INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
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away efficiently the heat of the reaction and maintain rather close temperature control throughout the relatively large volume of catalyst which would be necessary. This would present some difficulty, but it probably could be accomplished. The reaction heat could be used to preheat the reactant gases and the process would be self’-sustaining. The sulfur compounds in the gas used would have to be completely removed in order to insure long life for the catalyst.
Vol. 20, No. 12
Acknowledgment
The writers are indebted in many ways for such information as has been published by Fischer and Tropsch, by Elvins, Nash, and Erdely; and also for the preliminary work from this laboratory in which J. D. Davis participated. They are also indebted to many of the chemists of this laboratory and especially to A. C. Fieldner, under whose direction this work was done.
Some Economic Factors in Chemical Price Making’ Williams Haynes CHEMICAL M A R K E T S , 25
SPRUCE ST., N E W Y O R E ,
RICES tend to approximate the cost of production. If prices rise far above the cost of making any kind of goods, profits become abnormally large; and not only will the present manufacturers increase their output, but others will also be tempted to embark on the making of these same goods. If prices drop below the cost of production, manufacturers lose money. First, they curtail their operations, and eventually they forsake the enterprise or are forced into bankruptcy. In the former case increased production and keener competition will bring abnormally high prices back to the normal level, which is the cost of production plus sufficient profit to keep enough manufacturers in the business of supplying the normal demand. In the latter instance, reduced production will bring supply below demand and this scarcity will force prices back to the normal level. In this way the control exercised by price keeps supply and demand in balance, and price in turn is determined by the relative strength of supply and demand. In a general way everyone recognizes these broad principles. Noriarity points out:
P
For anything that he really wants the average buyer is willing to pay whatever he believes i t costs to produce it. I n part this willingness springs from his sense of fairness and in part from his commonsense knowledge that the market price of producible goods cannot drop below the cost of production without reducing the future supply. On the other hand, the buyer resents being compelled to pay for anything a price which he feels gives either t o the maniifacturer or the middleman more than a fair profit. Indeed, so strongly does the average buyer feel that he is entitled to as low a price as free competition would bring about, that even when he recognizes an article is really worth more t o him than the market price which he regards as unfairly high, he will buy less of such an article if he can possibly get along without it. On the other hand, even when he feels that the price of a n article is unduly high he will make little protest and will not tend t o boycott the industry, if he can be convinced that the market price is not higher than the costs of production, including a fair profit.
As we found wide variations in the costs of producing the identical chemical in different plants, so there are variations in demand. Just as differences in cost enter into competition and affect profits, these differences in demand have great bearing on price and price policies. Use a n d D e m a n d
The demand for soda ash from a glass factory and one from a laundry are different in both degree and intensity. Kot only does the glass factory buy in carload lots, but also soda ash is essential for its operations. The laundry buys in kegs, and can, if necessary, dispense with the material entirely. The glass factory must have soda ash or shut down. The I
Received October 6, 1928
N. Y.
laundry can substitute trisodium phosphate, bicarbonate of soda, borax, half’ a dozen different modified sodas, or any one of a hundred proprietary cleansing compounds. The demand of the manufacturer of patent leather for collodion is different from the demand of the photoengraver or lithographer for the same material, and each differs from the demands of the makers of surgical dressings and of photographic films. The price that any of them will pay is influenced not a little by the use to which he puts the chemical and also by the price which he will eventually receive for the goods into whose manufacture it has entered. Formaldehyde is an essential in the manufacture of embalming fluid and in the production of certain synthetic plastics. The undertaker uses comparatively a small amount and its cost is but a tiny fraction of his charges. If its price rose to five, even to ten dollars a pound, but few of his customers would object. The manufacturer of the plastic, however, consumes vast quantities, and the product he manufactures comes into direct competition with other materials used largely in further manufacturing operations. To them, therefore, a difference of from 10 to 15 cents would mean a necessary increase in cost, which would shut them out from effective competition, for example, with hard rubber in the great electrical field. Finally, within a single industry there are differences in the demand among individual consumers. S o t only are there close buyers and careless buyers-differences which are purely physiological-but there are also differences in financial strength, in consuming ability, in manufacturing or marketing efficiency, all of which actually create real differences in the price that two firms using the same chemical for the identical purpose are able and willing to pay. These disparities of demand exist everywhere, in varying degrees, for all goods in every market. Effective Demand
Since demand is neither uniform nor constant, it must of necessity exercise a fluctuating influence upon supply. At what point, then, does this influence touch prices? Obviously, only what the economist calls “effective demand” need be considered. The woman who wishes for a diamond necklace without the means of paying for it exerts no more influence upon the price than does the manufacturer of drills who has substituted an exceptionally hard alloy of steel for a diamond tip. In like manner, a chemical substitute for rubber which can only be produced in the laboratory a t a price two or three times as great as that of the natural product will have no appreciable effect upon the rubber industry. On the other hand, the demand of a buyer who can afford to purchase with easy indifference to price, although it is certainly effective demand, does not have a determining influence upon
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INDUSTRIAL AND E,VGINEERING CHE.VISTRY
price. With formaldehyde selling a t 8 cents a pound, the undertaker who could and would pay several dollars for this material is not going to be the buyer whose contract will be influenced, or whose consumption will be increased, by a reduction to 7 cents a pound. Just as it is the marginal producer (that manufacturer who can just barely make prices cover his costs) who is the effective factor in determining supply, so it is the marginal buyer (that consumer who can just barely afford to purchase the commodity) who fixes the limits of effective demand. The point a t which the marginal producer and the marginal purchaser meet tends always to establish the level of prices.
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the most reluctant purchaser comes into the market. Since, however, many other buyers would not purchase a t all if the price were any higher, the price for all must be set a t a level which will bring this marginal buyer into the market. Competitive Costs
Not one chemical buyer in ten thousand reasons out his position in the market with deliberate, rational consideration of all these economic factors. I n fact, chemicals being in the main essential industrial raw materials, it is commonly observed that the industrial purchaser is much less concerned with the price he pays than he is with the assurance that his competitors are not obtaining their chemical supplies a t lower The Marginal Buyer’s Influence cost. I n most cases some chemical agent is absolutely necesThe crucial position occupied by the marginal buyer is sary to produce a certain chemical reaction or a desired seen most clearly from the point of view of a seller who is chemical effect in the manufacture of goods whose ultimate determining his price policy. Let us study a purely hypo- selling price will bear but little relation to the cost of the chemithetical case-the manufacturer of a new synthetic solvent, cals used. The dyestuffs in a man’s blue serge suit cost less a theoretical substitute for ethyl alcohol, superior in certain than the buttons on the waistcoat. The alum in paper, the respects and not subject to its restrictions and regulations. accelerators in rubber, the bichromate in leather are all comFor easy convenience let us assume that the price of pure modities that, while they bulk large in the total purchases grain alcohol, U. S. P., is $2.50 a gallon while the tax-free, of raw materials by these industries, nevertheless cost but a denatured alcohol is selling a t 50 cents. If the manufac- fractional part of the price of the finished goods. turer of the new solvent put his price a t $2.00, or well under Plainly the effective demand for chemicals is more fixed the price of the pure grade, he would capture the market for and staple than the demand for consumer’s goods. It is perfumes, cosmetics, and similar products, amounting to say less influenced by price, although, paradoxically, the indus2,000,000 gallons. At 51.00, or somewhat above the price trial buyer is a more determined and much more skilful of the denatured grade, he could sell, say, an additional 5,000,- shopper than is any individual. This is but an explanatory 000 gallons to chemical manufacturers who found its superiori- expression of the fact, well recognized by shrewd chemical ties especially advantageous or who would pay a premium sales executives, that a reduction in price mill increase the to be rid of the restrictions surrounding the use of specially total consumption of a given chemical but slightly, although denatured grades of alcohol. At 50 cents a gallon the manu- a price lower than is being quoted by competing manufacfacturer of the new solvent could expect in time to take turers may enable one chemical producer to secure more than 30,000 000 gallons more of trade away from alcohol; but he his proportionate share of the existing market. would have to lower his price to 30 cents in order to capture the anti-freeze market of 40,000,000 additional gallons. I‘The New Competition” Provided he knows his costs and his potential market accurately, his problem reduces itself to an exercise in comThere is, however, one point in chemical demand where paratively simple mathematics. His practical sales strategy, the marginal buyer stands puissant. In many instances two however, will probably be worked out along these accepted or more chemicals compete for the same market. A score lines. He will first saturate the high-priced market a t $2.00 of oils are virtually interchangeable in the manufacture of and out of these handsome profits he will pay for his initial soaps and paints. Whole groups of solvents, alkalies, acids, research and development work and his original land, plant, oxidizing or reducing agents, rubber accelerators, dyes, fillers, and equipment costs. After writing off his initial invest- and sizes habitually compete with rivals within their respecment, he will increase his output to care for the next largest tive fields. Increasingly common is the competition between market and lower his price to $1.00. At this point he will new chemicals both with old cheniicals and with natural raw be selling 2,000,000 gallons to the perfumery industries a t materials. In all this inter-product competition the marhalf what they would be willing to pay, but he will have in- ginal buyer occupies the strategic position. The different creased his total sales to 7,000,000 gallons. Having paid products offered him possess varying advantages. He weighs for his additional investments and perfected in every possible one desirable characteristic against another and balances way his manufacturing processes upon the larger scale, he both against price. He is the man who asks-and answerswill extend his operations again to a production of 37,000,000 the momentous question, to buy or not to buy. Compegallons and again reduce his selling price to 50 cents. And tition centers about his decision. Prices are set to catch he will continue this process so long as it is possible for him his order. to increase his total volume of sales sufficiently more than I n the chemical market places, within reasonable limits, to cover the lower margin of profit that he must take. Trans- price has little direct control over demand, since demand lated into dollars and cents the problem would show some comes from an entire industry or group of industries rather such set of figures as follows: than from individual consumers and arises for a material that must be consumed if the buyer is to remain in business. PRICEPER COST PER Chemical prices, however, are very sensitive to supply and MARKET GALLON GALLON PROFIT 2,000,000 gal. $2.00 $1.75 $ 500,000 are more promptly affected by it than are the prices of con7,000,000 gal. 1.00 0.85 1,050,000 sumer’s goods. The distinction between the two sources of 37,000,000 gal. 0.50 0.40 3,700,000 price-the cost of supply and the marginal demand-exAs shown by this very much simplified, purely imaginary plains this significant economic fact, which has a compelling example, each price level has its own marginal buyers. Above force in chemical merchandising. this marginal fringe there are other buyers who would be These two price origins are not contradictory but suppleperfectly willing to pay more, and it seems unfair to the mentary. They account for the range of prices, the limits seller to force him to put his price down to the point where above which prices cannot go without curtailing consump-
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INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
tion and below which they cannot fall without reducing production. Marginal supply sets the peak above which prices cannot soar; marginal cost marks the rock bottom below which prices cannot drop. Neither of these points is fixed. Even a t a given time there can be no rigid price limits, for higher prices bring in new producers with heavier costs and thus make a new margin of buyers more reluctant and less able to purchase. Lower price levels eliminate factors, psychological and sociological as well as economic, which prevent a perfect equilibrium from being established a t any given point. Why Chemical Prices Fluctuate
If, however, either supply or demand is comparatively fixed or rigid--“inelastic,” as the economist says-price fluctuations will be a t once wider and more frequent. Changes in the price level, since their function is to adjust differences between supply and demand, must be proportional to the difficulty with which this balance is struck In the case of farm crops, with a supply that is virtually fixed for a twelvemonth, till the nest harvest season, we find sharp price changes due to the constant demand of the world for foodstuffs and the impossibility of adjusting supply quickly and easily. Hence agricultural prices must act first upon demand, a high price curtailing consumption during the consuming season, while later it will encourage the farmers to plant a greater acreage and so produce a larger crop. I n the case of chemicals, however, the factors are reversed. Being manufactured goods, the supply of chemicals can be increased or decreased quickly, but the demand of the country’s industries for these essential raw materials is comparatively constant, that is, very little affected in total consumption by changes in price. Accordingly, the first and most direct effect of chemical price fluctuations falls almost with full force upon the chemical manufacturer. It is necessary therefore for the chemical producer to do most of the adjusting in striking the economic balance. Except in those rare instances where the price becomes sufficiently low to open u p entirely new consuming markets he can do little to increase demand. Offsetting this, however, the very stability of the demand for chemicals is a marked advantage. It lays down a stable foundation for the industry’s activity. It sets a fixed point below which prices will not fall. It frees the chemical maker of the horrid bugaboo of styles and seasons. War-Time Examples
The course of chemical prices during the war expansion and the post-war deflation conformed strikingly to the theoretical expectation. The sharpness of chemical price fluctuations was obvious. The rapidity of the upswing in order to encourage a greater production and the slow, difficult correction of the resulting oversupply, despite a precipitous drop in prices, are both quite in line with the general characteristics of chemical demands. Up to this point we have considered chemical prices as if they were made always under conditions of free competition and in direct response to the forces of supply and demand. Practically these theoretical conditions are seldom fully met. They presuppose a market composed of a considerable number of buyers and sellers, all equally well informed on market conditions, each wishing to buy or to sell on the best terms he can, each willing to buy from any seller or to sell to any buyer, all independent of consolidation or collusion with others. Such a market is a limited place, usually a city with its own adjacent, tributary district from which its freight rates slope upward and outward. Under these conditions the market price, while it may fluctuate
Vol. 20, No. 12
from minute to minute, as in the stock market, is a t any given time a uniform price to all buyers and sellers. This uniform price is one of the distinguishing characteristics of free competition and one of its most important results. Such a price is a true equation of supply and demand. It separates the buyers willing to purchase and the sellers willing to sell a t that point from those who are not willing to pay this price or sell for this price. So far as an actual chemical market, that is, conditions under which chemicals are sold in New York, Chicago, or Podunk, is concerned, this is obviously a theoretical description. It clears up, however, a deal of vague thinking and careless talk about market places and market prices. Since chemicals much more closely approximate these ideal economic conditions than do most of the commodities with which we are familiar it is useful as a background. Checks to Free Competition
The interferences with free competition which prevent the perfect action of supply and demand in determining price according to Frank A. Fetter, are (1) custom, ( 2 ) combination, (3) sympathy, (4) fear, (5) ignorance of conditions, and (6) governmental action or interference, such as bounties, subsidies, tariffs, and many other things. Two of these-sympathy and fear-are obviously individual and chiefly psychological in their effect upon competition. The buyer who habitually purchases from a friend or who refuses to take his supplies from a competitor violates the economic principle of indifference. By his action he shows himself unwilling to buy from any seller a t the market price and in so doing interferes directly with free competition. Trade customs sometimes help and sometimes hinder free competition. If all the facts might be discovered, it would be found that every business practice traces back to the act of persons who used it first and adhered to it afterwards. The origin of many trade customs is lost in the maze of medieval fairs and country markets. Some probably have their roots embedded deep in the barter of primitive civilization. Others are quite within the memory of the present business generation. Any uniformity of action, instigated and continued by trade custom, is an interference with competition. By hampering independence of decision or freedom of act, custom thus keeps the market price from being a true supply and demand price. The custom of quoted chemical prices “freight equalized” widens the competitive market place. The steel custom of prices made on the basis of ‘‘Pittsburgh plus” restricted markets. Ignorance of market conditions is, in chemical circles, a fertile source of prices which do not truly represent the interaction of supply and demand. The careless, ignorant buyer almost invariably pays a premium price. He may isolate himself by not searching out all the sources of supply, or he may pay a higher price because he will not have taken the trouble to inform himself on the current market price. Naturally such “vest pocket customers” are among the most cherished secrets of a salesman, and, within the limits of the possibility of his ascertaining the facts, so indifferent a buyer can only be reminded of the old warning caveat emptor. There is, however, little ethical justification for the seller when he disseminates actually misleading information, or, what is even more common, withholds pertinent facts and figures. No doubt it is but human nature that news of price advances should find its way into the trade press much more promptly than the announcement of price declines. But it is a fact-as plain as a pikestaff, unless one be blinded by a very short-sighted self-interest-that the more full, the more accurate, the more disinterested market information which
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IND L’STRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
is openly available to all, the more quickly will the proper relationships between supply and demand be established. I n the long run this means greater stability for chemical prices, and staple prices are a great advantage alike t o producer and consumer. The advantages of adjusting the economic balance as quickly as possible, however. accrue chiefly to the chemical manufacturer, since the comparatively fixed demand for chemicals puts the burden of making this adjustment squarely upon the shoulders of the producer of the supply. Monopoly Prices
Although it is probably neither the most common nor the most effective check to free competition, combination is that interference which we are apt to think of first because both its causes and its effects are most apparent. Combination is by no means restricted, however, t o its most patent application in the collusion of sellers to advance prices. It may arise from custom, which causes a group of persons to act in a certain way or trade upon certain set terms, or from violation of the principle of indifference, which results in discrimination on the part of a number either of buyers or of sellers. The term “combination,” therefore, is used in the wide sense of including any group of traders. buyers, or sellers, who, for whatever reason, reach an agreement of minds that leads them to adhere to prices rather than to compete actively. If this happens, inequalities of price that would be impossible in free competition may result. It is fairly obvious that all of the conditions making for free competition are best met by the auction or exchange type of trading. Since prompt adjustments of supply to demand, which result naturally in greater prices, are certainly prompted by free competition, the question has often been asked, “Why not a chemical exchange?” The American chemical trade has always answered this question in the negative upon the sufficient, but rather indefinite reason, “It is not practical.” The sound economic basis of this reason lies in the fact that chemicals are not products which lead themselves t o this type of marketing. The requisites for proper, successful exchange trading have been fully defined by John George Smith,. professor of commerce a t Birmingham (England) University, in his book “Organized Produce Markets.” The product must be sufficiently durable to enable stocks t o be carried over for a reasonable time when the market is unduly depressed.*** Secondly, the product must be one that can be numbered, weighed, or measured with obvious accuracy t o all. Thirdly its quality or grade should be capable of a ready test, yielding the same results when applied by trusting the officials a t different times and in different places.*** Fourthly, the dealings in the commodity must be sufficiently frequent to occupy large bodies of buyers and sellers. Fifthly, there must be fluctuations in price, that is, the commodity must be one whose supply cannot be varied quickly by rapid changes in the rate of production; for otherwise there would be no opportunity for professional dealers to make a living, and all transactions would take place between producers, merchants, and consumers, owing t o the ease with which the supply would be adapted t o the demand.”
The experience of chemical makers and sellers agrees with the study of the trained economist in concluding against a chemical exchange. It is truly remarkable that, taken as a group, chemicals do not meet a single one of Professor Smith’s prerequisites for exchange trading. hfany chemicals can be stored almost indefinitely, but many cannot be held without change or deterioration. The time element therefore often enters seriously into sales, and the acid maker (to pick out only one, but a very common, telling example) who finds his storage tanks filling up is forced willy-nilly to unload. The law prevents his running his surplus down the
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sewer, while his manufacturing process is continuous and accordingly is costly to stop and start. He must find a market and quickly. hlany other chemicals are highly perishable; most chemicals, even if stored in elaborate and expensive containers, deteriorate more or less, sooner or later. Hold-over of chemicals is sometimes quite impossible and it always involves an extra and considerable charge for containers and storage with the interest involved in the nonproductive form of overhead. Chemicals apparently meet the second and third conditions. They can be “counted” readily and they can be “graded fairly.” However, the great lack of standardization, both as to containers and grades, is a practical obstacle that would have t o be overcome. Uniformity of the unit sold is essential for quick, wide trading in exchanges, for there must be a fixed common denominator of quantity as a basis of both offers and bids. This is not met when a drum of a given chemical may contain all the way from 100 to 300 pounds of the material. Moreover, while any chemical may be analyzed, nevertheless many chemicals display a very great multiplicity of grades, and a very slight difference in chemical content may make a very great difference in the use to which the chemical may or may not be put. It was upon the rock of multiplicity of grades that the Yew York Wool Exchange-organized in 1894 and abandoned in 1897-came to grief, and the same factor has been the chief problem of the London Coal Exchange. “Otherwise expressed,” says Professor Smith, “these second and third conditions amount to the requirement that a commodity must be fungiblei. e., of such a kind that one part or piece is as good as another, or a t any rate that all parts or pieces will serve the purpose of the purchaser for use equally well. * * * This condition is perhaps the most essential of all.” And chemicals, unfortunately, do not meet it, nor can they be made to meet it. Much can, and undoubtedly will, be done better to standardize and simplify both packings and grades, but when a fraction of one per cent of zinc in sulfuric acid or minute quantities of iron in sulfate of aluminum determine special grades demanded by consumers, the grading process in chemicals is complicated beyond the scope of general exchange trading. Local Markets a n d Local Prices
Chemicals enter into every industry, and the chemical market is as broad as the nation and as deep as the total of our industrial activities; but chemicals are often restricted geographically by local conditions of demand and freight rates. To market them by exchange methods would mean the establishment of exchanges a t several points. New York could hardly serve the needs of New England or the Philadelphia district. Half a dozen or more exchanges would be necessary to sell locally, and it is extremely doubtful whether or not the volume of business, say in Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Boston, Kansas City, and similar points, would be “sufficient to occupy large bodies of buyers and sellers.” Small, weak exchanges die of starvation or become “bucket shops,” and gambling in chemicals in local centers would not tend to stabilize markets. Nor would a big central exchange in Kew York be a solution. It has been suggested that such a central market place would be able to serve the country through dealers who would buy their supplies for resale to local consumers a t the exchange. This would mean that all chemical prices would become a spot New York quotation, plus brokerage and freight. It is a pleasant prospect-for New York district makers and the brokers who would be members of the exchange-but many factors are a t work lessening, rather than increasing, the influence of New York chemical prices. Such a plan ignores the chemicals manufactured and consumed in a local terri-
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tory, which would never logically be sold, even on paper, in New York, and which are produced in sufficient quantities to be quite independent of any price made in New York. Such a plan also fails to consider the necessity for spot stocks that must be carried to serve local consuming needs. An exchange in New York obviously could not deal in the bulk of the country's chemicals, and so could not control prices at distant points. To supply the New York market through an exchange and the rest of the United States by salesmen or through dealers is confusion worse confounded. It would complicate-not stabilize-chemical sales. Adjusting Supply to Demand
No manufactured goods have ever been successfully sold on exchanges because they do not meet the fifth requirement-namely, that supply must not be varied quickly by increased or decreased production. The stocks or bonds
Vol. 20, No. 12
corporations or a year's crop of wheat, cotton, or rubber do give a fixed maximum quantity for trading that cannot be quickly changed. Securities are retired, capitalization is increased, larger or smaller crops may be harvested from season t o season, but these changes are infrequent and their effect on supply is not quickly felt. The speculation, which discouraged Scottish iron producers from supporting the Glasgow and Tees Stores and finally led t o their abandonment, shows that even in iron, where i t is not easy t o vary production as a furnace once blown out is very expensive to restart, this factor is against the exchange. I n fact, since 1888, when the Berlin Bourse gave up its effort, begun in 1886, to trade in manufactured wares, no established exchange has ventured to extend its operations in this direction. Chemicals are manufactured goods, and, while i t is costly to vary the production, nevertheless none are so staple in this respect as iron, and most are very much less so.
Economical Recovery of Valuable Products from "Spent" Doctor and Caustic Solutions' F. J. Mechlin LOUISIANA OILREFINIXGCORPORATION, SHREVEPORT, LA.
ITHARGE and caustic soda are among the most expensive common reagents used in the refining of motor fuels. This paper describes briefly some experiments designed to reclaim valuable constituents of the spent caustic liquors. Reference to this type of investigation has been made by hlorrell and Faragher,2 although the work herein described was done independently.
L
Raw Materials
The raw material, "spent doctor,'' was found to contain caustic soda, sodium sulfate, tarry materials of the type ROH, and lead as plumbite ion, while suspended throughout the solution and floating on it were lead sulfide and organic lead compounds. The spent caustic liquor contained caustic soda, sodium sulfate, and dissolved tarry material. The original materials processed showed: doctor, 23" BB.; caustic, 8" BB. Obviously, the nature of the raw material charged will vary with the nature of the oil treated as well as the treating process itself. The spent liquors used in these experiments had been used in a continuous treating system operating on a pressure distillate derived mainly from Smackover and Urania crudes. Procedure
It was recalled that lead sulfide quite readily oxidizes to the sulfate, and that a concentrated caustic soda solution is a better solvent for litharge than a more dilute solution. Evaporation and oxidation by heating and air-blowing were thus suggested. Laboratory-scale experiments showed that lead sulfide was gradually oxidized and, as the concentration of the sodium hydroxide increased, the lead again entered solution as plumbite ion. The colloidal organic material gradually agglomerated and, on settling, floated on top of the specifically heavier caustic-plumbite layer. The sodium sulfate formed a disPresented before the Division of Petroleum Chemistry at the 74th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Detroit, Mich., September 5 to 10, 1927. Received June 22, 1928. 9 IND.END.CHBM., 19, 1046 (1927).
tinct layer of crystals when the concentrated mixture was allowed to settle. It was found necessary to continue evaporation of the caustic and doctor solutions to a gravity of 42" to 45" BB. before a satisfactory separation could be secured. To accomplish this a submerged steam coil carrying 8 pounds exhaust steam was used for preliminary heating; low-pressure air heated by waste steam was delivered near the bottom of the vessel and allowed to bubble through the liquid layer. This arrangement is satisfactory for preliminary evaporation but a temperature of 270" F. (132" C.) is necessary in the liquid layer before the concentration is sufficient for the dissimilar materials to separate satisfactorily by settling. It was found that a layer of soapy material containing small amounts of caustic soda, sodium carbonate, and lead residues could be skimmed from the settled mixture when the concentration reached 35" BB. If the concentration continues without removal of the soap, the soap is converted to a tar. Iron equipment was found to be satisfactory for the operation. Experimental Results of Processing S p e n t Doctor a n d Caustic SoIutions-Batch Operation Run 1 2 3 hraterial charged Caustic Caustic Doctor 164 160 2 Ma&iai charied, liters Per cent of charge reclaimed 7.9 11.25 24.5 Heating surface, square meter 0.13 0 &13 270° F. 270 2ibh Maximum temperatureused, OF. (132.2' C.) (132.2O C.) (138' C.) BEFORE PROCESSING Specific gravity 1.059 1.06 1.19 (go Be.) (8" Be.) (23' Be.) 3.81 3.84 12.5 NaOH, per cent Sulfate, calcd. as NazSOa, per cent 0.52 0.52 0.3 .... 0.75 Lead, PbO ~~
....
AFTER PROCESSING
Specific gravity NaOH per cent Sulfate', calcd. as NazS01, per cent Lead, PbO, per cent NaOH recovered, per cent PbO recovered, per cent
1.414 (40° Be.) 33.2 0.426
....
94.7
....
1,383 (39.5O BC.) 23.0 0.236
. .. .
87.8
....
1.47 (46'Be.) 36.1 0.35 2.1 87.3 84.7
Yields
1
Laboratory and semi-plant yields of caustic based on the analyses of the liquid charged show a recovery of 80 to 90 per
