Chemurgists Combat National Shortages By F. J. VAN ANTWERPEN Associate Editor
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h?m» will deliver 98.5 per cent pure crude butadiene from the con verter. Tîîie power of t h i s process to survive after the war i s increased by the fact that butylène glycol, produced from farm crops, will, be a n e w chemical, with potentially naany uses. "After «sareful engineering studies we found (wii*h Northern Regional Labora-
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1 . J . Edmund Good, vice president of Woburn Degreasing C o . 2 . L. M . Christensen, University of Nebraska and Dean R. E. Buchanan, Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station 3. C. J. Classen and Elmer H a l l / both members of the Board of Governors of the National Farm Chemurgic Council 4 . Louis J . Taber, vice president of Farm Chemurgic 5. G . G . M c l l b r a y , member of Board of
NO. 7 » » » APRIL
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Governors o f Farm Chemurgic and president of Farm Management, Inc. 6 . Ernest L. Little, managing director of the Farm Chemurgic Council 7. John W . Ticknor, assistant to the president o f the National Farm Chemurgic Council 8 . C. L . Gabriel, vice president of the Publicker Commercial A l c o h o l Co. 9. Paul J . Kolachov, Joseph E. Seagram and Sons 489
tories at Peoria) that a plant to produce, 20fOO0 tons of butadiene by t h e 2,3butylene glycol process would cost §4,263,50O, or S213 per ton capacity. The cost of production is estimated at 1S.2 cents per pound from corn at SO cents per bushel of 56 pounds." Of the natural rubber program, he told in detail the planting programs of his company in fostering kok-sagyz. T w o plots carefully pre pared from the imported Russian seed were washed out b y heavy storms, and after 45 days no dandelions could b e found. B u t i t wasn't ail defeat, for 8,000 sprouts grown in greenhouses were trans planted around August 13 to new plots and these have prospered. Still in the ground, the plants are expected t o bloom this spring a n d yield s e e d s for further studies. " N o n e of this season's plantings will provide a fair basis for yield determina tion", D r . Kolachov insisted. Continu ing he said: "The rubber content of t h e root must be e s t a b l i s h e d . . . . As y e t we h a v e conducted no research o n the carbohydrate content of the root. Russian scientific literature reports that t h e roots contain 12 per cent inulin. This would produce 45 gallons of 190 proof alcohol or 137 l b s . of butadiene per acre by t h e glycol process. T h e glycol yield would b e 250 l b s . per acre. O n June 4 t h of 1942, the radio in Ger
many announced that t h i s enemy country was speedily cultivating t h e Russian dandelion for its rubber. This was being carried on in Germany; not, mind you. on native Russian fields -where this simple but potentially valuable plant might turn guerilla, or wave its welcome t o the ad vancing Russian Arm}'! Last fall it was announced that the new tire manufactur ing plant of the Ford Motor C o . was sold to Russia and that it would b e moved to that country at on^e. Xs it possible that we in the United States have n o need for a tire factory? Yet Russia whio produces all of her rubber a t horrt-e (abo*ut one-half of it comes from Jcok-aczgyz) n e e d s extra manufacturing facilities ! " Dr. Kolachov had m o r e facts, given to C. Ε. Ν., to support his enthusiastic back ing o f kok-sagyz and grain butadiene. First he knew that Russian y i e l d s from the dandelion were 150 t o 200 l b s . of latex per acre—not the 30 to 100 pounds com monly reported. Secondly, he had figures on critical materials use^d in constructing alcohol-butadiene plants, which were heavily favorable to gr-ain-buitylene gly col. Thus for 20,000 feons o f butadiene per year, he said, 13.7S0 tons of critical materials were needed by tine so-called synthetic alcohol process, 9,116 tons for natural alcohol from grain, and only 7,033 tons for the butylène glycol process. A symposium feAlcofc*ol at War", was
held Wednesday evening, presided over by Howard Huston, assistant to the president of American Cyanamid. T h e first speaker was Charles L. Gabriel, vice president of the Publicker Commercial Alcohol Co., who covered alcohol's conversion to butadiene. Mr. Gabriel reviewed the place of alcohol in our industrial economy, both war and prewar. Commenting o n the government program for producing alcohol from grains, he said: " N e w alcohol plants for the production of 100,000,000 gallons per year of alcohol have been approved by the Government and assigned t o various farm cooperative organizations and whisky distiUeries. None were given to any companies experienced in t h e manufacture of industrial alcohol. When their increased facilities for fermentation are all in operation, about 200,000,000 bushels of grain per year will be required as raw material. Prewar, 190 proof alcohol sold for 2 0 cents a gallon. If alcohol were to be sold at this figure, grain must be delivered at the distillery at 35 to 45 cents a bushel— and this price cannot be of great help t o the farmer." Commenting on alcohol and its part i n the rubber program via butadiene, Mr. Gabriel said about the economics: "Assuming a normal rubber consumption in this country of 600,000 tons, and a yield of 2.25 lbs. butadiene per gallon o f alcohol, 400,000,000 gallons of alcohol would be required to produce the needed 450,000 tons butadiene. As a bushel o f grain yields about 2.25 gallons alcohol, about 160,000,000 bushels would b e needed as raw material for its production. With alcohol (from grain) selling at 50 cents per gallon and today costing almost as much t o make, butadiene produced from it will undoubtedly be more e x pensive than that produced from petroleum gases. However, in normal times when the cost of alcohol (from molasses) again m a y be in the neighborhood of 15 cents per gallon, it is believed that butadiene made from alcohol will be competitive with that from petroleum." Donald B . Keyes, chief of the chemical industries branch, Office of Production Research and Development, WPB, spoke on "Major War Uses of Alcohol" and in commenting on the recent program of producing industrial alcohol from grains, he said:
This is a striking example showing how Yankee ingenuity was employed t o transform scrapped equipment into equipment of great value in the wartime productions of alcohol.
490
CHEMICAL
"At the present time a large percentage of alcohol comes from corn and is made both in former whisky plants and former molasses industrial alcohol plants The raw material situation does not remain constant. D u e to the demand for food, the Commodity Credit Corporation is now in a position where it will be impossible to supply the alcohol distilleries with the necessary corn from its own stock a n d
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ENGINEERING
NEWS
is therefore encouraging t h e use o f whole wheat and granular wheat flour . . . . W e do not h a v e the technical information necessary a t the present time to convert the majority of our alcohol plants over to the n e w materials on the most efficient basis. H o w e v e r , we are doing our utmost in laboratories, both public and private, and in actual alcohol plants t o collect the necessary engineering data for this con version." C o m m e n t i n g also on t h e fact that at present tropical countries had little or n o motor fuel supplies, Dr. K e y e s suggested that 95 per c e n t alcohol be produced from the sugar or molasses in these countries and be u s e d directly as fuel. He pointed out, however, that it would be necessary to supply t h e s e countries with fuel oil t o manufacture the alcohol. "It i s felt", he said, " t h a t less tanker space would b e necessary for fuel oil to produce the re quired a m o u n t of alcohol for motor fuel than tanker space for t h e equivalent amount of gasoline for motor fuel." T h e headaches a n d difficulties involved in changing over a molasses alcohol plant to a grain alcohol plant were described by Philip A . Singleton of the New England Alcohol C o . Using his o w n company as an example, Mr. Singleton traced the rise of the trouble besetting t h e alcohol pro ducers. W i t h the beginning of submarine trouble, t h e plant a t Everett, Mass., was cut off from its source of blackstrap molasses i n t h e W e s t Indies. Molasses shipping in tankers from N e w Orleans a n d Port Everglades, limited in quantity even from the start, were stopped altogether when t h e fuel oil crisis developed. T h e program of t h e Defense Supplies Corpora tion in supplying h i g h wines, enabled t h e company t o carry o n at partial capacity until cessation of the program on N o v e m ber 1, 1942. In a n effort to find suit able raw materials, m a n y investigations were m a d e . Tests were made on the d e hydration of blackstrap molasses in t h e West Indies t o permit dry cargo shipment instead of critical tanker shipment. T h i s was not feasible. P o t a t o e s from Maine were t o o expensive, and sulfite liquors from paper τη ills were n o t practicable. Grain s e e m e d to be the o n l y answer a n d after designing two complete plants, o n e for corn and another for wheat or corn, the company recognized t h a t its problem of slop disposal w a s enormously c o m plicated, especially since W P B refused t o give priority assistance for slop disposal equipment. T h e solution was finally found in t h e C C C granular flour program. Bran a n d outer parts of the wheat kernel are r e moved a t t h e flour mill a n d the dehulled grain shipped to the distillery. T h u s t h e portions of t h e grain which become slop are left behind. Under this program idle flour mills throughout t h e country are put to work and t h e elimination of t h e grain hull also eliminates the need for boiler capacities and slop removal equipV O L U M E
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MONSANTO P H O T O
Another example illustrating ingenuity in the use of second-hand N e w England A l c o h o l Co. in its switch from molasses to grain as a
ment at the alcohol plants. The miller, incidentally, can sell t h e hull as bran for cattle feeding. The alcohol process under this program is considerably simplified. Mashing with granular flour is simple be cause the flour goes into a slurry easily and the residue from distillation can be dis charged into the sewer. The flour is pur chased under arrangements with the CCC, based on available fermentable content of the granular flour. T h i s would correspond to buying wheat at the distillery at 80 cents per bushel, or about $32.14 per 2,000pound ton.
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Willard Η . D o w , president, Dow Chemical, on M a y 2 0 will receive Chandler M e d a l , annual award of Columbia University for outstanding achievements in chemistry.
APRIL
T h e New England Alcohol Co. still had to build a plant, however, and to save time and reduce the use of critical ma terials they: used second-hand tankers as cookers, second-hand surface condensers as coolers, a second-hand oil pump for circulating slurry; made a slurry mixer from oversized oil drums; used second hand piping, copper wires, and motors; worked their engineers 7 days a week; be gan operation one month after the origi nal decision t o use grain; spent only $2,400 on critical materials and only 10 per c e n t of the originally estimated $250,000 cost.
Miscellaneous Discussions
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equipment b y the source of alcohol.
10,
1943
Other sessions covered fibers, plastics, fats and oils, soybeans, and new crops. Chemurgists listened t o plans to produce 200,000 pounds of milkweed floss, already contracted for by the United States N a v y , and to t h e myriad uses its sponsors visualized. Possessing excellent buoyant properties, it is a substitute for Java Kapok and will be used in life preservers, flying jackets, sleeping bags, and probably ear plugs for the artillery as a better cushion than t h e usual cotton protector. Alex Laurie, of Ohio State University, reviewed the possibilities of self-sufficiency in drugs, commenting that our present shortage was about 5 5 per cent of our former demand. Among t h e drugs we are badly lacking are belladonna, hen bane, stramonium, psyllium, capsicium, pyrethrum, pig weed, and digitalis. The crop which promises the highest return, he said, was belladonna, and it is possible to obtain as h i g h as 1,000 pounds of dry material per acre of belladonna planted. 491
