INSTRUMENTATION by Ralph H. Müllier
Electronics Industry Shifts to Commercial Goals
Fthere have been indirect benefits to OR
ALMOST
TWENTY-FIVE
YEARS
One cannot afford to ignore the many advantages characteristic of commercial enterprise as compared with defense work. Here the key is competition. To survive, every company must strive to produce the finest product at the lowest possible price. In times of national emergency, quality and performance of equipment are of paramount importance but cost is of secondary importance because the stakes are so high. Electronics magazine has repeatedly chided its readers and confreres and urged them to stop bemoaning their hard luck, weeping, and "passing the towel." They point out that diversification offers unlimited horizons. However, it is conceded that the turnover to essentially civilian enterprise involves a period of anywhere from two to five years before production and sales can reach an acceptable level.
all sciences from the intensive research and development in the military arts. The electronics industry has experienced a severe jolt by the recent cutbacks in military spending. This is reflected in reduced profits, poorer employment prospects, and an embarrassing descent for the industry from a fantastic state of prosperity. The industry has been chided by some of its own leaders for a. lack of vision and the failure to seek diversification while it was still luxuriating in governmental orders. Some of its more alert and farsighted members are already attacking the domestic appliance field wherein there are many known, and far more unsupected, uses for solid-state devices and circuitry. The potentialities are far greater than anything the Pentagon could hope to offer. In our opinion, this shift in emphasis and the seeking of new markets will be COSTLY ANALYTICAL INSTRUMENTS of far greater benefit to analytical We continue to hear complaints about chemistry than the benefits deriving the high cost of modern analytical infrom war-time research. Several reastruments. The high costs, of course, sons lead us to this conclusion. The continue to plague only the smaller first and perhaps most important will academic institutions and minor combe the magnitude of the newer develpanies. Considering the situation as a opments. A second reason is that whole, however, it is increasingly approgress will be more rapid because parent that we cannot afford to do secrecy and security regulations will not without these things, regardless of the be involved. A third reason would cost. A case in point is the matter of seem to be the relatively greater ease quantitative organic microanalysis. I t with which an industrial development can be adapted to the needs of the would bo pointless and redundant to go into this in detail because the entire analyst. Lastly, is the matter of persubject was so thoroughly treated in sonnel. We and many others, in rethis Journal a few months ago. One turning from war-time research were simple economic fact of life emerges, fortunate enough to inherit a generahowever. Skilled microanalysts are tion of graduate students many of few and far between and beyond this whom had been trained in radar, sonar, the expert, if he uses the classical and other electronic techniques. Their manual techniques, can hardly earn his progress in conducting research in ansalt, either privately, or for his emalytical chemistry was swift because ployer. The use of one of the more or they had a variety of techniques at less completely automated analyzers their command. This favorable situacan increase the daily output of analtion has long ceased to exist and a beyses by a factor of ten or more. ginner in analytical instrumentation research is once more faced with the necessity of acquiring competence in ATOMIC ABSORPTION two or more exacting disciplines. In another field we hear wildly en-
thusiastic reports about the speed, sensitivity, and precision of the PerkinElmer atomic absorption equipment. These do not emanate from the manufacturer but from a good friend of ours here in the Southwest. He has spent considerable time in trying to get wrong answers out of the instrument and with little success. In support of his enthusiasm he showed us the results of some 400 check analyses all obtained in some two or three days. We are urging our informant to publish these findings. No doubt our journals will soon be filled with similar examples of the distinctive advantages of this technique. We believe there will be an increasing interest in the problem of overcoming one aspect of atomic absorption spectroscopy. At present it is necessary to use a specific discharge-tube source for each element to be analyzed. As a consequence it is not economical or even feasible to use the equipment for a fast qualitative examination of a sample. Perhaps someone will give us a fast scanning system, possibly of greatly reduced sensitivity, but sufficiently informative to indicate which sources should be selected for the precise quantitative determinations. INORGANIC PAPER CHROMATOGRAPHY
We continue to be depressed by the inordinate disparity between what is known and has been applied in organic paper chromatography compared with inorganic systems. Have our biochemists just been more diligent and active in the field? I t may be more exciting to study nuclear magnetic resonance or x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, but the chromatographic techniques are simple, cheap, and extraordinarily sensitive. There is a lot of fancy information about the distribution of organicmetal complexes between various liquid phases. Someone with sufficient patience might try to put this information together and give us developing agents a little better than the existing Betty Crocker recipes. VOL. 36, NO. 9, AUGUST 1964
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