epidemic proportions. Army statistics bear out this danger. In recent years 200 to 500 Army recruits have acquired the disease annually, as against 2500 to 3000 cases reported for the entire U.S. civilian population yearly. The Walter Reed research effort, which has been going on for six years, involved Dr. Malcolm S. Artenstein and Dr. Emil Gotschlich, who is now at Rockefeller University. Working in Walter Reed's department of bacterial diseases, the research team extracted polysaccharide antigens from meningococcal organisms and then purified them to conform to federal regulations concerning sterility and lack of toxicity. Details of the extraction and purification process won't be disclosed, an Army spokesman says, until the research is published soon in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. But the process is "unique and patentable," he claims. Polysaccharides with mean molecular weights of 200,000 or more, this spokesman indicates, "seem to be associated" with the immunogenic effect of the vaccines. Apparently two polysaccharides are involved—polysaccharide A and polysaccharide C, corresponding to isolation of antigens from meningococci of groups A and C. Repetitive chemical linkages occur, but the linkage for polysaccharide A differs from that for type C. Group C organisms are the chief cause for concern; group A organisms do not occur in epidemic proportions. In studies among Army recruits, the Army finds that the carrier rate for group C organisms is reduced in vaccinated individuals. This carrier rate indicates the proportion of the population from whom meningococci can be cultured from the throat. Carrier rates among civilians average 20% while the rates in Army training centers may run as high as 80 to 90%, because of more crowded conditions. Although Army spokesmen caution that the vaccines are still in the experimental stage, they do say that the ability of the vaccines to reduce carrier rates might very well be reflected in diminished transmission of meningococcal bacteria.
bring the best available expertise to bear on any future incidents. Last week in Chicago, L. P. Haxby of Shell Development Co., New York City, outlined the program at the 34th midyear meeting of the American Petroleum Institute's division of refining. The basic operating unit is a newly formed subcommittee on oil spills, a subcommittee of the engineering and technical research committee of the API committee for air and water conservation. The new subcommittee will have four task force groups reporting to it. First of the four, a task force on equipment and materials, will evaluate available oil spill cleanup equipment and methods. Where needed, it will have funds available to promote development of new equipment. The second task force is on government liaison, set up to ensure a minimum of duplicate effort and to provide effective exchange of information on technical problems. The third, a liability and indemnification task force, will review existing and potential insurance plans, as well as related legal problems. The job of the fourth group, on response plans, will be to inventory resources now available for mobilization, both within and outside the oil industry. It will also promote various cooperative arrangements among oil companies and study methods for integrating them into the President's national multiagency oil and hazardous materials contingency plan. The new program isn't API's first involvement with oil spills but is an expansion of earlier efforts. The new full-scale subcommittee replaces an older task force on oil spill cleanup. The replacement was made at an API conference held late in February, several weeks after the Santa Barbara incident. One product of the older task force was publication of API's primer on oil spill cleanup. The booklet, however, restricts coverage to smaller spills around terminal facilities in harbors.
Hydrogasification test reactor Proving out years of lab work
ENVIRONMENT:
API's Oil Spill Program Everyone hopes to have seen the last of oil spills. But following the Santa Barbara Channel blowout, which came just two years after the 1967 Torrey Canyon disaster, hardly anyone is betting that a major spill can't happen again—least of all the petroleum industry. Indeed, the American Petroleum Institute is now launching a wide-ranging program to
COAL GASIFICATION:
Just Shy of Commercial This week, a formal ground-breaking ceremony on Chioago's south side will officially move one program of gasfrom-coal technology into what is almost sure to be its last precommercial development phase. The process is the Institute of Gas Technology's Hygas process. The occasion is construction of a pilot plant to prove out years of laboratory development. The pilot plant is being built under a program financed by the U.S. Department of Interior's Office of Coal Research and the American Gas Association. Hygas is one of four processes in OCR's program to develop a suitable pipeline gas (methane) at a price competitive with natural gas. With the pilot plant under way—it's being built by Procon, Inc.—Hygas is furthest along of the four in its development. The pilot plant is designed to test a hydrogasifier fluidized-bed reactor with diameters of 30 to 36 inches— an intermediate step between IGT's 4-inch test unit and a commercialsize 14- to 16-foot reactor. It will be capable of processing 3 tons per hour of coal and will have a daily gas output of 1.0 to 1.5 million cu. ft. of natural gas equivalent, depending on the type of coal. In the process's basic reactions, carbon in the coal and hydrogen react to form methane. Carbon also reacts with steam to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Following cleanup, passage of the gases over a nickel catalyst causes the carbon monoxide and hydrogen to react to form more methane along with water. Pipeline gas with a heating value of better than 900 B.t.u per million cu. ft. results. Early this month, at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' 65th national meeting in Cleveland, IGT's F. C. Schora and B. S. Lee outlined the work planned for the pilot plant. The first phase of operation will make use of a conventional natural gas/steam reformer to produce hydrogen for the gasifier reactions. During this time, those components of the system associated with the hydrogasifier, gas cleanup, and methanation will be studied. For a second phase of operation, IGT plans to build a 2-Mw. electrothermal gasifier to produce the hydrogen. IGT feels that electrothermal gasification, one of several possible hydrogen processes, provides a number of advantages for operation at high pressure integrated with a hydrogasifier. It has built a 300-kw. electrothermal reactor and put it into operation last August. MAY 19, 1969 C&EN
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