The Editor Looks a t .
..
IIEC MAY 1958
Automatic computers are no longer a rich company’s plaything. They are everyday working tools for the engineer. Look at some of the items found in the 29-page package on applying machine computation to the petroleum industry. Esso uses computers to design heat exchangers and to figure manufacturing and storage problemis with wax. U. S. Borax saves hand-figuring time in pilot plant calculations. Penn State, long a computer stronghold, has devised the relaxation method for calculating distillate product compositions using a digital computer.
Aliphatic dibasic acids have become important intermediates in making diesters for synthetic lubricants or plasticizers. Oxidation with naphthenes, &died by numerous workers, hasn’t given good enough yields. Amoco’s new approach (page 777)-oxidizing tert-butylcyclohexane with NO2 and oxygen-gives yields up to 78 mole yo.
Cost information is e v e r y w h e r e - e x c e p t
at hand when you need it. I/EC has tried to solve this problem. Weaver of Atlas Powder has 1957’s cost review all wrapped up for you beginning on page 753.
Stainless steel cladding introduces problems in recovering uranium from spent reactor fuel. GE’s solution to the problem (worked out in developing a process for dissolving the reactor core of the USS Seawolf) assumes the proper type of stainless cladding steel used in the first place, then uses HzS04 to recover the uranium. Special advantage : Standard chemical engineering equipment and operations used in solvent extraction methods for processing fuels can be used throughout.
Uranium from phosphorus furnace slag is somewhat difficult, and certainly not economical under present conditions. I n a national emergency the USGS work on this problem reported on page 793 might have considerable interest.
Evaporator Scale: Clean it chemically, scrape it mechanically, or just try to prevent it from forming. If you clean it chemically, look at a sugar refinery’s sodium citrate method (page 811)-it should be adaptable to evaporator scale problems in other types of operations.
Alkylene carbonates are now available commercially. The process is simple; properties are unusual. Solution to low prices is the usual: Develop enough uses. Jefferson Chemical’s method of preparation, described on page 767, uses quaternary ammonium halides as the catalysts to make ethylene and propylene carbonates.
VOL. 50, NO. 5
MAY 1958
71 1
