November, 1944
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
This Month month, as We see it, an important event in our history is the beginning of three new columns, to be found on pages 57, and 69 of the advertising section. They are written by Charles 0. Brown whose subject is Equipment and Design, by Ralph H. Munch, a specialist in Instrumentation, and Walter von Pechmann, on Plant Management. The Editors feel that, with developments coming so fast, it is difficult for chemists and chemical engineers, who are legitimately interested and vitally affected by these subjects though not always conversant with them, to keep up to date except in their own fields of specialization. In an attempt to remedy this situatiqn, we have begun the three columns and created three “colyumnists”. We recommend them to you. Water treatment has in recent years become tremendously important. Not only is water softened to save soap costs, but cold calculating ch’emists have convinced management that prevention of boiler and exchanger scale is a money-saving proposition-leading us to say that the article by Sheen and Woodruff on selective calcium softening is an important paper. Stress. ing industrial use, the authors show how the seemingly mechanical operation of making airplane motors is quite dependent on proper water. At the huge Wright Aeronautical plant in Cincinnati 14 million gallons of water are treated daily for use in acetylene generation, pickling, plating, cooling, x-ray developing baths, and other processes. By removing only the calcium hardness, savings are made in chemicals cost. Control of the operation is afforded by means of pH; in some instances hardness was reduced 300 parts per million a t chemical costs ranging from 1.29 to 2.07 cents per thousand gallons. An installation based on this principle has also been made in a plant treating 120 million gallons per day. It is planned to dewater, thicken, and purify the sludge so that it may be burned to lime, The handmaiden of the sciences, mathematics, is well represented by three articles in this month’s issue as it is applied to chemistry and her offspring, chemical engineering. The first comes from Temple C. Patton, of The Baker Castor Oil Company, on Graphical Methods for Temperature Distribution with Unsteady Heat Flow. Included is a table of methods employed in problems of unsteady heat flow, listing their various advantages, disadvantages, and limitations. Patton states that, although the graphical method is approximate, it is applicable to complex situations incapable of vigorous mathematical solution. Paper No. 2 in the mathematical category is by Robert Herzog, of the Ethyl Corporation, on Correlations of Critical Constants with Parachors. Herzog derives an equation expressing a relation between the critical temperature and boiling point, involving only two constants. Over 140 compounds have been classified into six groups, and equations have been derived for each group along with measures of the reliability of estimated T , / T , values. The third mathematical baby of our November triplets is by Hugh M. Hulburt, of Hunter ColIege, who studies the correlation between equations of reaction and flow and their application to dmign. He concludes that, when properly analyzed, data on
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flow systems furnish information as reliable as that from static systems. For a quick roundup as the end of the column approaches: Chemistry has many forces that make 2 2 = 5 (see Synergy in Industrial Chemistry). Alkyd resins have many different fractions, some possessing differentcharacteristics (see Extraction of Alkyd Resins); Lactoprene is a new synthetic rubber and you may read about it in the important articles on acrylic resins in this issue from the Eastern Regional Research Laboratories.
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press juice from waste asparagus butts and trimmings may be used as a microbiological media, and we have a report on the production of bacterial proteinase obtained on asparagus juice. It has been estimated that from 50,000 to 100,ooOtons of butts and trimmings are carted away from canneries each year; as can be expected, this entails much expense. Turning this waste into a profit may be possible if the new scheme works out, Development and performance of three all-metal screen-plate fractionating columns for general laboratory and pilot hlant use are reported. The characteristics of six different screens are noted, and performance data will be given along with plate efficiencies on hydrocarbons a t total reflex. When wheat gluten is reacted with chlorosulfonic acid in pyridine, a product forms which, upon neutraliiation, will absorb one hundred t o three hundred times its weight in water. The gel thus formed, according to the author of this article to appear next month, is firm, odorless, tasteless, and nontoxic. Uses suggested are as substitute for scarce natural gums in making therapeutic jellies, ointments, and other pharmaceutical preparations, and as a thickening agent in ice cream. The material has already been used in surgery for the absorption of postoperative drainage. An improved process for preparing tannin from Western hemlock will be suggested which involves the use of a hydraulia press in preliminary stages. Benefit from this technique is a decreased bleaching time. Redwood tannin is a depressant for calcite and quartz in the flotation of feldspar as we shall see in another paper on tannin next month. More data for the petroleum chemists will be forthcoming in an article presenting experimental data on the density of each of a series of paraffin hydrocarbon mixtures of low molecular weight-also analysis of their constitution. If cable and filter paper.is impregnated with liquid par& solutions plus a little lauryl sulfonic acid, conductivity of alternating currents is hugely improved. Perhaps in this fact lies the explanation of why certain insulation oftkn acquires, in service, high power factors. And that’s as we see it. HE
