October: 1928
I-VD USTRIAL A S D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
versities, but a conscious effort should be made to generate in them a reasonable degree of respect for that portion of the science which has to do primarily with immediate benefits to humanity. Many of them will enter the industrial field and if they are not taught to honor the work they are going to do. they will never be happy or successful in it. Supervision
There are, however, other factors vital to profitable industrial research. The selection of problem and personnel is only a beginning. The research must be carried out successfully and its results must then be put into practice profitably in the industry. S n essential to success is adequate supervision, since in very few cases is there only one worker involved. This involves planning the attack on the problem and keeping it moving along correct lines until the problem is solved. Incidentally, it involves many other things-one of the most important of which is that mysterious thing which it is fashionable to refer to as “morale.” As it relates to research workers, it may perhaps be summed in the injunction to keep them happy. To do successful research it is essential that the worker shall expend a maximum of his available energy in the attack on his problem and a minimum on matters not essential to it. It is therefore vital to protect him from unnecessary worry-financial, domestic, or otherwise. The successful director of research must recognize that the facts that research worker A’s three children are all having whooping cough or that a payment on his home is coming due a t the same time as the insurance bills are matters vital to the progress of A’s work, and therefore the consideration of such problems is an important one of the many duties of the director’s job. Cooperation between Departments
Even after the completion of the strictly scientific phases of the research there still remains much to be accomplished before the work can be made to yield a profit to the industry, and it is in this no man’s land, where cooperation between the research, production, sales, and legal, in fact all departments of the business is so necessary, that the ultimate results are determined. Here the corporation inexperienced in research is most likely to meet failure in its initial research efforts. It is difficult to lay down rules, but certainly the
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importance of this phase of the development must be borne in mind and a suitable appropriation of brains, time, and money made for this very vital part of the research program. Patent Department
Another part of the industrial research organization which is highly essential to the production of profits is the patent department. It is very frequently through patent protection that profits from the research department are limited to the corporation supporting the work and not contributed to the whole industry. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the connection between the patent department-the term is used broadly to cover whatever agency is responsible for decisions on patent matters-and the research department be very close, normally involving the presence a t the research conferences of some one with a knowledge of patents and capable of detecting patentable develop ments or ideas, since it will be obvious that a research policy requently may be deter mined by the patent situations, for example, in the case of an adverse decision on the question of taking up a certain line of work because the number and nature of the patents suggests the impossibility of developing anything that can be monopolized, or the case of patenting some seemingly simple feature of a development which may seem to its originator unpatentable or not worth patenting. Conclusion
Just a word in defense of profits as a criterion of successful industrial research. Industrial research is the effort to discover something that the public or humanity-to use a word which means much the same but sounds quite differentwants, and profits are the measure of the humanity’s opinion of the benefits derived from that effort. Perhaps after all, this is frequently a truer measure of values than we chemists are willing to admit. It may be that the work done under the pressure of the dividend-hungry business world is really more worth while than we think. At least since it is becoming more and more necessary to obtain from business men financial support for our rapidly expanding program of pure science research, is it not worth while for us to advertise the value of science to those same business men by showing them its utility in the form they can best understand, profitproducing research?
Treatment of Boiler Feed Waters of Low Incrustant Content’ S. C. Johnson2 WATER SUPPLY
DEPARTMENT, CHESAPEAKE A N D
A
LTHOUGH the saving resulting from the improvement of boiler feed water by proper treatment has been universally recognized for many gears, considerable progress is yet to be made before the law of diminishing returns starts functioning. American railways were of necessity early in opening the productive field of water treatment, but statistics show that only 20 per cent of the 500 billion gallons used annually by railroads is treated. Fully 80 per cent could be treated to advantage and an annual and unnecessary loss of ~100,000,000eliminated thereby. Per1 Presented before the Division of Water, Sewage, and Sanitation at the 75th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, St. Louis, Mo., April 16 to.19, 1926. 4 Chief chemist.
O H I O RAILvJAY.
HUNTINGTON, W.VA.
haps similarly unfavorable water conditions exist among many other industries. The development of water treatment has received most attention in the Middle West, where the quality of natural water is particularly objectionable, but experience in other sections of the country has shown that it is very costly to utilize water for boiler feed purposes with even relatively low incrusting solid content, This classification is intended to include waters ranging in hardness from 34 to 86 p. p. m. (2 to 5 grains per U. S. gallon), in alkalinity from 17 to 68 p. p. m. (1 to 4 grains), and with dissolved solids not exceeding 170 p. p. m. (10 grains). A large number of natural waters and many public supplies, even after modification by
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGXNEERING CHEMISTRY
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treatment, possess these characteristics and fall ulthin tlils classification. The harmful effect of such water when used in steam generation is noted in two forms-(1) scale, and (2) pitting and corrosion. At one point on the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad a rity supply is utilized for locomotive and stationary boiler feed
Vol. 20, No. 10
sidc of the ledger by addition of '/a pound of soda ash per 100 gallons. The fallacy of reasoning that a water ION in incrustants is a satisfactory boiler feed even though modified treatment has effected a marked reduction in hardness is best portrayed by tliis stay bolt (Figure 3). The municipality furnishing this supply boasts of its excellent plant and effluent, yet the annual loss to one industry using this corrosive water is conservatively estimated a t $50,000, which exceeds the price paid for the totai quantity of u'ater consumed. These illustrations are only a few of the many available which attest to the fact that the cost resulting in the use of water with lo~vincrust,ants without some form of treatment is enormous.
,..... Figure I-Stay
Bolt Destroyed by Boiler Feed Wfife.
( 9 . 4 grains) of
dissolved solids. Complaints of scaling bccame so vigorous as to draw attention to this water and careful inspections showed that both locomotive and stationary boilers were badly covered with dark brown, grainy scale, which adhered to the metal so tenaciously that frequent bumping was necessary to remove it. Liglit soda-ash treatment was a.pp1ieddirect to the stationary boilers with blowdoivn of one full glass per shift of 8 hours, and after 3 months' service the results were found to be very gratifying. The hlowdown feature is mentioned because it has heen formd that the best results are secured only when the precipitated solids are remomd and not given the opportunity to hake on the heating surfaces. A test was also made of a yard engine, the boiler of which was scaled to the extent of s/4 inch on cooler heating surfaces. After 3 months of soda-ash application in the engine tender and with hi-daily hlowdoms of one full water glass, the boiler became almost entirely clean. The washout periods were successfully extended from 15 days to intervals of 30 days, with no intermediate water changes
Figure 3-Stay Boit Subjected to W a f e r That Haa Had Modifled TrDatmeot
Local conditions best govern the type of treatment to be used, hut in most cases small quantities of soda ash or similar softening agents u4ll effect satisfactory elimination of scale and corrosion. Blowdown control is very essential, hut it is often one of the most dfficult tasks to have properly executed in the entire treatment cycle. For this reason it may almost he considered as a determining factor in the results obtained. Summarizing, i t might he well said that "few supplies are so good that some form of treatment does not improve them." The controlled addition of predetermined amounts of snitable soft,ening agents and a satisfactory blowoff schedule amply reward the efforts and expenditures involved in the treatment of vaters of even low incrusting solid content. Nola-The
pH of flicrc waters ranaer fiom 0.R t o 8.6.
Laboratory Mixing Wheel or Agitator' Clark R. Carpenter and W. A. Manuel C o r o a ~ o oScxoor Flgure 2-Corrosion of Flue Caused by t!ntrenfed Boiler Feed Water
Another boiler utilizing this supply and furnishing saturated steam to a compound engine was subject to such rapid and extensive st.eam demands that priming and associated troubles developed. The soda-ash feed was supplanted by an equiva!ent quantity of liquid sodium aluminate, with the result t.hat priming subsided. Scale reduction and elimination were entirely satisfactory. Experience with liquid sodium aluminate alone or in conjunction wit,h soda ash indicates t.hat this material is very efficacious in internal as wellas roadside treatment. At another point, water with about 43 p. p. m. (2.5 grains) of hardness, 17.1 p. p. m. (1.0 grain) of alkalinity and 93 p. p. m. (6.0 grains) of total solids deposited an extremely dense sulfate scale on the hottest sections of the boiler and, although the pitting was bad on all water surfaces i t was found to be more active and severe under the scale. Figure 1 shows a stay bolt and Figure 2 a flue section which were practically destroyed by this water. A water with 34 p. p. m. (2.0 grains) of hardness, 31 p. p. m. (1.8 grains) of alkalinity, and 60 p. p. m. (3.5 grains) of dissolved solids was found to give far too much scale for satisfactory results. The financial returns occasioned by the use of t.he water were immediately shifted from t,he debit to credit
T . .
08
MZXBS.GOLDBY,COLD
0 M E E T a need ior a device t o mix foal samples, the machine illustrated was designed and built in the School of Mines shops. The machine consists essentially of two wooden wheels, eafh 2 fret in diameter, pinned t o a shaft with B single bearine and suooort between the two wLkeis. &wheel is nrooved to receive a small round belt. Fach wheel has eidht carriage bolts ( $ 1 8 X 5 inches) placed a t regular intervals ahout an inch inside its ciicumierence. These bolts pass through the wheels extending perpendicularly outward, and are the seats for ordinary universal clamps. The apparatus is driven by a small motor, with a speed-reducing gear, all iastencd t o the same base-board. Some of the advantages of such a mixing wheel are: (1) it is easily and cheaply made; (2) containers of various sizes and shapes: may be used; (a) the containers may be so placed that the motion will be either simple rotation or end-over-end tumbling, or a combination of the two; (4) it cun be used for mixing dry samples or for the gentle agitation of samples containing liquids.
I
Received lune 1, 1928.
