edited by R o a n R. FESTA
Education. Box U-33 The University of Connecticut Storrs. CT 06268
School of
A Matter of Life and Breath: Frederick Gardner Cottrell and the Research Corporation Albert B. Costa Duquerne University Pinsburgh. PA 15282 The contemportvy concern for air quality had its origins in protests made at the beginning of this century about industrial emissions. One scientist who attacked the problem of air pollution then was Frederick Cottrell (1877-19481, the inventor of the first useful device for controlline" industrial fumes. Cottrell was more than an important chemist and inventor; he founded a unique institution, the Research Corporation, to administer patents based on scientific discoveries. He invented a method for removing the dust, smoke, and fumes discharged from smokestacks into the air we breathe and then donated his oatents to this corooration, which dispensed the royalties ad grants to scientists in support of fundamental research. Bv the time of his death the Research Corporation had corn& play an important role in the support of research in the phvsical, chemical, and biomedical sciences in the United states; Born in Oakland, California, Cottrell developed into a precocious young man ( I ) . His father encouragedhim in his teenage hohhies of photography. printing, and telegraphy. After only two years at Oakland High School, the i.'niversity of California at Berkelev admitted him, and he earned the R.S. three years later at age nineteen. Outstanding in chemistry, he taught the suhiect at Oakland HirhSchool for three years, and thkn went to Leipzig, Germany, where he received his doctorate (1902) in the new field of physical chemistry, working with the renowned Wilhelm Ostwald. Cottrell became an instructor and then assistant professor of physical chemistry at the University of California (19021911). Seeking a means to supplement his modest academic salary, he began to investigate the recovery of waste products that were escaping from the stacks of the growing young industries around San Francisco Bay. In 1905 he got the idea of using electrical precipitation for this purpose (2). The electrical precipitation of suspended particles in smoke had been established during the 1880's by European investigators, who noted that the introduction of a charged wire into a smokefilled jar dissipated the smoke, leaving deposits on the sides and bottom of the jar. The phenomenon had never been successfully exploited for practical use. Cottrell develoned a device that had oractical utilitv. His consisted of two horizontal pipe; conelectrical necting small tubes each with a wire charged with 50,000 t o 100,000 V of direct current, with the tubes grounded to create a strong electrostatic field. When dust-laden gases entered the field, the particulate matter acquired an electric charge and migrated to the walls of the tubes where they would accumulate and fall into hoppers. T o develop this apparatus Cottrell had to learn how to produce the proper discharge, to develop a source of high tension direct current, and to transform his laboratow device to a scale 200 times larger - for industrial purposes. He first applied electrical precipitation to the manufacture . of sulfuric acid hy the contact process at the I)u I'ont plant in nearhy Pinole, where the formarionofa dense whitcrloud of suspended particles hindered the process. It was not, how~
ever, the Du Pont acid mist problem but another application that attracted national attention. Smelter smoke had become a major nuisance, involving law suits in which smelting firms were accused of destroying crops, vegetation, and livestock with lead and arsenic fumes. Furthermore, tons of valuable materials were pouring out of stacks and lost to the surrounding environment. In 1907 Cottrell installed his device at the American Smelting and Refining Company in Selby. This was one of the firms in trouble because citizens in the --~-surrounding area had complained about fumes from its lead blast furnace and roaster stacks. His electrical precipitation project at Selby proved to be the first successful commercial-scale installation in the United States and served a useful function for the next four decades. The development of electrical precipitation on a large scale required financial resources beyond his means. In 1907 Cottrell. with several University of California facultv and alumni, formed two corporations ;o undertake the commercial d r vrlopmrnt of the process [the Wrstt:rn Precipitation Company andthe ~nternationalPrecipitation Compky, the latter becoming a subsidiarv of the former in 1908). The Cottrell process wasa timrly one; it pwvided industry w ~ t hthe means to overcome the pollution problems which were arousing many pmtests and lawsuits. Cottrell patents covered the apparatus and processes for the separation and cullection of sol~dnnd liuuid uarticuli~tesin eases and liuuids for the ahatement 01' &oke;fumes, and dust. ~lectricai~recipitation was suitable for a wide variety of smoke emitters, such as smelters, cement kilns, rock crushers, and locomotive roundhouses. Cottrell's precipitators proved themselves; wherever iustalled they resulted in the removal of 90 to 98% of all particles from escaoine smoke and gases. The process not only eliminated the nui&ce of diiy&noke and noxious fumes, but also permitted the recovery of valuable materials. Waste recovery in some cases was the primary reason for installing precipitators. One paper mill saved 6 tons of soda daily; for a smelting firm it was 200 tons of copper dust daily; for another, 4% tons of alumina. For cities, i t was the elimination of dirt that was especially important: big power plants could throw into the air 1000 tons of dust and ash per day. Bv 1910 Cottrell and his associates had taken electrical precipitation into several new areas, notably the removal of water from oil emulsions, making possible the marketability of California oil, which was often contaminated with water. Oil dehydration proved to be a lucrative business for the firm, as was the removal of dust from cement kilns. The latter was a oroblem in southern California's orange groves. The Riverside Portland Cement Company face8 law suits in 1910 because lavers of lime and clay deposited on nearby orange groves. B~i 9 l 2 Cottrell precipkatok had collected &ormo& amounts of cement dust, and the recovered potash waste could be sold as valuable fertilizer to the very orange growers who once threatened the cement firm. Cottrell continued to teach at Berkeley while he developed the process. In 1911, however, he decided to abandon teaching in favor of entering government service. He de\.eloped a deep conviction that the results of research should he used for the public good and not for private profit. He wished to transfer his patents as a gift to an institut~unwhich u'ould use the royalties to support the reseurch of other scientists. Ry 191 I the original investors in the Western Precipitation Company had brrn assured ot'getting their original investment hack ~~~
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with a reasonnble profit, and Cottrell prevailed upon them to purchase the exrlusive rights to rhc electrical precipitntion business in the six western states and the Portland cement industry throughout the United States. He would then give the remainder of the precipitation business in the United States as a gift to an organization which would administer the patents and provide grants. Cottrell, after approaching several institutions with his idea, found that no existine" one was in a position to manage - patents. . After conferring with scientists, engineers, and businessmen, he decided to form a new nonprofit corporation, to he called the Research Corporation (3).It was incorporated in New York in 1912 with a hoard of directors including academics, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and hankers, dl of whom served without pay. Its purpose was to acquire inventions and patents, develop them, make them available to industry under licensing, and apply all profits to support investigations in fundamental scientific research. The Cottrell patents enabled the corporation to function first as an engineering concern, licensing, dedgning, installing, and semicing prcripitators. i cuntinued as a separatr After Cottrell6 dcuth, t h ~activity c.ornoration. Restnnh-Cottrell. to produce ~ ~ ~ ~ rst~hlished ~ ~ in~1954 ~ , environmental control systems, with 16%of the stock owned by the Research Corporation. The Research Corporation manifested CottreU's conviction that his work he used not for his own gain but to help others in their research. His patents, and, he hoped, those of other scientists, would be developed and licensed, and beneficial applications made as scientists were supported through Over the years about 750 patents came into the possession of the Research Corporation with the assignment of all or part of the royalties to its philanthropic endeavors. Cottrell was in government service for the remainder of his life, moving to Washington, D.C., and eventually becoming the chief chemist and chief metallurgist for the Bureau of Mines. His government career was notable for two developments. Durina World War I he guided the development of an inexpmsive c&nmercial pnwesi for the production of helium by means of the liquefaction of air for use in dirigihles. By the end uf 1918 the p rice of helium had dropped .. from $1,200/fri to $o.o1/ft3. During the 1920's Cottrell took charge of the government's work on'ihe fixat~unof nitrogen. In 1T)i2 he became director to the Fixed N~troeenKesrarrh Lahoratonr of the Depanment of ~ ~ r i c u l t u rTe .L ~United States had do nitrogen fixation industw at the beeinning of World War I, dependina on chileannitrates a s i h e chief source of nitrogen for fertilizer and munitions. The Germans had developed an excellent fixation method-the Haher-Bosch process. Cottrell directed the US. project to master this process, including study of the subtle catalysts, the chambers, and the pressure and temnerature conditions. Bv 1923 he had developed - good . reaction catalysts which made possible the large scale production of svnthetic ammonia. Cottrell served as government consultant and scientist in many capacities during the 1920's and as chief consulting chemist in the critical years of the organization of the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933), one purpose of which was to improve iertilizer prodkrion. In the 19:il~'she decided to become more active in the Research Corporation, believing that i t could he doing more to advance American science. From 1931 to 1946 he was a consultant to the corporation. One of the first projects supported under his guidance was the development of the cyclotron by Ernest Lawrence at the University of California (4). From 1931there were annual grants to Lawrence. Yearly grants also went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the development of the Van de Graaf generator. Additional grants in atnmic physics went to Johns Hopkins tor neutrun research, to Harold llrey at Columbla tur isotope research, and tn maxy other investigators and universities. In return Lawrence as. . A
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siened his cvclotron patents to the Research Corporation in 1534 which then licensed them free of royalties t6 28 universities to build cyclotrons. MIT also turned over to the corporation the ~ a n d Graaf e patents. The Research corporation was thus a major contributor to the development of nuclear physics in the United States (5). Itsgrants, however, were equally impurtant in the chemical and hiomedical fields. Cottrell had met Morris Kharasch in the 1920's when the latter servrd as n consultant to the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory. The Research Corporation awarded Kharasch a grunt in 1932 for his ergot research: Kharasrh ilrvelopedergotinateand ~ssiynedhis patent to the corporation. It alsu sponsored hisdevelopment of the germic i d a l ~merthiolate and merrurorhrome. Kharasch's patents prodttd thecorporation with its first patents sincecottrell's to return an~reciablerovalties. In the 19%'~the ~ e s e & c hCorporation supported Edward Kendall's work on cortical steroids at the Mayo Clinic. The patents for cortisone and other valuable steroid medicinals were assiened to the cornoration. R. R. Williams' svnthesis of vitnmin B1 was another projrrt supported hy the corporation. Williamsdesired theesential nutrient be used toenrich flour. T o make i t available in large supply he asked the Research Corporation in 1936 to handle the patents. I t licensed the patents for the manufacture of thiamine to several firms. The mass production of the vitamin, a t relativelv low prices (a reduction of over 98% in a decade) made thiamine available to millers nationally. Thereafter, Williams played an important role at the corporation, becoming director of grants in 1946 and in the 1950's director of the Research Corporation
Cottrell's achievements gained wide recomition, including election to the National Academy of ~cience.In 1940 the National Association of Manufacturers, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Amtsrican patent system, seleited I9 Indlvidu~lsout nf w e r 1000 nominated for national hunurs as representing the great American pioneers of invention; they included the cream of the crop, such as Henry Ford, Orville Wright, and Irving Langmuir. Among the 19 was Frederick Cottrell. In a 1937 address to engineers titled "The Social Responsibility of the Engineer," Cottrell stressed the sanctity of human values. the idea of service to societv, - . and cited the I
