NOW"ONORDER"
I/EC
REPORTS
muds as well as weighted muds can be thinned directly with the acids themselves. Dow's pilot plant is continuous and should scale up readily to a commercial plant if the market out look warrants it. A typical reaction of 1 pound of coal with 3 pounds of caustic yields about 1 pound of coal acids, and 3 pounds of a useful by product—sodium carbonate. Dow
EQUIPMENT CORN SYRUP DE-IONIZER USED SINCE 1948
i
IWT h a s long been k n o w n for success fully a p p l y i n g i o n X c h a n g e t o processes other than water treatment, including s u c h f a m i l i a r o n e s a s recovery of c h r o m i c a c i d , p u r i f i c a t i o n of g l y c e r i n e t o a very h i g h d e g r e e , r e m o v a l of i r o n f r o m h y d r o c h l o r i c a c i d , a n d p u r i f i c a t i o n of such organic chemicals a s formalde h y d e , m e t h a n o l , a n d e t h y l e n e glycol.
TYPICAL IONXCHANGERS FROM CURRENT ORDERS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING MILK
A condensed milk plant in Iowa will use ionXchange to reduce calcium content a n d produce a "soft-curd" milk.
WINE
An upstate New York wine producer h a s ordered ionXchange equipment of polished s t a i n l e s s steel for s t a b i l i z a t i o n ("coldproofing") of wine.
GLYCERINE T h e first full-scale commercial I O N E X C L U S I O N system for de-salting glycerine will be installed in a western chemi cal plant. A mid-western glycerine producer will install ionXchange equipment to recover U S P glycerine from a waste stream, without distillation.
GRAPE JUICE An eastern food processor has ordered equipment to remove excess potassium from grape juice.
CHROMIC ACID
A midwestern auto parts plant will reclaim chrome plating solution a t a r a t e sufficient to p a y for t h e ionXchange equipment in less t h a n a year,
CITRIC ACID
An eastern producer will re move heavy metals and alkaline earth metals from citric acid b y cation exchange.
OTHERS
ARE "IN
PROCESS"
We a r e a l s o b u i l d i n g p i l o t p l a n t e q u i p m e n t a n d fulfilling r e s e a r c h c o n t r a c t s c o v e r i n g a n u m b e r of o t h e r p r e v i o u s l y u n t r i e d i o n X c h a n g e processes, for visitors w h o have c o m e t o u s f r o m a l l over t h e free w o r l d t o d i s c u s s p o s s i b i l i t i e s of u s i n g i o n X c h a n g e .
ILLINOIS WATER TREATMENT CO. 840 CEDAR
ST., ROCKFORD,
ILLINOIS
NEW YORK OFFICE: 141 E. 44th St., New York 17, N.Y. CANADIAN DIST.: Pumps* Softeners, Ltd., London, Ont.
Fabrication of small shell mold helps evaluate coal-derived binders is looking at the market now, and thinks that development of a large market-possibly 20 million pounds annually—would permit high enough volume at low enough cost to make the coal acids competitive with materials already in use. There arc yet no plans for commercial pro duction. The market picture will give the green light, or the red.
Oil Burner Lilliput Style DEHIND the familiar oil truck delivering fuel oil for household burners is a lot of chemistry. Re searchers back in the refineries where the oil came from arc determining tendency to smoke, measuring com bustion quality, and trying to predict performance of new burner designs. Some experimental fuels are very expensive, so the smaller the sample which can be used for study the better. Λ new micro test burner developed by Socony Mobil chem ists may turn the trick. Only 1 L / 2 by 9 inches, it is a scaled down ver sion of the common commercial oil heating unit, operates like the big unit, and uses about 1 % as much fuel. Capable of very fine adjust ment, it can clearly differentiate between operational factors depend ing on the fuel and those depending on burner design, and can do so in
Circle No. 40 on Readers' Service Card
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
A N D INTERPRETS
shorter time testing units.
than
with
previous
Polluted Approach lORTY years with the wrong gage. That's the plight of those trying to measure potential damage to sea life by industrial waste. At least so thinks Donald Hood of Texas A & M. The standard way to measure possible poisonous effects of industrial pollutants uses fish as the only test organism. The method was de veloped in 1918. But there are many other organisms such as shrimp, algae, and diatoms which are much more sensitive to waste. Such organisms are the food for fish. Hood proved his point by running the standard test on a water sample known to contain sulfur and chlo rinated organic waste. The fish were not harmed. But when the test was run with grass shrimp, brine shrimp, and phytoplankton consisting of green and red algae and diatoms, 30% of the grass shrimps were killed. And photosynthesis of 50% of the plankton was stopped. He concludes that the sensitivity of the waste material increases from fish to shrimp to plankton; hence, more attention must be paid to funda mental organisms of the marine community to determine the true effect of effluents.
Forceful Approach r \ NEW WAY to measure forces promises to explain the mechanical behavior of highly filled polymer systems; may pave the way to cus tom-made filled polymers with de sired strength and force properties. The method developed by AerojetGeneral takes a microscopic look at the strength of a polymer, the strength of the filler, and the con tribution made by the adhesional bond. This three-way probe spells out the relation of polymer to filler and may give researchers the data needed to gear filled polymers to performance. It could have several commercial possibilities—for exam ple, can {Continued on page 46 A)
