Movitig
Does ri* I Smlve
Problem
Some chemical manufacturers in large cities have hoped to avoid difficulties accompanying smoke, dust, and fumes by moving out into the country. But a remote location is no guarantee against trouble. They have found themselves sued for killing crops and trees. A wiser course would have been to stay in the city and take proper precautionary measures. While window fans or high fume stacks may improve conditions for workers, they oFer a poor method of correcting the problems arising from neighbor complaints. Rooms or plants should be sealed, the ventilation carried out through a common duct, and the effluent air scrubbed of the acids and inorganic constituents. Then the organic matter can be burned and further scrubbed if the burning forms sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric acid, or cyanides. The expense of operating such a system is comparatively small, considering the rest of tho operations and the capital invested in the main part of the plant. Disagreeable fumes leaking into the air from apparatus can often be caught by placing a hood over the apparatus and carrying the fumes to a common duct. The same is true of many breather pipes such as those on tanks and absorbers. In the case of a chemical which is leaking at the breather, it is generally worth while to send strong fumes back through the absorber system and even profit by catching them. During the war many plants making inorganic acids lost several per cent, of tLe acid through failure to collect acid gases leaking through numerous si..aII breathers. U one plant receiving complaints about some troublesome vents the chemical engineer felt it would be uneconomical to install adequate absorbers. As a result, the company was faced with damage suits of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It ;s frequently found that when fumes are collected like other waste material, unexpected economies result. Many fumes have a ssk- value. Much oi «he waste material passed into streams has considerr.' * salvage value., Au excellent.examp*^ ^i'. * , , · . liquid distillery wastt*3. which fov yea· 3 have been polluting our rivers. In th t t oast 10 years it has been considered good practice to install evaporators to c*tnh t ; ie soluble distillers' slop which is jrc.v called distillers' silage. It is evaporated t o a sirup, added to the grain which hafe been filtered out, and then dried and sold as a high-grade cattle feed, thus supplying the distillery with a new source of income. Certain dust, fumes, and the like are rapidly disappearing from the industrial scene because more plant owners are realizing that it is uneconomical to throw them away. Weather
Plays
a Role
Weather plays a critical role in the disposition of fumes. I n various parts of the
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United States, especially in coastal areas, there are at least 25 days every year which have considerable fog. Fogs pick up fumes sent out of windows or stacks and carry them at the rate of one to five miles an hour to nearby or distant localities. .It has been suggested that fumes can be vented under favorable weather conditions. This practice is rarely satisfactory and can be used only for mild organic fumes which easily become oxidized in the air to inert products. Stable organic compounds or other inorganic gases cannot be vented in this manner. One large manufacturing plant of 50 or more acres had a small operation which emitted some hydrogen «ulfidc, never sending out more than 100 lb. a daw Frequently the management received complaints from the neighbors about the disagrceab'e smells. This was corrected by passing the hydrogen sulfide through a scrubbei tower. The tower was originally there and used to vent hydrogen sulfide; it was packed with checker-work brick, and a continual flow of alkaline liquid circulated through the tu .ver and absorbed the gas. Portable
Laboratory
Ma1 es
Tests
Another plant having trouble with its neighbors placed a portable 'aboraiory on the road. The truck travt .etI around
the countryside m a k i n g tests in order to prove management's contention that the fumes from the plant ne VIM* reached a dangerous concentration at a distance greater than one-half mile a\va3r. The laboratory's results s e e m e d to bear this out, but vegetation for some distance around continued t o wither a n d die. T h e truck went o u t for samples only during the day, between 10 A.M. a n d 2 P.M. On clear days the traveling laboratory found no fumes because the particular gas omitted stratified above t h e stacks and none was present at 8 feet above trie ground. At night the plant cleaned out the stills and other apparatus, ejecting into t h e atmosphere sufficient quantities of the toxic gases to kill vegetation. As soon a s it began to ram the stratified cloud, which may have moved as far as a mile, came down on the crops ruining them. F u m e s of such a nature thiat they tra-vel slowly in a fog or mist are worse than those which are caught by a turbulent wind a n d dispersed. The problem o f smoke, dust, and fumes is not one that can be escaped by removing a plant to a. remote locality. It is not a problem that can be s e t aside and forgotten, o r put off until a later date. It has :m unpleasant way o f haunting plant managers. The problem must bi» faced. While the installation o f controls may appear an unnecessary expense, ii. can often, in the long run, result i n a true economy.
Southwest Research Institute Dedicated JL HE third and fmal unit of the research structure affiliated with the Foundation of Applied Research [C&EN, 25, 5 (J947)] was dedicated Sept. 11. With a long-range program dedicated to agricultural, medical, and chemical and biological research, the first two units of the foundation were the Essar Ranch (SR, standing for scientific research) near San Antonio, Tex., and the Institute of Inventive Research. Announcement was made at this dedication' of the Southwest Research Institute that the total endowment, not including the Essar Ranch, had reached $1 million. Acting director of the institute, which has been under construction for more than a year, is W. M. Hammond, former business manager of the Armour Foundation. The initial staff is made up of John B. Loefer in the field of biology and microorganisms; H. C. Dyme, chief chemist and expert in bacteriology; Robinson Brown, who will handle petroleum problems; Judson Swearingen, chemical engineer; Paul Keesee, expert in veterinary medicine whose specialty is artificial insemination; F. W. Bieberdorf, botanist and plant pathologist; and I. O. Gilbert, specialist in electronics and machine design.
CHEMICAL
Administrative offices, the scientific library, and the guest house are in the old cable ranch house, and the laboratories are housed i n an adjacent modern building This contains a general analytical laboratory, bacteriological, biochemical, and botanical a n d allergy laboratories, animal nouse and animal surgery room, machine 3hops, arid a drafting room. Facilities which are provided by the institute will be used for the solution of industrial problems and new product development, for t h e improvement of agricultural a n d livestock production, and for t h e expansion of t h e utilization of the chemurgic potential i n the region. Two sponsored industrial projects are already under way, and i t is expected that a laboratory, probably devoted to petroleum technology, will eventually be established in H o u s t o n . For the present the institute will maintain in Houston a placement office for assisting industrialists in planning a n d organizing research projects. A very commendable objective of the institute is a contribution to friendship with Xatin America through the bringing of science students from these countries to t h e institute to gain experience there and o n the "Essar Ranch.
AND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
