techniques used in studying colloids, polymers, and surfaces. A further aim is to demonstrate applications of these techniques to industrial problems. For part-time students, the research project may be related to, but not a direct part of, their own job require ments. The project is codirected by a faculty member and a staff scientist or engineer at the student's place of em ployment. Evans notes that an attempt will be made to integrate full-time students into the same type of research situation. If it's not possible, however, the research will be carried out at Carnegie-Mellon. A laboratory for the CPS program now is being equipped. Not only will it play an important role in the CPS program, Evans says, it will serve as a research focus on colloids, polymers, and surfaces for the university as a whole. Funds for lab equipment came as a grant from the Processing Research Institute at Carnegie-Mellon. The insti tute is a unit formed at the university with financing from the National Science Foundation's Research Applied to National Needs program to foster industry-academic collaboration in graduate education and research. Dr. Ethel Casassa, a colloid chemist, has been hired to supervise the laboratory and maintain the equipment. To be located physically in the chemical en gineering department, the CPS lab oratory will be available to everyone working in these areas. James H. Krieger, C&EN Washington
topics such as teaching of chemistry as part of integrated science teaching in schools, changes in chemistry curricula required to cope with the information explosion in a large number of areas allied with chemistry, and the role of laboratory in chemical education. Material for publication (three typed pages) as well as requests for the news letter, which is free, can be sent to: Mr. P. D. Gujral, assistant secretary (publi cations), IUPAC Secretariat, 2-3 Pound Way, Cowlev Centre, Oxford 0X4 3YF, U.K. " D
Technology
Dictaphone offers hydrocarbon detector Dictaphone Corp. has entered the pe troleum and chemical processing field with a newly developed line of instru ments designed to detect hydrocar bons. The instruments are designed basically as safety devices for early warning systems for combustible hy drocarbon mixtures with air or with other gas mixtures containing oxygen. The systems consist of remotely lo cated sensors, indicating meters, and, where desired, alarms. They can be adapted for use wherever combustible hydrocarbons are produced, processed, stored, and transported, ranging from oil and gas drilling sites to chemical plants. Additions to this line will be made later in 1975. The company expects that portable detection units will be
the first additions, followed by differ ent fixed systems and detectors for toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide. Basic technology for these combusti ble hydrocarbon detector systems was under development by Hadden Asso ciates, Mountain View, Calif., when the company was acquired by Dicta phone in 1973. Hadden, a research or ganization, had found a proprietary method to produce sensors for hydro carbons that operate on the principle of electrical resistance changing with temperature and that have long life times plus good tolerance to vibration. The' detector consists of a heated platinum coil of wire, embedded in a ceramic cylinder with a volume of about 0.002 cu in. The ceramic materi al, says Charles Allman, a chemist who came to Dictaphone with the Hadden group, overcomes the major drawback of resistor hot wire gas detectors—that of drift due to loss of platinum to the atmosphere surrounding the wire. Re sistance to shock, vibration, and chem ical and thermal changes in the sensor is obtained through a special technique of forming the ceramic cylinder so that the crystal structure remains fine and shear planes small, he explains. Another innovation in the system is a patented two-wire telemetry method for use in monitoring situations in which the sensor may be located a long distance from the meter. With this fea ture a technician working alone can do all calibration functions at the sensor location. Normally, two-man teams are needed to calibrate conventional threeand four-wire systems. α
IUPAC launches education newsletter Several years in gestation, the first issue of International Neicsletter on Chemi cal Education is now off the press. Pub lished by the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry's Commit tee on Teaching of Chemistry, the newsletter stems from the committee's meetings in 1971 in Washington, D.C., and in 1973 in Wroclaw, Poland. According to committee chairman C. N. R. Rao of India, the newsletter is intended to promote exchange of ideas and disseminate information on new developments in chemical education throughout the world. Financial support for the newsletter is being supplied by the United Nations Educational, Sci entific, & Cultural Organization (UNESCO). With the second issue due sometime early in 1975, the committee, Rao says, is seeking material for that and sub sequent issues. Specific items: • Important news and novel experi ments in chemical education, especially short reports or abstracts of national articles. • Brief writeups by chemical educa tors on any unique or novel experiments they are carrying out. • Suggestions and comments on 16
C&EN Dec. 23, 1974
New chemical engineering building rises at MIT Wedged into Cambridge. Mass., a new chemical engineering building is tak ing shape at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was the first school to offer the discipline (late in the 19th century). With a year to go before completion, the building has now risen to the third floor. A $14.7 million, five-story facility, it will be used, MIT says, for teaching and research in chemical engineering and in the related interdisciplinary areas of energy resources, environmental quality, biology, medicine, and management.
