Riseman, Rossiter, electrode Orion's John Riseman (left), C. A. Rossiter with calcium-specific electrode
dium and potassium ions and oxygen. The calcium electrode was invented by Dr. James W. Ross, Orion's vice president and director of research. Orion began developing the electrode under a contract from Corning that terminated last September. Corning holds the patent rights, but Orion yielded the royalty rights in exchange for permission to independently market its version of the electrode. In each electrode the liquid-ion exchanger contacts the test solution through a porous membrane. A salt bridge connects the ion exchanger to an internal silver/silver chloride electrode. Orion and Corning are selective in revealing details of their electrodes. The membrane of Coming's electrode is a glass frit. Orion says that it uses a thin organophilic, hydrophobic membrane, and that the membrane contains the ion exchanger, the calcium salt of an organically substituted phosphoric acid. The body of Orion's electrode is fluorocarbon plastic. Coming's is all glass. Orion says that its electrode obeys Nernst's Law for calcium ion concentrations between 1 and 1(HM. Corning claims Nernstian response from 10-1 to KHM. Both companies foresee many uses for the calcium electrode: measuring calcium in biological fluids, monitoring calcium in water supplies, and controlling quality in food processing and pharmaceutical production. Orion says the electrode is a good endpoint detector in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) titrations. The electrodes can be used with an
expanded-scale pH meter and a saturated calomel electrode. The technique is similar to that of pH measurement. Corning has available a limited number of initial models of its electrode. Orion's will be commercially available May 1.
Big future seen for pipelines It's not too far fetched to expect that one day pipeline networks devoted to transporting solids will be as extensive as the liquid petroleum lines now in service. And that would indeed be extensive, since in 1964, the latest year for which complete data are available, such pipelines accounted for 17% of all intercity freight transportation. At the same time, petroleum pipelines themselves will hardly remain static. To hear such opportunities described before a pipeline industry audience certainly isn't unexpected. But at the American Petroleum Institute's 17th Annual Pipeline Conference in Dallas last week, Cities Service president Charles S. Mitchell drew as good a picture as any of the future awaiting the industry. Already, Mr. Mitchell says, a largediameter crude-oil line from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast to the Philadelphia refining area is under consideration, as are such lines from the Gulf to California and from the Gulf to the upper Midwest. Other immediate possibilities include a products line from the Gulf to the Midwest and a two-phase liquids and gas pipeline, known as the Red Snapper Line, in the Louisiana off-shore area.
Pointing out future opportunities for conventional petroleum liquids, Mr. Mitchell says that pipelines will be required to move hydrocarbons produced from shale oil deposits in Alaska, Colorado, and Wyoming. Also, pipelines will be needed to connect to the more readily accessible reserves in the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, Canada. In petrochemicals, it's only a matter of time before substantial volumes will be handled in pipelines. Currently, Mr. Mitchell explains, pipeline transportation of petrochemicals has been limited to small-diameter, short-distance lines serving as interplant connections. However, it's reasonable to expect that more and more large-volume processing plants using these intermediates will be built far from their sources of supply. Pipeline technologists will probably face their biggest challenge in handling solids and slurries. Mr. Mitchell describes work, already under way in Canada, which has shown that oil slugs entrained in water (and capsules containing a variety of materials) move faster than the supporting liquid, and the friction loss of the mixture in transit is less than that with water alone at the same flow rate. Such findings, Mr. Mitchell says, foreshadow not only greater use of existing pipelines but increased capacities of the systems. Slurries have been successfully moved in pipelines in somewhat limited applications for more than 50 years. Mostly, these have been short lines. But they have handled a variety of materials, including coal, gilsonite, copper concentrates, wood pulp, phosphate, and gravel. During the development of these lines, Mr. Mitchell says, the oil pipeline industry has been on the sidelines. But as petroleum companies continue to diversify, existing lines will be used for other applications, and new lines will be built to handle other commodities. Mr. Mitchell describes the potential for increasing use of slurry pipelines as immense. Among the possibilities, he says, are fertilizers where, for example, beneficiated phosphate rock could be ground at the mining site and pumped to the plant for making superphosphate and phosphoric acid. The feasibility of transporting potash as a slurry of fine crystals with a saturated brine as the vehicle is promising. In fact, a 1300-mile potash line from Saskatchewan to Chicago has been proposed. Still another possibility is transporting iron ore to pelletizing plants at steel mills. This could be significant to the iron-ore industry in the Mesabi region near Lake Superior. APRIL 25, 1966 C&EN
23
