THE C H E M I C A L W O R L D THIS WEEK ments as an administrator, teacher, and research worker. The presentation of the medal and Dr. Bost's address highlighted the college's annual Herty D a y celebration, which c o m menced with an afternoon tea on the lawn of the executive mansion, residence of Guy II. Wells, president of G S C W . This was followed by a picnic supper on the campus with the college as host. The award program w a s opened with addresses of w e l c o m e by Dorothy Boyd, president of the Chemistry Club, and b y President Wells. Following a review of t h e qualifications of the medalist by Mr. Cudd, the medal w a s presented, first to F. Homer Bell, chairman of the Georgia Section, by Miss Boyd, and then to Dr. Bost by Mr. Bell. The Herty D a y celebration was concluded w i t h an informal dance. Dorothy Boyd, president of the G S C W Chemistry Club, smiles approval as Ralph W . Bost receives the Herty M e d a l from F. H. Bell, chairman of the Georgia Section, and H . H . Cudd, a w a r d committee chairman, watches
Bost Discusses Position Isomerism As Herty Medalist C&EN REPORTS: Herty Medal Award. Georgia Section, ACS M I L L E D G E V I L L E , GA.-Position isomerism plays an important role and has a definite effect o n surface activity, said Ralph W. Bost in his address as Herty Medalist at the Georgia State College for Women here on May 6. Dr. Bost, who is Smith professor of chemistry and head of the department of chemistry at the University of North Carolina, was selected as medalist by the Georgia Section of the AMERICAN
CHE:MICAL
SOCIETY.
Reporting his studies on t h e effect of position isomerism on surface activity, Dr. Bost concluded that more effective surface active agents can be produced where the present process of preparation gives a mixture of isomers. Basis for this conclusion was the observation that there is in all cases a measurable difference in the surface tensions of isomers. In one example, the para isomer of one of the sodium alkoxybenzoates, in certain concentrations, was 20 times more active than the ortho isomer. The meta isomer fell between these values. In some of the isomeric series studied, the order of activity of t h e position isomers changed. The Herty Medal was founded to honor the late Charles II. Herty, w h o was twice President
of
SOCIETY (1915
the
and
AMERICAN
1916)
CHEMICAL
and editor of
Industrial een using t h e calculations successfully tor almost a year t o analyze and predict turbulence in heat exchangers. During and after the discussion period C H E M I C A L
'which followed the presentation of t h e paper several engineers expressed the opinion that the method was too involved, and hence too costly in man-hours, to replace the rule-of-thumb methods n o w used in scaling-up equipment. However, supporters of the system saw in it a forerunner of a n e w era in mixing technology in which mixing equipment will be d e signed and powered on a relatively exact basis from predeterminable requirements. Continuing in the spirit of a fundamentally scientific approach to mixing problems, Darrel E . Mack of Lehigh University suggested that a second Reynolds number be used to describe turbulence in mixing vessels. This speaker submitted that b y using this second figure t o designate the turbulence in the vessel away from the impeller, while the first Reynolds number is used to describe turbulence adjacent to the impeller only, it is possible to determine more closely the volumetric output of the impeller and the average effective velocity- of the agitated fluid. Like Dr. Rushton's contribution, this work was intended t o permit the d e sign of impellers for optimum performance per unit of power input. A N D
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