November, 1923
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
1201
This apparatus has no moving parts, and the working fluid in * dust-collecting plant creates a nuisance and effectually jams the pump may consist of the liquid which has to be finally con- out broadcast wireless communications. It is understood t h a t densed. The mechanical efficiency is not very high, but the this matter is a t present under investigation, but the plant wear and tear is negligible, and there is absolutely nothing to in question emits the disturbance on a wave length of. about go wrong. It would not, however, be suitable for ordinary 450 meters, with the result that tuning out is very dlfficult. vacuum work, as the cost of running would be higher than that This matter is rather interesting from a legal point of view, of ordinary vacuum pump, but where corrosive materials have but it is difficult to believe that the trouble can be any worse to be handled the scheme seems to be very attractive. than that created by electric trains, except that of course I t will be continuous, and there can be no doubt that something COTTERILL PLANT INTERFERES WITH RADIO will ultimately be done to abate the trouble. A strange complaint has been heard from radio enthusiasts September 14, 1923 in the north of England. It appears that a certain Cotterill
GERMAN LETTER By WALTBRROTH,Giithen, Germany
TRAINING IN INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY Recently in Germany there has been a revival of interest in the problem of training the chemist. During the war experience was the most important, so that in technical circles the necessary industrial education was lacking. Now, therefore, there comes more than ever the demand for the industrial point of view, the consideration of the economic aspects of the problem. A new branch of chemistry, industrial chemistry, will fill this gap in the education of the chemist, by training him along economic lines. For, today, in order to carry out a large chemical undertaking a mere knowledge of the subject is not sufficient; questions of procuring yaw materials, or the possibilities for revenue of a process, and world economic problems must be solved, and for this a broader, industrially experienced point of view is needed. NEWMATERIALS POR FUEL AND POWER I n the present fuel famine one naturally turns his attention to other sources of energy besides coal and lignite. But the “white coal” will for Germany, who is poor in water power, never be able 1.0 play a large part. Still less is to be expected of the ‘‘blue coal”-the using of the tide, by its ebb and flow-for German industry; and the large-scale utilization of the other forms of energy of earth and space-wind, sun, atmospheric electricity, etc.-are still in the distant future. Successful attempts have been made here and there to turn sewage and settling plants to purposes o€ light and power. For example, the City of Erfurt, in Thiiringen, by experiments of the Erfurter Trichter Gesellschaft, has obtained out of a total quantity of 4000 cc. of mud, over 1,000,000cc. of gas (marsh gas), and turned this to profitable use. DIRECTUTILIZATION OF RUBBERLATEX It is well known that the milky juice of rubber, the so-called latex, is used directly, without first separating the rubberfor example, for the making of cord thread, of latex paper, etc. According to Ditmar it is suitable only where the latex can be given the form of the desired rubber article under simultaneous dehydration. When cement or plaster of Paris is used as the hardening agent, then vulcanization is not needed as these dehydrating agents act a t the same time as vulcanizers. Through treatment with latex Ditmar will produce mothproof, elastic cushion and mattress fillings, since the loosened filling in the natuial or pasteurized latex is wet and then left to dry off From the excess milky juice. The materials are thus covered with rubber, and therefore are mothproof, as rubber is not attacked by moths. This coating with rubber Ditmar calls “latexing,” or after his own name, “ditmarizing.” Ditmar will also use latex as a cementing material. He recommends latex glue, especially for the waterproof cementing of panes into windows. CHROMIUM INSTEAD OF NICKELPLATING The Electrochromgesellschaft, in Berlin, jointly with the Langbein.Pfanhauser Werken A. G., Leipzig, is using a new galvanic Droces by which coatings of chromium are made. Metallic chromium is separated electrolytically from chromium solutions in a form capable of being polished. These are platinum-colored, heat-resisting coatings, which are especially distinguished through their great hardness. They can be much thinner than nickel coatings, and are little attacked by the atmosphere, alkalies, acids, or salts. Especially can medical instruments, typewriter parts, phonograph plates, burners, lighters,
valves, etc., export articles with shining surfaces, which will not stand overseas transportation, be plated with chromium. DUSTEXPLOSIONS I n mills, sugar factories, soap factories, etc., many dust explosions have been experienced without any one being able t o find their cause. I n sugar factories alone in the last thirty years almost seventy such explosions have taken place. I n the Frankenthal plant the sugar chemist, Beyersdorfer, has been experimenting for a year and has found out that most explosions of this kind can be traced to electric causes. The dust explosions are to a certain extent “dust storms” by which the incipient lightning ignites the clouds of dust and causes them to explode. Beyersdorfer calls technical dust of this kind “colloid-chemical,” and sees no differencebetween suspended dust, smoke, and clouds. I n this connection, he explains the rain of fire of Sodom and Gomorrah in a similar way. He says that with a violent outbreak of a petroleum well, perhaps in the Caucasus, followed by scattering and electrical charging of the liquid petroleum by the eruption out of a fissure in the earth, a petroleum cloud was formed. This cloud was then driven to Sodom and Gomorrah; there the oil was ignited by a flash of lightning and fell down as burning petroleum rain. Beyersdorfer rightly considered it fortunate that the particles of the clouds separated by the lightning in ordinary storms do not consist of combustible material; otherwise every storm would be a rain of fire For the prevention of dust explosions Beyersdorfer recommends limiting the formation of the dust as much as possible through the choice of appropriate disintegrating machines, not to grind too fine, to wet down the dust with water, and to remove the electrical charges through contact with the earth or through electrical neutralization. METHANE I N STE,EL CONTAINERS Methane from the Rombacher mines in Coblenz and from the Fritz Hamm Gesellschaft in Dusseldorf, compressed in the usual steel containers to 150 atmospheres, has recently been put on the market. This methane is entirely free from carbon monoxide, and is said to be generally useful as a cooking and lighting gas where a connection to a gas plant is not convenient or possibleas, for example, on ships, in remote villages, hamlets, and in factories situated far from the city. Methane light is pure white. Methane is suitable for soldering purposes, for the autogenic working of copper, brass, aluminium, and similar easily melted metals, as well as the autogenic cutting of iron. On account of its high calorific value and its extremely favorable kindling and compression points, methane is also useful as a material for gas motors, especially for vehicles. In the chemical use of methane, and therefore of natural gas, of which methane is the chief constituent, many prospects offer themselves. It is planned to obtain sulfur from gypsum by reduction with methane, to produce methanol from methane, with methyl chloride as an intermediate product, and from atmospheric nitrogen by the use of methane or its cleavage products to prepare cyanogen products. As is well known, methane decomposes a t temperatures over 1000’ C. into hydrogen and carbon. If, now, this very pure carbon is mixed with barium carbonate, or briquets are formed from the mixture, and these are heated in a stream of nitrogen a t 1100” to 1300” C., barium cyanide is obtained. This new process of Prince Carl Lowenstein and Dr. Hauff makes possible the production of an air-nitrogen industry in the vicinity of natural gas sources. August 23, 1923
