services of distinguished chemists for this work. The only change in the policy of the company in this regard has been a constant enlargement, recognizing as it does the supreme importance of constantly widening research activities if healthy growth is to be continued. Newport, in common with the other dyestuff producers, bent its efforts in the early days to the production of those dyes which were most badly needed to keep our textile industry supplied. Actual productions a t first were of the simpler types, but practically all of the study was directed toward the mastering of the difficulties in the way of producing the much more complex and higher quality dyestuffs for which Newport has since become justly famous. It was one of the first companies to put the complicated anthraquinone derivatives into commercial production, the leaders in this group falling into two main classes-the vat dyestuffs which Newport sells under the generic name Anthrene, and the anthraquinone dyestuffs for wool, which are sold under the generic name Acid Anthraquinone. The company manufactures a series of solvent products such as tetralin, hexalin, decalin, etc., which are made by a process of hydrogenation, and which find varied and interesting uses in many widely separated industries. The three southern plants of The Newport Company a t Pensacola, Bay Minette, and De Quincy are devoted exclusively
December, 1929
I-%’DUSTRIdLA-VD ENGINEERING CHE.WISTRY
1301
to the production of naval stores. These plants are also of the it is possible to treat approximately 300,000 tons of wood per year most modern type and have the very best chemical and operating a t its three southern plants. This wood consumption represents personnel, who have recently perfected a process for the manu- the clearing of approximately 100,000 acres of land per year in facture of pale wood rosins of all grades. addition to giving profitable employment to the farming comIn the long-leaf pine belt extending across the states bordering munity during the non-productive seasons. This development, on the Gulf of Mexico there are millions of acres of cut-over land aside from its value to the naval stores industry, has been an containing 1o n g - 1e a f i m p o r t a n t economic pine stumpage in quanfactor in *the agricultities ranging from 1 tural development of ton per acre to as high our southern s t a t e s . as 12 tons per acre. It Briefly, t h e p r o c e s s had been k n o w n f o r consists of the blasting and p r e p a r a t i o n t o y e a r s that this wood w a s very rich in ress p e c i f i e d size of the p i n e s t u m p s by the inous materials, averfarmer shippers. These aging approximately shippers operate within 20 per cent by weight. In 1910 The Newport a radius of 150 miles Company, then known from the various plants as the ATewport Tura n d m a y ship interpentine a n d Rosin mittently or continuCompany, undertook ously, it being the comto construct the first pany’s policy to accept plant of its kind in the all shipments a t a n y United States for the time of the year, recommercial extraction, gardless of the scale of plant operations. The by the steam distillawood when received is t i o n a n d solvent exResearch Laboratory, Carrollville Plant e i t h e r p l a c e d in traction process, of r o s i n , turpentine, storage or immediand pine oil. By ately consumed by being g r o u n d a n d 1912 t h e p r o c e s s had been developed s h r e d d e d to size, varying from dust c o m m e r c i a l l y to such an extent a t t o 1 ‘/z i n c h e s . This prepared wood Bay Minette that a is p l a c e d in large much larger p l a n t steel retorts, where was constructed a t Pensacola and the turpentine and pine oils are steamplaced in operation in 1914. Since that distilled f r o m t h e time t h e g r a d u a l wood and the rosin e x p a n s i o n of the is e x t r a c t e d b y company’s business m e a n s of hot solhas necessitated a vent naphtha. The continuous increase extracted materials in capacity, so that then pass through a a t the present time large number of reDe Ouincy, La., Plant
Retort BuildinC, Bay M i n e t t c P l a n t
Plant a n d Rosin Loading Track, Pensacola, Fla.
1302
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
fining operations to produce highly reiined turpentine and pine oil, as well as the various grades of rosin, ranging from the dark, known as “E” and “F” to the very pale grades known as “W G” and “W W.” The most recent acquisition of Newport through its wholly owned subsidiary, Newport Chemical Works, Inc. (Delaware), was the Rhodia Chemical Company with a plant a t New Brunswick, N. J., Bnd offices in New York City and Chicago. This plant produces photographic developers, among which are hydroquinone, metol, glycine, and also produces a line of high-grade perfume materials. Other products of the New Brunswick plant which do not fall into the above classifications are resorcin, dimethyl sulfate, etc. Through the acquisition of Rhodia, Newport also takes over the agencies of two French companies-namely, Societe des Usines Chimiques, Rhone-Poulenc, Paris, and A. Sornin & Cie., Grasse-and handles the importation and sale of their products as was done heretofore by Rhodia. Important technical relations are also maintained with the former French company. The distribution of the products of the Newport Company is handled by several wholly owned subsidiaries, the General Naval Stores Company, Inc., New York, and Newport Chemical Works, Inc. The General Naval Stores Company, Inc., handles the distribution of the products of the three southern plants. It also furnishes the technical service in connection with the use of
Vol. 21, K O . 12
these products by the various industries, having for this purpose a highly technical personnel. The General Naval Stores Company, Inc., maintains branch offices a t Philadelphia, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Chicago, and also has representation in all other important industrial centers of the country. Furthermore, since nearly one-half their naval stores products are exported, the General Naval Stores Company, Inc., has an extensive foreign sales organization, especially in Europe. The Newport Chemical Works, Inc., has headquarters a t Passaic, N. J., in the heart of one of the most thickly built-up manufacturing districts of the East. The dyestuffs and intermediates of the Newport Company are all sold and distributed from this point. The products as produced a t Carrollville are shipped to the Passaic plant, where they are standardized for the market. Large laboratories and a practical dyehouse and printshop are maintained for the study of the various application problems and a highly qualified technical staff is maintained for the rendering of service of any kind to the textile industry in connection with the sale and use of Newport products. Branch selling offices with local stocks are maintained a t Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Providence, Greensboro, N. C., Greenville, S.C., Newman, Ga., and Montreal. Sales agencies are maintained in India, China, Japan, and Argentina.
E. H. KILLHEFFER
BOOK REVIEWS The Chemistry of Leather Manufacture-Volume 11. BY JOHN ARTHUR WILSON. 2nd edition. A. C. S. Monograph 12. 683 pages, 59 plates, 161 figures. The Chemical Catalog Co., Inc., New York, 1929. Price, $10.00. The second edition of Wilson’s monograph, which in its first edition has been translated into French, German, and Russian, is now complete with the appearance of the second volume. In its greatly extended and revised form this excellent treatise is actually a new work, particularly in regard to the subject matter in the present volume. The gratifyingly rapid developments in leather chemistry during the seven years which have elapsed since the printing of the first edition are described in the author’s characteristically clear and concise style, and several accounts of important researches are published for the first time. The 90 pages required to cover the ground of the actual tanning and subsequent processes in the first edition have grown to 650 pages in the present volume. The book is profusely illustrated, with data often given in the form of graphs, and it is well indexed. It contains the most complete and finest collection of microphotographs available. Plates illustrating tanning operations are a useful innovation. This book may be profitably studied, not only by leather chemists, but also by tanners and colleagues in general. One hundred pages are devoted to the discussion of vegetable tanning and its theory, with particular emphasis on the physicochemical phases of this complex problem, to the clarification of which the author is the key man. In the three chapters on chromium salts and chrome tanning the Wernerian concepts have received a prominent place, It seems to the reviewer that a more extensive outline of Stiasny’s now famous researches in this field should have been given, as they give us the best enlightenment as to what really occurs and also the most striking illustration of the relationship between chemical constitution and colloidality. Some slight typographical errors are noticed in the structural formulas for the “01”-compounds in a book conspicuously free from errata. The following chapters discuss tanning with salts of aluminum and iron and the interesting tannages by means of oils, formaldehyde, quinone, and synthetic tannin. The remaining chapters are all new and describe materials used in fat-liquoring, the fat-liquoring process, the theory of emulsion, dyestuffs, and coloring. A rather complete list of dyes suitable for coloring leather is a welcome addition, as are also the chapters on furs and the microscopic examination of skins and leather, where the author freely gives from his pioneering experience in this field.
The concluding chapters deal with the physical and chemical properties of leather. These accounts of the exceedingly important practical investigations which Wilson has inaugurated in recent years are of immense value as a foundation for further much needed work on the cataloging of leather. The major criticism is that most chapters are too short. The author merits both the thanks and congratulations of his colleagues for this truly authoritative monograph.-K. H. GUSTAVSON Chemical Engineering Catalog. 14th Annual Edition. 1205 pages. The Chemical Catalog Co., Inc., New York, 1929. Price, 810.00, except to special classes of technical men, to whom it is loaned gratis or sold a t $3.00 per copy. The 1929 edition of the “Chemical Engineering Catalog” continues the high standard set by previous editions of this invaluable work of reference, which chemical engineers, works managers, purchasing agents, and others who buy and specify equipment and materials in the chemical process industries have come generally to regard as a standard source of information. A careful comparison of the volume with previous editions reveals, not only that many more firms are represented, but also that more complete technical data are supplied in many instances. Especially commendable is the complete information as to the application of corrosion- and heat-resisting alloys given by a large group of the leading manufacturers of these products. Another valuable feature is the inclusion of data from a large number of firms not regular advertisers in any of the technical periodicals, whose products, frequently of great interest, would otherwise not come to the attention of the chemical engineering public. The principal criticism that suggests itself is that there is not sufficiently adequate representation of manufacturers of general engineering equipment, such as stokers, boilers, valves, steam specialties, etc. It should be borne in mind that in all these industries where chemical processes are employed the chemical engineers or others in charge of production must be responsible, not only for the operation of the specifically chemical equipment, but also for the power plant and all the other departments of t h e factory, because these must be intimately connected in operation with whatever chemical apparatus may be used. In general the supervising committee and the publishers are to be congratulated on both the contents and the general appearance of the book, the printing being a decided improvement over t h a t in previous editions.-JOHN HELBRICH
