October, 1929
IXDL’STRIAL AND ENGINEERIXG CHEMISTRY
Problems of Chinese M a n u f a c t u r e r s
The chief problems confronting the Chinese manufacturers lie in the shortage of raw materials. The demand for wheat starch is limited in China and the chemical condiment manufacturers are often forced to reduce their production on account of the shortage of gluten. To manufacture gluten and to convert starch into dextrin, glucose, caramel, alcohol, maltose, etc., are new schemes under careful consideration by a t least two prominent manufacturers. The Chinese wheat kernel contains but little protein, and Canadian wheat flour is the source of gluten. Although there is in Shanghai’ one company producing hydrochloric acid, the output is so small that the manufacturers of chemical condiment have to depend chiefly on Japanese supply. A research institute supported by one of the prominent chemical condiment manufacturers has been recently organ-
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ized in Shanghai for the purpose of solving the various problems that have hindered the expansion of the Chinese factories as demanded by the market. Acknowledgment
The author is indebted to Y. S. Fong, S. I. Wong, Kai Ho, and Chao-Lun Tseng for reading this manuscript and offering valuable suggestions. Literature Cited (1) Andrlik, Z. Zuckerind. Bohmen. 27, 665 (1903). (2) Andrlik, Ibid., 39, 387 (1915). (3) Andrlik and Velich, Ibzd., 33, 313 (1908). (4) Braun, Luithlen, and Neumann, U. S. Patent 1,073,392(1913). ( 5 ) Habermann, Ann., 179, 248 (1875). (6) Osborne and Clapp, A m . J. P h y s i d . , 17, 231 (1906). (7) Ritthausen, J . p r a k f . Chem., (1) 106, 415 (1869); Ritthausen and Krensler, Ibid. (2) 3, 314 (1871). (8) Scheibler, Ber., 17, 1725 (1884).
(9) Stoltzenherg, Ibid., 46, 557 (1913).
AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES Charles F. McKenna
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N THIS age, when the acquisition of wealth is often the
measure of success, we are too apt t o value the worth of the individual by this standard and t o forget that the virtues of courage, honesty, and a regard for the welfare of others are still coins in good circulation. In going over my list of professional acquaintances, I can find none who assays higher in the latter specie than Dr. Charles F. McKenna. Here we have a chemist who has given largely of his time and talents to promote the welfare of his fellow chemists, his city, and his state. Doctor McKenna may be said t o be one of the first of our distinguished “homegrown” chemists. He entered his profession a t a time when leading American scientists were largely trained in German universities, and the fact that he early displayed all the talents hitherto associated with study in Europe helped to establish the prestige of the American institutions. Doctor McKenna received his undergraduate degree a t the age of eighteen from St. Francis Xavier College, in 1879, and his Ph. D. degree from Columbia University in 1884. He also received in the intervening years the degrees of Ph.B. from the latter and h1.A. from the former. Charles F. During the first nine years after receiving his doctor’s degree, the subject of this sketch served as chemist for various industrial companies. In 1893 he began his public career as director of the Laboratory of Physical Testing of the City of New York, which position he held for two years. This work determined the scope of his professional activities and, while he left it to become chemist for the Passaic Zinc Co., his subsequent field was largely in the valuation of building and various other engineeripg materials. After two years he left the Passaic Zinc Company t o establish his own laboratories, offering his services to the public as a consulting chemist, and continued this connection until his retirement from active work in 1923. I n the ethical conduct of his laboratory, Doctor McKenna
will serve as a model which might well be followed by every commercial chemist. Honesty and fidelity to his client’s interest were the keynote of his work even to the extent of depriving himself of the rewards which his more complacent confr6res would not have considered compromising. Nothing exemplifies this more than that point where my own work first touched his. The American cement industry, a t the beginning of the present century, was young. Building materials were then largely sold through what would now be called favorable “contracts” rather than by reason of quality. Specifications were frequently drawn for architects and engineers, themselves unfamiliar with the technology of cement, by obliging salesmen who usually saw to it that their material was let in while the other fellow’s product was shut out. Doctor McKenna could have found many friends by compliance with this practice; instead, he made powerful and influential enemies by drawing for his clients specifications which insured them proper material and by insisting that all cement furnished them should pass these specifications. This re’sulted no doubt in pecuniary loss to the laboratory, but it unquestionably helped to McKenna raise the American cement industry to a point where its product was probably superior to that made elsewhere in the world. Doctor McKenna was active in the early days of the American Society for Testing hlaterials. He could always be found on the side of those advocating a more rigorous set of specifications and more careful methods of test. However, I do not recall that he was ever unfair to the manufacturer in what he asked. He was a member of the Committee on Cement Testing of this association for many years, but I do not think he ever fully concurred in the final result of its labors. He believed that specifications should be drawn with due regard ta the scientific side of the question and not as the result of bargaining between large users and the manufacturing interests.
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I-VDUSTRIAL A S D EiVGINEERI-VG CHEMISTRY
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Doctor McKenna’s most significant services to the profession annually without loss or injury to life and with an absurdly are probably in connection with the founding of the Chemists’ insignificant property loss. Another and earlier piece of work in this same field, the safe Club and the organization of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. From a very early time in his career he had handling of dangerous chemicals, was done as a member of the SOCIETY Municipal Explosives Commission appointed by Mayor Seth been active in the affairs of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL and of the New York Section of the Society of Chemical Industry Low after the disastrous Park Avenue tunnel explosion. Alof which he was chairman in 1910. It was at the suggestion though a purely honorary appointment, Doctor hIcKenna deof Professor Brenneman, sometime in the late nineties, that voted much of his time to this work during the development Doctor McKenna undertook the organization of the Chemists’ stage. As the only technical member of the commission, he Club and invited Professor Brenneman, Doctor McMurtrie, and appreciated the hazards involved much more fully than did Professor Bogert t o a meeting in his office with this end in his lay associates. Here too his strict adherence to a course view. Doctor McKenna gave t o this undertaking much time which he thought to be right led him to insist on the members and thought and his efforts played a large part in establishing devising rules and regulations which they questioned as being the Club. Again in 1909 we find Doctor McKenna at the helm unnecessary. Time has shown the wisdom of his demands, in the erection of the Chemists’ Building, as chairman of the and the city is still guided by these same regulations. He served committee formed for this purpose. He was president of the on this commission under two administrations, each of a difClub in 1914. ferent political complexion, and resigned when he found politics, It is doubtful if the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and not science, was to rule the commission. From the above picture of Doctor McKenna’s professional would have come into being-when it did, at any rate-without the efforts of Doctor McKenna. Considerable opposition character, one would expect a man intensely interested in hudeveloped from the leading members of the various established manitarian endeavors. His interest here is best shown by his societies, who felt that a new society formed avowedly for prac- work with the Catholic Home Bureau for Dependent Children, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, He was one of the founders tical chemists might drive a wedge between them and the teachers of chemistry and result in the schism of a large body of their of the former society, which under his guidance has become members. This objection deterred many chemists who pre- one of the most active and thorough-going of the Catholic chariviously had expressed a desire for such an institute from join- ties of New York, with an excellent philanthropic record. A t the insistent demands of those interested in social welfare ing in any active movement for its organization. Doctor McKenna felt that all men who were qualified for membership in work, a State Probation Commission was appointed under the new society would still retain their membership in the older Governor Hughes, with a personnel selected from those active in various forms of this. Doctor McKenna was appointed a societies. His devotion to the latter had been amply proved member of this commission and later became its vice president. and no one could accuse him of any motive except an honest Doctor McKenna’s published work is largely confined to addesire t o further the interest of his fellow chemists. For this reason his adherence t o the new movement brought to the cause dresses and papers presented before various scientific societies other prominent leaders of the profession, and his untiring energy and in reports of various commissions of which he was a member. and experience as an organizer determined the success of the These were characterized by the care exercised in their prepanew institute. Doctor McKenna was the first vice president ration and the fearless and forceful way in which the ideas are expressed. of the institute and its president in 1910. The above account of Doctor McKenna’s activities has no One of Doctor McKenna’s most conspicuous professional doubt conveyed to the reader the idea of a well-trained chemist services t o the public was his work on the technical committee of the American Railway Association in connection with the with a brilliant mind, a man unwavering in the honest conduct devising of rules and regulations t o govern the handling and ship- of his affairs, a devout and sincere churchman, an energetic ments of dangerous chemicals. So well did this committee do and successful organizer, and a competent executive. Add to its work that today the railroads of this country and Canada this a true and loyal friend, a generous giver, and a pleasing and are handling, under essentially the rules formulated by this entertaining companion, and there is a good pen picture of DocRICHARD K. MEADE committee, over half a billion pounds of dangerous explosives tor McKenna.
Dust Hazards in Industrial Plants The hazard of dust explosion exists in approximately 28,000 of the industrial plants of the United States, which employ more than 1,324,000 people and produce more than $lO,OOO,OOO,OOO worth of products a year, and these plants should take precautions t o eliminate it, according to David J. Price, principal engineer of the chemical engineering division of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Recalling a dust explosion which occurred in 1878 in a flour mill in Minneapolis and took the lives of eighteen men, Mr. Price told of the progress that has been made in methods of preventing dust explosions, and particularly of the studies and experiments made by the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils which have had an appreciable effect in. reducing-fire losses from dust explosions in industrial plants. A recent survey by engineers of the Department of Agriculture, in which ninety-seven dust explosions were studied in fifteen different lines of industries exclusive of the grain industries, disclosed that dust explosions are occurring in new lines of industry in which, on account of increase in production, utilization of byproducts, and introduction of new manufacturing processes, the creation of more dust and the bringing about of additional explosion hazards have resulted.
Although many dust explosions occur during the normal operation of the plant, a number of disastrous explosions have taken place during f i e fighting. Mr. Price classified these explosions as follows: those which have taken place when firemen attempted to remove the contents of bins or other enclosures, materials which usually are in powdered form and readily ignite; explosions which may be called the exposure hazard of firemen and occur some time after the fire starts as a result of the falling of a floor or the dropping of bottoms of bins, which forces a dust cloud into the fire; and explosions which have followed the use of a heavy stream of water, which, when striking a pile of powdered material, forces the dust into the flames. There is still another type of explosion which results when the application of water t o some kinds of.dust causes the formation of explosive gases by chemical reaction, such as putting water on hot aluminum powder and the resultant generation of hydrogen gas, which is highly explosive under certain conditions. The engineer advised the systematic inspection of industrial plants so as to know the peculiarities of construction and the location of explosion hazards, thoroughly wetting down the contents of bins of possibly explosive material before moving it from the bins, and the use of spray nozzles instead of heavy streams on piles of materials which may hold the explosion hazard.
