COIN-OPS. Norge goes commercial with its coin-operated dry cleaning machine, which handles 8 pounds of clothing and costs the user $1.50 to operate
Norge Launches Coin-Op Dry Cleaner Dry cleaning sales volume expected to increase, in turn boost chemical specialty sales Unveiling its new cleaning machine, Norge Division of Borg-Warner has officially entered the coin-operated ($1.50 for 8 pounds) dry cleaning sweepstakes. Other manufacturers should soon follow suit, and recent speculation on just what the stakes are should give way to experience. Hopes Are High. Norge expects coin-ops to multiply sales volume foicommercial dry cleaning from five to 10 times its present $2 billion a year. For the chemical industry and for distributors this could mean additional dry cleaning specialty sales—mostly perchlorethylene solvent, but also detergents and filter aids. Norge is the first of the big companies to launch commercial production of its machines. Whirlpool is field testing its units, should introduce them soon. And General Electric and Westinghouse are expected to enter the field before too long. Actually, the first company on the market was Standard, Inc., a small Dallas firm. Standard came out with a commercial unit last year, has piled up orders since that time. However, Standard's machine will most likely not be a major factor because of its relatively high price: around $6000 38
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for one machine with twin operating units. While Norge has yet to set its price, the company is nevertheless guaranteeing potential customers that it will cost no more than $15,000 for a bank of eight machines. And Norge hopes to make it even less. The machines are not available individually, but will be sold only in banks of eight, using a common solvent system. Triple Sales. If coin-ops catch on, the future for perchlorethylene indeed looks bright. One estimate, for example, has perchlorethylene sales tripling in just a few years. Except for the 1958 recession period, perchlorethylene has had a fast, steady growth, as more and more commercial dry cleaners switch to that solvent. The dry cleaning industry now takes about three fourths of the 200 million pounds of perchlorethylene produced (metal degreasing and compounding take most of the rest). About 35% of the nation's 34,000 cleaning plants use perchlorethylene, the rest use Stoddard solvent, a petroleum solvent. And perchlorethylene's chunk of this business is continuing to grow, will expand to 50% of dry cleaners by 1965, according to trade
estimates. Predicted coin-op consumption adds even more growth to this already optimistic outlook. Benefitting from this growth will be the seven U.S. perchlorethylene producers—Columbia-Southern, Detrex Chemical Industries, Diamond Alkali, Dow, Du Pont, Frontier, and Stauffer. Of these, Dow and Du Pont supply over half the market. And Dow already has its foot in the coin-op door. It is making Norge's special formulation, Norge-Clor—a perchlorethylenebased solvent made to Norge specifications and containing certain undisclosed additives. Another segment of the industry that will benefit, to a lesser extent, is producers of filter aids and detergents. Detergent manufacturers, such as R. R. Street & Co., Davies-Young, Emery Industries, Pennsalt, American Disinfectant, and Caled now supply a market of about $20 million a year. Filter aids have a market about a fifth that size, are made by such firms as Johns-Man ville, Dicalite, Atlas Powder, Pennsalt, and American Disinfectant. Growth. Norge, as well as others in the industry, is basing its optimistic forecasts on successful field tests. People, says Norge, like the advantages of coin-op cleaning—speed, ease, and economy. Norge is counting heavily on the growth of integrated coin-op laundrycleaning establishments. Indeed, the field here is fertile. While only 4000 coin-op laundries came into existence between 1946 (their beginning) and 1956, since then they have mushroomed to 25,000 in 1960, according to Norge president Robert H. Quayle, Jr. And these establishments, he says, have 8 million repeat customers. Although coin-op laundries are the first target for the machines, the market doesn't stop here. Included in the potential market: small commercial cleaners, hospitals, apartment houses, fraternity and sorority houses, motels, schools, and supermarkets. Commercial dry cleaners will most likely not offer too much opposition to the coin-ops. In fact, most feel they might as well get into the business while there still is time, according to Dr. Joseph Wiebush, research director of NIDC. However, there are some local associations, such as the Neighborhood Cleaners Association in New York, that are violently opposed to the coin-ops. NIDC itself is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
Pauling Hits Senate Subcommittee Noted scientist denounces Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security in nuclear test ban petition case A visibly annoyed Dr. Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a former American Chemical Society President (1949), stormed into Washington last week to do battle with Senate investigators. And in a twohour press conference, Dr. Pauling: • Denounced the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security. • Vowed to work for the abolishment of both it and the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. • Blasted our present defense policy with its "cold war profiteers." Dr. Pauling was ordered by the Senate Subcommittee in Internal Security to appear last week and turn over both the signatures of those who endorsed his petition to ban nuclear tests and the names of those who circulated the petition (see page 2 9 ) . On his last appearance before the panel June 2 1 , Dr. Pauling flatly refused to name the persons who gathered signatures for fear of "reprisals against idealistic, high-minded workers for peace/' The list of signées—filed with the petition in the United Nations—is a matter of public record. Submitted to the UN in January 1958, the petition carried the names of more than 11,000 scientists from 48 countries. Dr. Pauling told newsmen at first that he would ignore the subcommittee's subpoena, but for legal reasons, not in defiance. He is now awaiting Supreme Court action on his complaint for declaratory judgment on whether, by ordering him to produce the names of the petition circulators, the subcommittee has overstepped its powers. "To appear before the panel at this time would moot my case," Dr. Pauling said. Later, however, when served with a second subpoena, and on advice of counsel, he did appear. Lashing out in his press conference at the subcommittee in general and at its acting chairman, Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D.-Conn.), in particular, Dr. Pauling labeled die panel, "a disgrace to the Senate, to the nation, and to the public." The same, in Dr. Pauling's opinion, goes for the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities. Dr. Pauling charges further that two large sections of his testimony were
deleted from *the printed transcript of his first appearance before the subcommittee, "either through gross carelessness or through intent." He accuses Sen. Dodd of being embarked on a campaign to change government policy. Says Dr. Pauling, "For two years the Eisenhower Administration has been attempting to make international agreements, as advocated in the petition to the United Nations. But on May 12, 1960, Sen. Dodd attacked this policy. Then on May 25 he gave a speech in the Senate in which he attacked the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. [Dr. Pauling is not a member of this group, but has spoken before it often.]" In a letter reprinted in the Washington Post (Oct. 10), Sen. Dodd categorically denies Dr. Pauling's charges and that his group is trying to deny the right to petition. Nor, he adds, is it investigating Dr. Pauling's view-
point on nuclear testing. The issue, says Sen. Dodd, is "Was there substantial Communist participation in the organization of the petition? The subcommittee's interest in Dr. Pauling's petition is justified by evidence already received by the subcommittee respecting infiltration of the test ban movement." To this, Dr. Pauling says, "Although the printed record of my testimony before the subcommittee has been given the title 'Communist Infiltration and Use of Pressure Groups,' I was not asked a single question by Sen. Dodd or other members or officers of the subcommittee about any Communist infiltration or Communist action in relation to the petition . . . or to the bomb-test movement in general. I am forced to believe that the Internal Security Subcommittee is not trying to carry out its investigation of me as part of any lawful activity of the subcommittee, but, that instead, it is misusing its powers to subject me to political harassment and to damage the popular movement in the U.S. for a sane nuclear policy and for peace in the world through international agreements and international law."
Eastman Explosion Blackens Kingsport Sky The big explosion in the aniline unit at Tennessee Eastman's Kingsport, Tenn., plan (C&EN, Oct. 10, page 17) claimed 15 lives, injured more than 200 persons. Of those killed, four were management employees: Dr. Andrew Chadwell, research chemist, Usif Haney, an area supervisor in the aniline plant; John W. Squibb, foreman; and Carl Cochran, foreman. Damage was most severe in the aniline plant and nearby chemical units. Plastics and textile operations were not affected. Company officials still don't know the cause of the blast but experts working on the case will pin it down sooner or later.
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New Cars Use 14.2% More Aluminum Introduction of aluminum engine blocks in the new 1961 autos will boost the average use of aluminum to 62.1 pounds per car, according to a survey just released by Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical. This is an increase of 14.2% over the 54.4 pounds of aluminum used per car in the 1960 models. Total use of aluminum in the 1961 cars will reach 379 million pounds, the Kaiser study shows. The new aluminum engine small cars, expected to make big inroads in the 1961 auto market, will lead all other models in the use of aluminum—106 to 134 pounds per car. Kaiser's statistics are based on automotive production of more than 6 million units during 1961.
Michigan Chemical Buys Hydrogen Bromide, Rare Earth Facilities Michigan Chemical is adding anhydrous hydrogen bromide to its product list by acquiring facilities for making the chemical from Food Machinery and Chemical's Chlor-Alkali division at South Charleston, W.Va. In a separate move a week earlier, Michigan bought the Atomic Energy Commission's rare-earth ion exchange facility at its own Saint Louis, Mich., plant. Michigan has moved the hydrogen bromide facility to its Saint Louis plant. An intermediate in pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, the anhydrous acid now rounds out Michigan's line, which has included 48r/
