INDUSTRY
& BUSINESS
Storage tanlvs arc specially designed for the high pressure gases thsat are used in making Callery's HiCal high energy
fu*el. Tower in background separates carbon dioxide from nitrogen as one step in manufacturing gaseous nitrogen
Callery's HiCal Corning Soon Muskogee plant will produce next year; N a v y to get output, but fuel may go commercial later C^Ai.LK.i-^Y C J I F . M K : \ L dedicated its $38
million FîiCa.1 pLmt hist week at Muskogee. OkUi. Gallery built and will operate the liigli energy fuel plant for the Navy. Production will start next year and the Navy will use the output to test various propulsion systems such as turbo-jets and ram jets. The Navy .hopes tbese tests will lead to the most practical and productive use for the high energy fuel. Eventually, says Re.sr Admiral Robert E. Dixon, chief of the ^Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics. the Navy hopes to make the new fuel available for commercial use. • Lik& α Refinery. The Muskogee plant's capacity is a secret, but Gal lery's Η . Β. Schechter, vice presidentoperations, says it can produce more than any existing high energy fuel fa cility. Sodium, boric acid, hydrogen, and ethylene are the basic chemicals used to ma!ric aeid to dihorane— the hasic buLlding hlock for boron based fuels. L A ter the dihorane is combined with carhejn and hydrogen into HiCal. Also vital to the plant is a liquid dis tillation column which handles both solids and liquids. Th ere is iilso a $3.5 million gas plant to make hydrogen, carhon dioxide, and raitrogen. the last used as a blanketing g;as. All told, the Muskogee plant occupies 3 0 0 acres of a 1300 acre site: the 3*est is for future expansion. • Commercial Plant" Running.
Gal
lery is owned by Mine Safety Appli ances and Gulf Oil. The company brtjke T o u n d for the Muskogee *?lant early in 1957 and later that year started to build a plant to make boron chemi cals for commercial use at Lawrence, Kan. This plant cost $4 million and went on stream in April (C&EN, April 2 1 , page 1 7 ) . Typical boron chemicals s'îated for production include: sodium borohy dride. trialkyl boranes. diborane, pentahorane. and decaborane. Now, however, the plant makes HiCal components for the Navy. The Navy also gets boron fuels from Olin Mathieson's S4.5 million plant at Model City (near Niagara Falls). N. V. (C&EN. May 19, page 1 5 ) . The Air Force, too. gets some of the products, and OM is building a $45 million plant for the Air Force. It should be finished hy May 1959. By that time, more light may be shed on the future of boron based solid fuels. Both Gallery and OM are in various research and development stages with such chemicals. Gallery had a working agreement with Thiokol in this area and also has an agreement on space projects with Thiokol and General Motors.
