I&EC REPORTS participation of radical intermediates. With respect to the conversion of methanol, the main portion of the ionizing radiation is adsorbed by the solid in the form of excited electronic states, leading to the formation of excess-charge carriers. Indeed, the effect of energy transfer is particularly important for the insulating solids. Energy transfer apparently does not enter the picture where the catalyst is a metal or a semiconductor that has a narrow band of forbidden energy levels. The investigators conclude that solids with a sufficiently broad forbidden energy band will be the most efficient for radiation-induced reactions which involve dissociation of chemisorbed reactants to radical intermediates. Such a conclusion seems valid for many reactions in the decomposition of organic compounds.
A NEW INDEX FOR PROGRESS? Until the average population density reached a critical value, progress was usually measured in terms of how much of the totality of goods an individual or group could control. After World War 11, the index of progress seemed to be how much energy could be controlled by the individual. The energy index seems about to give way to a new index based on the amount of waste that society produces or doesn’t produce. In its 1966 Annual Report, Resources for the Future, Inc., discusses at length the fact that every increase in production of goods yields a corresponding increase in waste of our resources. This waste increase is basically due to the inescapable fact that nothing we do is perfectly efficient. The accent that RFF places on waste generation, whether it be manifest in polluted air or in the growing piles of unused plastic bottles, bears merit but it also overlooks the fact that, until we reach the millennium of perfection, no matter how efficient we become, there will be waste. C i r t l i Ha. E
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on Readen’ Sawice Card
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Some time ago, I&EC Reports noted the efforts of the Office of Solid Wastes of the Public Health Service to sel! the idea that disposal of materials should be designed into their manufacture. If carried to an extreme, we might imagine obtaining a refund on an automobile when we turn it in for scrap rather than trading it in on a newer model. For any isolated instance an apparently reasonable case can be made. In the case of large amounts of chemical products, however, little can be done to recover waste materials with the ease that an automobile can be driven to a scrap yard. It follows that the elimination of waste will be much more of a problem to chemical manufacturers than it will be to car makers or materials fabricators in general. The essence of a chemical change makes the chemical business unique in that it produces waste materials that have no possible use as they stand. We cannot, for example, simply take waste nerve gas and reprocess it to make a coloring additive for cheese; at least it cannot be done without seriously dislocating the economy. The waste index may be quite descriptive and useful to those who are so appalled with waste as to m i s s the significance of its existence. It also is deceptive if used without a qualification to imply that waste is waste. After all, there is waste that can be reclaimed easily, and there is waste that cannot. Before we accept the waste index, let’s thoroughly examine its meaning.
CORRECTIONS The Indicator for the Lurgi proeess for acrylonitrile [IND.END. CHEM. 58 (lo), 9 (196611 incorrectly identified the process. Lurgi contracts to engineer plants based on the process awned by Osterreichische Stiekstoffwerke Linz. The reference to h i s ’ textbook 59 (l), 52 (1967)l [IND.ENG.CHEM. and Citation (1A) on p. 67 of the same issue should refer to Petersen, E. E., “Chemical Reaction Analysis,” Prentice-Hall, Englewood, N. J., 1965.
