News of the Week The recently distributed funds were meted out to participating universities according to the numbers of chemists and chemical engineers who had completed Ph.D.s during the past three years (1979-81), according to McEvoy. Chemical engineering graduates are weighted by a factor of 2.5, thus boosting the allotment to such d e p a r t m e n t s . Distributions to universities ranged from $22,000 to the University of Illinois, where 180 chemists and 25 chemical engineers received Ph.D.s during those three years, down to $1000, which was given to participating departments whether or not
they had any students finishing their studies. "There are no constraints on the spending of that money," McEvoy says. ' T m optimistic that, despite the rather difficult times, contributions to the central fund will be increasing substantially," he adds. Grants from CCR's central fund are intended to further basic research as recipients see fit. That central fund represents about 25% of the total pledged by participating firms. The remainder also is distributed to universities for basic research, but terms are worked out one-on-one between donor and recipient. •
Plan to split up energy agency hit by GAO The President's plan to dismantle the Department of Energy has been introduced in the Senate, where hearings on the measure have been held. But the plan is getting little attention in the House; in fact, a sponsor for the legislation has yet to be found there. And last week the proposal was dealt a heavy, possibly lethal, blow from the General Accounting Office's short, critical report on the plan. Set forth in May, the Administration proposal would disperse the present DOE programs into five other federal departments and agencies, with most of the programs going to the Department of Commerce (C&EN, May 31, page 6). Administration supporters of the plan say personnel reductions and administrative efficiencies would result in substantial savings over the years. GAO does not believe the whole process has been given enough consideration. Its report points out that Administration estimates of the cost savings have fallen—from $1.3 billion annually estimated last year to the most recent estimate of $250 million over the next three years. GAO says that, even now, DOE does not seem to have adequate information to justify even those savings. Most of the savings appear to result from reductions in the overall size of the energy budget request through program and personnel reductions. No specific analyses or explanations of the savings show them as resulting from reorganization. Casting more doubt on the potential savings, GAO finds that DOE has not taken into account the possibility of added costs from combining the DOE programs with those of other agencies. Previous mergers of federal offices have taken up to two 6
C&EN Aug. 9, 1982
and a half years to complete, and GAO hints that the transfer of DOE to Commerce could be difficult and costly. Another major task that has been given insufficient attention, GAO says, is the transfer of the many DOE field offices, laboratories, power marketing stations, and solar centers into existing Commerce programs. The GAO report says there is no detailed plan for this, and without some scheme for how responsibilities are going to be divided and for organizational relationships, big problems are likely to arise. Rep. Richard L. Ottinger (D.-N.Y.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy & Power—the House subcommittee that would review the plan—says that the report "provides confirmation that the Administration doesn't know what it's doing." The heavy criticism by GAO almost surely means the plan will not be introduced in the House this session and that, without some extensive revision by the Administration, it may never be acted on at all. •
Simple system converts ethanol to gasoline A simple system that can convert ethanol and water mixtures into gasoline has been developed by researchers at Purdue University's Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering. For the conversion, chemists Martin Chang and Allen W. Anderson and chemical engineer George T. Tsao take advantage of a zeolite catalyst system much like the one Mobil has patented to convert methanol to gasoline. The work is a "modification and
improvement" on the Mobil process, Tsao explains. That system does not work very well when the feedstock is pure ethanol. Apparently the reaction, which is exothermic, gets too hot and damages the catalyst, resulting in a catalyst half-life of only a half hour or so. Another problem is that the reaction products are mostly gaseous hydrocarbons, and the liquids that do form are too aliphatic to be used for gasoline. The Purdue scientists purposely add an equimolar amount of water to the feedstock ethanol, and find that with this proportion they can produce gasoline as efficiently as with pure methanol. Its big advantage, however, is that ethanol-water mixtures can be produced easily by fermentation from corn and other grains. Thus the researchers envision a small unit, not much more complicated than a moonshine still, which farmers could use to convert home-grown corn into gasoline. The product from the reaction needs no further refining, Tsao says. Gas chromatographs show it to be virtually identical with gasohol or the product formed by conversion of methanol to gasoline. At present, gasoline can be produced by this method for about $1.26 per gal, Tsao estimates. The water is necessary, Tsao believes, to stabilize the free radical that is formed during the first step of the conversion process—a dehydration reaction. One ethanol molecule, plus two additional hydrogens and an oxygen provided by the water, is equivalent chemically to two methanol molecules and is handled by the zeolite much like two methanol molecules would be, he says. In addition to gasoline, the reaction's products are water and a mixture of hydrocarbon gases. The latter can be used for fuel either for distilling the ethanol or for heating the zeolite chamber to the 300 to 500 °C reaction temperature. Water and gasoline are separated easily from one another by letting the heavier water settle to the bottom of a tank and skimming the gasoline off the top. The researchers have tested their mixture with several zeolites including ZSM-5, which is the Mobil catalyst; silicalite; and t h e n a t u r a l mineral, zeolite; and all work fairly well. They are continuing to try different zeolite catalysts looking in particular for one that will produce the somewhat heavier hydrocarbon mixture that will correspond to diesel fuel. •
