known as Puriflocs. Purifloc C-31, a cationic, has found use for sludge dewatering, while Purifloc A-21, an anionic, is used in primary treatment. In sludge dewatering, Purifloc C-31 shows many advantages over the ferric chloride and lime it is replacing. It saves as much as 30% on chemical costs and reduces labor and maintenance costs. There is less of it to handle—about 20 pounds per ton of dry sludge solids compared with about 300 pounds of the inorganics. It is not as corrosive as ferric chloride. Also, it does not form scale as lime does. It increases the capacity of treatment units such as clarifiers, digesters, and filters. And the sludge produced with C-31 gives no slagging problems when incinerated, since it contains little inorganic material. Dow says about 60 plants are now using C-31 for dewatering. However, progress for A-21 in primary treatment has been slower. Here, a chemical is being used where usually none was used before. Hence, extra cost is involved. This has helped keep acceptance down to about 10 plants. For primary treatment, the flocculant is added at about 1 p.p.m. on the sewage input. Results vary widely from plant to plant and with the type of sewage. Suspended solids removal is typically increased from about 4 5 % (with no flocculant) to 70% when the polymeric flocculant is used. BOD removal jumps from about 3 5 % to as much as 60% or more. Such advantages accrue even when secondary treatment is available. In tests this spring at Grand Rapids, Mich., Purifloc A-21 boosted the BOD removal of a secondary treatment plant from 82 to 8 8 % . Nalco has been marketing two polymeric flocculants, Nalcolyte 603 and 675, for sewage treatment since early this year. So far the main effort has been in filtering and dewatering. The company says it has made "excellent gains" in this area. Rohm and Haas has been selling both a cationic and an anionic polymeric flocculant for sewage use since August 1965. Known as Primafloc C-7 and Primafloc A-10, they are mainly used for sludge concentration
"We have reached something of a turning point in chemicals . . . as we approach a consumer economy and the realization of its complexities. We have reached the point where only innovative and sophisticated market research is going to make a chemical company successful and profitable in the future," Celanese Corp/s Frank Pizzitola said at the fall meeting of the Chemical Marketing Research Association. There was little need for speaker Pizzitola (who is group vice president-chemicals at Celanese) to fear the soporific effects of what he described as the "immoral commodiousness of the theater chairs" in the cinema at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. He got instant attention when he told his listeners that marketing research is one of the most sophisticated sciences of the U.S. industrial economy, "the most important of all industrial and business skills." Chemical companies, Mr. Pizzitola says (and particularly those in bulk commodities ), must come to know the needs of their customers, and their customers* customers, far better than they have in the past. The chemical company today is faced with a new customer, the American family. Mr.
and dewatering. The company is also
Pizzitola
developing an anionic specifically for use in primary treatment. But it does not yet have such a polymer on the market. Among other companies in the field, Hercules is now offering two polymeric flocculants for sewage treatment. Reten A-l, an anionic compound, is for primary treatment. Reten 210 is cationic and designed for dewatering, filtering, and sludge thickening.
through Celanese's interest in coatings, a field in which "we want to know all we can about the needs of our customers, our customers' customers, and their customers, and we want to know how all these needs are related, influenced, and motivated." One of the chief industrial markets of Celanese's coatings company (it acquired Devoe & Raynolds two years ago) is Detroit. Through its coatings company, Celanese has been able to
Selective Oxidation Processes
Frank Pizzitola Recommendations, not just facts
Chemicals enter purchase economy
exemplified
this
change
SELECTIVE OXIDATION PROCESSES Do oxidation processes, products, and mechanisms interest you? "Selective Oxidation Processes" ADVANCES IN CHEMISTRY SERIES No. 51 surveys a number of processes and details research on improving the range, selectivity, and mechanisms of such processes. The book includes discussions of hydroxylating selected aromatics and olefins, pyrolysis of isobutylene—all of these by vapor phase processes. Among liquid phase processes are three general methods for oxidizing aromatics, sulfur dioxide as oxidant for a number of products, use of nitrogen dioxide catalyzed by selenium dioxide, and ozone as a selective oxidant. The last chapter is a broad survey of carbanion oxidation. The book is based on a symposium sponsored by the ACS Division of Petroleum Chemistry. 177 pages with index Cloth bound (1965) $6.50 Order from Special Issues Sales American Chemical Society 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Washington, D. C. 20036 OCT. 10, 1966 C&EN
41
New SUTRO Industrial Polyols Cut Raw Material Costs SUTRO Polyols are new products from Atlas that can replace glycerine, glycols and your present polyol in many industrial applications and at substantial savings. Bulk prices range from 7 to 14 cents per pound—up to 40% less than conventional polyols. Five SUTRO Polyols are now available. SUTRO Polyols are hygroscopic, have good water-holding abilities and resist crystallization under use conditions. They are non-volatile, contain no glycols. These properties make them suitable for such industrial polyol applications as: humectants for conditioning; plasticizers for cellulose sponges; softeners in glue compositions; vehicles for inks, dye pastes, hydraulic fluids and caulking compounds ; and chemical intermediates for alkyd resin manufacture. They have not been physiologically evaluated for and are not presently recommended for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, or foods.
ATLAS CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES,
I N C . , Wilmington, Del. 19899
Please send me Π Bulletin LG-93, SUTRO POLYOLS Π Bulletin LG-92, LOW-COST ALKYD FORMULATING Name_
-Title _
Company. Address. City
_State_
.Zip.
We make_
ATLAS
C H E M I C A L
CHEMICALS
DIVISION
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE 42
C&EN OCT. 10, 1966
19899
I N D U S T R I E S , INC,
develop new information and insights into the needs and desires of the auto mobile producers, who are intimately concerned with auto buyers—the American family—and their reaction to coating, color, and finish of the automobile. "Thus, through our move into coatings, our market research has moved down through the needs of our customers and our customers' custom ers, their customers, and the interrela tions and interfaces between them." (For Celanese this completes an other circle. Its fiber market research historically has been devoted to finding and creating needs all through the tex tile distribution chain and particu larly among the same ultimate cus tomers—the American family.) Much of this new marketing concept for the chemical industry stems from historical economic change. Says Mr. Pizzitola: "Over the decades our economy has gone through a number of developments. We were once an agricultural economy. With mass pro duction, we became a sales economy. Now, with modern engineering and chemical technologies, we have enor mously increased our production ca pacity. Today our farms and industry can produce almost anything in almost any quantity desired by consumers. We have moved into the era of tomor row—a purchase economy." In this economy, the consumer buys only what she wants to buy. The key to success is no longer production or sales, he says. In this economy, the key to success is understanding the con'sumer, which is the job of market ing research. We have reached this point by ap plying all kinds of creativity to prob lems of mass production, distribution, and sales. Now, Mr. Pizzitola says, the same kind of creativity must be applied to marketing research. "The function of progressive top management," Mr. Pizzitola says, "is to exploit opportunities, to change and to overcome current weaknesses and threats . . . . Since all these efforts are directed at the markets, they must originally come out of marketing re search . . . . Top management wants recommendations more than simply facts or input for the recommendation of others. Marketing research has a fundamental responsibility to make recommendations, to stand behind them and to pursue them—either to implement them or to understand why they were not accepted." In a purchase economy, Mr. Pizzi tola believes, marketing research pro vides the base for all planning and marketing and thus for future sales and profits. Thus market research bears a heavy responsibility to find new ways to generate ideas and to cajole management into profitable decisions.
