INTE RNATIONAL
Britain Gets New Source of Dense Graphite Work by Hawker Siddeley Nuclear Power Co. also leads to new furnace design for making the product Britain's Hawker Siddeley Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. ( H S N P ) , is now mak ing a form of graphite that it says is a million times less porous than normal graphite. At the same time, HSNP has designed and built a new graphite processing plant to turn out the prod uct. HSNP's new graphite has a density of 1.3 grams per cubic centimeter and appears to be comparable to the dense graphites made in the U.S. It is made by the furfuryl alcohol process, which is also used by U.S. producers of nuclear-grade graphite. HSNP claims its graphite is twice as strong as normal graphite and is more resistant to oxidation. Advantages over normal graphite: • In nuclear engineering, HSNP graphite's density will permit more compact and cheaper nuclear reactors. • In the chemical industry, it will prevent absorption of metals in cru cible equipment, will help rare or precious metals processing. LOADING FURNACE. Operators at Hawker Siddeley's plant guide a graphite load as it is raised by crane to a platform. The graphite will be fed into one of two furnaces (left and right) where it will be processed into low porosity graphite
Mechanical and physical properties of graphite processed by Hawker Siddeley: Untreated
HSNP
treated
Flexural strength, p.s.i.
3600
5700
Elastic modulus, p.s.i.
1.8 X 106
3.0 X 106
1.9
1.5
2.0 X 10"6
2.1 X 10-·
at 600° C.
2.2 X 10"e
2.7 Χ ΙΟ"6
at 900° C.
2.6 X 10"e
3.0 X 10-6
3200
5900
Electrical resistivity, milliohm/cm. Thermal expansion per ° C. at 300° C.
Ultimate tensile strength, p.s.i. 74
C&EN
JAN.
16, 196 1
While doubling normal graphite's flexural strength, the HSNP process also steps up elastic modulus and tensile strength. In addition, it in creases thermal expansion rates, the company adds. Alcohol Impregnation. Making a graphite with near-impermeability re quires a liquid that easily penetrates graphite's pores, solidifies, and, on heating, gives a high-carbon residue without passing through a liquid phase. HSNP found that furfuryl al cohol would meet the need, thus evolved its present setup using the furfuryl alcohol process. In the process, furfuryl alcohol (with which the graphite has been impreg nated) is treated with a suitable cata lyst and polymerizes to a solid resin. On carbonizing, the resin gives a 50 r r yield of carbon and shrinks linearly by 22% without going through a liquid phase. The furfuryl alcohol is poly merized to get' a cross-linked threedimensional structure (like a phenol
formaldehyde resin) which will prevent melting on carbonization. HSNP's controlled atmosphere carbonizing furnace, now in operation, has a vertical cylinder with a charge space 4 1 / 2 feet in diameter and 1 4 1 / 2 feet long, arranged for batchwise charging through the top. The charge is held in a muffle chamber fitted with recirculation ducts. A fan, under a work support spider, draws nitrogen down through the charge and exhausts it through the ducts. Heating elements, of nickel-chromium tape, are arranged in three zones, each identical and independent. Several selectable thermocouples, which measure work space temperature, are connected with an instrumentation and control panel on which any type of heat control can be programed automatically for maximum plant and personnel safety. HSNP has put plenty of emphasis on the fine temperature control available in the processing plant. In some applications, the company says, a slow steady cure of carbon products may take Rve days, while the temperature is- raised steadily and precisely to 1000° C. Sudden temperature shifts could ruin .the product. So HSNP keeps a maximum temperature differential of 10° C. over all work space. Graphitizing Giant. For graphitizing, HSNP needed a 3000° C. furnace with power supply at 800 kva. For nuclear reactor components, the furnace had to have space for charging graphite shapes u p to 10 feet long. A vertical furnace offers the advantage of simple charging by a specimen cradle; it also cuts the risk of long specimens' bending when white hot. A nitrogen atmosphere prevents impurity pickup during graphitization, a known problem in conventional graphitization furnaces. Because of high temperatures involved, the entire furnace interior had to be graphite, only obtainable in small pieces. So HSNP engineers evolved a heating element made of jointed vertical graphite rods. In addition to the nuclear uses for this graphite, development is going on at HSNP to get erosion resistant coated grades for use in nozzle throats of liquid and solid fuel rockets. Also HSNP is working on an impregnated grade in the form of seals and gland packings for use in pumps, jet engines, and rockets; corrosion resistant grades for the chemical industry; and heat exchangers and oxidation resistant graphites for use in oxidizing atmospheres.
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H 2 1 Polyethylene
¥] Water
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ARTHUR F. S M I T H , INC. · 311 ALEXANDER ST., ROCHESTER 4, Ν. Υ. JAN.
16, 1 9 6 1 C & E N
75
to Hike Synthetic LOWEST PRICED AT ONLY ANIC Rubber Output in Italy
NEWDB
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Britain's Fisons, Ltd., is again embroiled in a takeover battle. Its $18.9 million bid for Evans Medical, Ltd. (C&EN, Jan. 9, page 2 7 ) , has been countered with a $23.5 million bid from Glaxo Laboratories, Ltd. Evans Medical says it intends to recommend that its stockholders accept the Glaxo offer. Glaxo is a major British pharmaceutical producer, whose capital reserves and surplus at mid-1960 exceeded $72 million. In 1955 Glaxo took over Murphy Chemical Co., maker of insecticides and fungicides, but the price was never disclosed. If Glaxo wins the bid for Evans Medical, it will get sizable additional manufacturing facilities for vaccines, enzymes, and other biological chemicals.
BRIEFS
Beckman*/ Scientific and Process IInstruments Division I Beckman Instruments, Inc. I Fullerton, California
C&EN
Fisons, Glaxo Tangle In Evans Medical Bid
/
*T.M.
76
ANIC, a subsidiary of Italy's Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi ( E N I ) , intends to further increase the capacity of its synthetic rubber plant at Ravenna. Built in 1957, the plant has been increasing steadily in capacity, is now to be brought up to 180 million pounds per year. As raw material, ANIC (Azienda Nazionale Indrogenazione Combustibili) uses the natural gas of Poebene, which, since it belongs to the state, is not subject to royalties. This and other concessions received from the state make it possible for ANIC to sell at highly competitive prices. In accordance with an agreement with the U.S.S.R., signed last October, ENI plans to supply 100 million pounds of synthetic rubber to the U.S.S.R. in exchange for petroleum. The ENI associate, Nuovo Pignone of Florence, and the state-owned Finsider, also participate in this agreement, which involves exchanges worth $200 million. At the moment, ANIC's plant is the only synthetic rubber producing unit in Italy. Montecatini, however, is coming up fast with its new plant in Brindisi, which will produce "Dutral," an ethylene-propylene copolymer.
JAN.
16,
196 1
New mines for potassium salts will be opened near Enna, in Sicily. They will yield about 1.6 billion pounds
per year of potassium salts, raising the island's total to well over 6 billion pounds per year. Montecatini said last month that it would produce 400 million pounds per year of potassium sulfate and other potassium salts at a plant at Campofranco, Sicily. Consolidated Mining & Smelting has
completed its $2.6 million causticchlorine plant at Trail, B.C. The plant, which will start up soon, will send caustic and liquid chlorine to the $50 million kraft pulp mill being built by Celgar, Ltd., at Kraft, B.C., 20 miles north of Trail. British Petroleum, through its French associate, Société Française des Pétroles Β Ρ, will have an interest in two refineries going up at Herrlisheim, France, and near Maison Carrée, Algeria. The $61.6 million refinery in France will handle about 66,000 barrels per day. The $47.6 million refinery in Algeria will process 50,000 barrels per day. Both will go on stream early in 1963. Simon-Carves, Ltd., will build a sulfuric acid plant for Société Financière et Industrielle d'Egypte, at Kafr El Zayat, Egypt. The plant will have a daily capacity of 150 tons of sulfuric acid. Also, Simon-Carves will build a sulfuric acid plant for Eerste Neder-
landsche
Cooperatieve
Kunstmest-
fabriek at Vlaardingen, Netherlands.
Société Belge de l'Azote will build a styrène plant for Ethyl-Synthese at Lillebonne (Seine-Maritime), France. The plant will produce 27,000 to 33,000 tons of styrene per year and will use the process developed by Koppers. Ethyl-Synthese is already operating a styrene plant at Mazingavbe. Algemene Kunstzijde Unie (AKU), the
Netherlands, will produce linen yarns, using a new process for treating flax, the raw material. AKU says the process, which it has not spelled out, reduces considerably the amount of processing needed to make linen yarns and improves the strength of the yarn. The process was developed by Fibre Research Institute T.N.O., of Delft, and Novivlas N.V. AKU will build a plant in the Netherlands to produce the yarns, but .the site has not yet been selected.
