INDUSTRY
Exotic Fuels Go Semicommercial Operating new high-energy fuels plant, Olin M a th ieson starts building larger plant for Air Force
Helicopter unveils symbolic cornerstone at Olin Mathieson's Model City plant
1M A
THRLEE-PRONGED ATTACK on
high
energy fuels last week, Olin Mathteson took these steps: broke ground for a $36 million plant a t Model City, Ν . Υ., revealed plans for a four-year develop ment and production program at Marion, 111., and started production at its semicommercial plant at Niagara Falls. Formal ceremonies marked the start of production at Niagara Falls (C&EN, July 15, page 7) and the symbolic un veiling of the cornerstone of the second iModel City plant (the first is already under construction). O l i n Mathieson says the output of its new semicommercial plant will give the Air Force adequate quantities of high energy fmel for testing. An outgrowth r£ five yfcars of research and two years experimental production, the new iunt will make t b e boron-based fuels, ^F-2 (High-Energy Fuel-2) and As—?-3. Although Olin Mathieson de clines to discuss t h e chemical nature of these so-called exotic fuels, H E F - 2 is reported t o b e a chemical derivative of pentaborane, while H E F - 3 is a deriva tive of decaborane. B o t h H E F - 2 a n d H E F - 3 are liquids that look like kerosine. Compared to decaborane, which is a solid, the new fuels have more available energy and are less toxic, less sensitive to shock, and easier to handle. Heating values of the new fuels are 25,000 B.t.u. per pound and greater. Aviation gasoline has a value of about 18,500 Β .t.u. per pound. T h e new ma terials increase t h e flying range of air craft approximately in proportion to the increase in heating value. They can also b e used effectively to increase the speed of aircraft. T h e new fuels burn easily, even at high altitudes with very little oxygen. This minimizes t h e danger of jet engine flame-out. H E F - 2 and H E F - 3 are viewed mainly a s fuels for military aircraft. For this use, their cost, says one com pany spokesman, is "in the feasible category." For the immediate future, they will be too expensive for commer cial aircraft, but this situation may change. Although the new plant is now mak ing only H E F - 2 and H E F - 3 , ΟΜ says it could start producing a successor fuel, HEF-4, if needed. In fact, the 4 These high-speed centrifuges sep arate spent materials from solvents at high-energy fuels plant
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C&E Ν
JULY
22,
1957
INDUSTRY company is already well along in its research on successors to HEF-4. Press representatives, equipped with goggles, hard hats, and gas masks, toured t h e new plant for the first time this month. T h e new facility, they found, contains a particularly large amount of equipment for low-tempera ture cooling. Highly instrumented, the plant h a s all of its operations controlled from a central panel board. Provisions for a d e q u a t e operating safety and auto matic control account for more than half of t h e total cost of the plant.
Commercial Unit While launching semicommercial production at Niagara Falls, OM also began constructing a large-scale plant. Initially-, it will produce both H E F - 2 and H E F - 3 (later it will make only H E F - 3 ) . This new $36 million instal lation i s being built for the U. S. Air Force a t nearby Model City, Ν . Υ. Expected t o b e on stream by early 1959, this Air Force plant will have 13 times l a r g e r capacity than the Niagara P'alls plant. To m a r k the startup of construction, OM unveiled a symbolic cornerstone this month at t h e Model City site. At dedication ceremonies, a helicopter lifted t h e covering off a large trans parent plastic block containing a model of the decaborane molecule. Meanwhile, OM is also building an other high-energy fuels plant at Model City. T h i s $4.5 million facility, being constructed for the Navy, will have a capacity three times larger than that of the Niagara Falls plant. In O M ' s development of the new high-energy fuels, about 1000 scientific personnel w e r e involved. Twenty-two colleges and universities participated in the project. T h e result was exception ally rapid development of the new ma terials on a production scale. Says L. Kermit Herndon, head of OM's high-energy fuels operation at Niagara Falls: "Our fuels have been accepted b y the Air Force, which is ready t o u s e all we can make. All that remains is to produce them in much larger quantities, more economically." Meanwhile, Stauffer Chemical is cut ting t h e price of its boron trichloride, a raw material for high-energy fuel manu facture. I n small quantities the price is reduced from $3.50 to $3.25 a pound, while in ton cylinders it is priced at $1.25 a p o u n d .
No Trend to Monopoly C o m p e t i t i o n in the t w o - y e a r - o l d synthetic industry gets A t t o r n e y General's OK A.
FULLY
COMPETITIVE
STATUS
rubber
up the transition from a seller's to a buyer's market. Result—"more vigor ous rivalry for customers than at an> time since the transfer of the industr> to private ownership." However, the expansions did not tend to increase concentration of ca pacity in any one producer or group The shares of the market held by SBB producers in 1955 remained relativel> stable in 1956. The five major pro ducers (Firestone, Goodrich-Gulf. Goodyear, Shell, and Texas-U. S.) cap tured an additional 97c of the indus try's production capacity. But the> lost almost 6% of the domestic sales Brownell attributes the loss in domestic sales to a sharp increase in export sales One of the tests for a free, competi tive industry, says Brownell, is the ease of entry for new competitors. Con struction of a new copolymer plant b> General Rubber Synthetics seems to show that there may not b e effective barriers to new producers. The acid test will come, Brownell says, when General starts production. • Small Business. I n 1956 small rubber fabricators had n o serious prob lems in getting enough synthetic rub ber from the producers. Each of the plant owners made available to small business a larger share of production than called for in the sale contracts. To check on the industry's perform
IS
slowly emerging in the synthetic rub ber industry. This is the conclusion drawn by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., in his second annual sur vey of competition in the synthetic rub ber industry. One of the conditions of sale of the government synthetic rub ber plants to industry was that the Attorney General report to Congress each yearfor 10 years the state of com petition in t h e new industry. Here are some of the bright spots in the competitive picture as Brownell sees them: • Big plant expansion program shows producers' desire to expand markets in stead of restricting supply to boost profits. • Growth pattern of the industry in 1956 showed no trend toward greater concentration of production capacity in a single company or group. • New producers appear to be having no trouble getting into the industry. Despite these favorable signs, Brownell warns, there are some spots that may give trouble. • Favorable Factors. Most signifi cant factor in increasing competition, says Brownell, was the increase in the industry's productive capacity. This increased production speeded
Small Business Still Gets Plenty of SBR Per Cent of Production Shipped to Small Business
H
\
1
Producer
1 § I 1 § 1 § § § § IS
American Synthetic Copolymer Rubber & Chemical Firestone Goodrich-Gulf Chemicals Goodyear Synthetic Phillips Chemical Shell Chemical Texas-U. S. Chemical U. S. Rubber United Rubber & Chemical Industry Average
]
Shipments 1956 15.9 9.1 16.7 19.4 21.6 61.9 32.0 18.5 54.1 57.7 25.2
j
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J ULY
1955
|1
13.8 11.4 30.9 19.8 21.8 68.3 32.1 21.4 58.6 57.0 28.8
1
2 2,
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!
Committed Eg by Contract |
lo.o lo.o
20.0 27.5
lo.o
Ι ι Ι I
I
50.0 22.5 20.0
Ι 1 I
60.0 40.0 22.7
§ I I
I 95 7 C &EN
17
