INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING
CHEMISTRY Harrison E. Howe, Editor
EDITORIALS HEMISTRY PREFERRED. It was inevitable that. so comprehensive a science as chemistry should produce a number of specialties in the course of its development. Today there are more definite and distinct lines along which chemistry progresses than could have been foreseen, even at the beginning of our century, and just as chemists have availed themselves of whatever sister sciences have offered that would be helpful, so likewise have those other sciences adapted chemistry to their needs. Indeed, borderlines have become so obliterated that in many instances accepted names for the hyphenates could be reversed with justification. Through all this healthy growth chemistry in America has been most fortunate in that its adherents are in agreement as to what constitutes the root system, which feeds this continually branching tree of knowledge. It is chemistry. With this clearly in mind a carefully planned and persistent campaign has brought phenomenal support for research in industry, in academic institutions, in laboratories supported by endowed funds, and in departments of government. Patient work with chemists, as well as with the daily press, has made chemistry news, so that all who can read or hear know there is a science, pure and applied, which strives to be useful to them and deserves support. Our efforts at the close of the war to have products of American chemical industry advertised as such have only lately borne fruit, but now all America hears of better living made possible with the aid of chemistry. In twenty-five years we have left behind the industry which regarded the presence of a laboratory as a sign of weakness and now look for leadership in those industries which know the laboratory to be indicative of strength. Even the banker has come to accept the view of our late Dr. Teeple, who said that, as an investor, he would rather know the attitude of a corporatibn toward research than to know its balance sheet.
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What a pity, then, if enthusiasts for their own specialty persist in the point of view held in a few isolated cases. We refer not only to those who have come to think of chemistry only in the modification called “chemical engineering,” but more especially to those who contend that a chemical engineer is in no sense a chemist. Among other things, this trend has led to references to claims that some products are those of chemical engineering with the inference that no others should be included in that picture. It is generally accepted that an industrial triumph involving chemistry progresses by four principal stages: first, research; second, pilot plant development ; third, full scale production; fourth, commercial operation at a profit. In carrying through a new process or product, there are so many called into the huddle that to single out one who can claim sole credit is like deciding just who won the war. We must not forget Uncle John’s “educated patient money,” and more than likely the suggestion of a foreman or workman of extended experience was of prime importance at some critical stage. And when the plant had finished with it, the sales and advertising departments out on the firing line had to obtain consumer acceptance, leaving the finishing touches and collections to be made by the credit and accounting departments. There are few better examples of healthy cobperation. There is glory enough for all and all are directly or indirectly a part of chemical industry. The extremist in chemical engineering should realize the certain damage that will be caused if his present course is pursued. The manufacturer today who empIoys a chemical engineer wants and expects a man who, first of all, knows chemistry, If he needs any other brand of engineer he will hire him. He has been told that the engineer concerns himself with materials, energy, and men. The variation is to be found in the materials and the work done upon them. Chemistry has to do with changes in composition, resulting in products possessing a new set of chemical and physical
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properties. To argue that a chemical engineer is one who, without an adequate grounding in chemistry, takes the results of a complicated research and proceeds to make the products on a full commercial scale at a profit is like saying that a chef is one who knows how to manage a stove and adorn a platter of food, but has no interest in, nor experience with, recipes. The more that is done to promulgate the notion that chemical engineers are not chemists, the more difficult it will be for young men with that label to find satisfactory employment. We have had requests for a man which stated “organic chemist with a degree in chemical engineering,” or a similar specification. Just as we believe that a chemist should have a broad training to support him in the pursuit of his profession, so we are certain that the successful chemical engineer. no matter to what extent his work may differentiate him from others, must, at least to some degree, be a chemist. Consider those of your acquaintance, Do not their training and experience support our contention? Chemistry, comparatively speaking, is a modern profession. It is young. Active steps are being taken to improve its status. I t has far to go in its work for the world, and notwithstanding temporary discouragement its future is bright. It is so important to keep all phases in their proper relationship for the mutual good of the triumvirate-the chemist, chemistry, and the industry. Truly chemistry is preferred. LUMINUM. Out of the dawn of history emerged the Stone Age, to be followed by the Bronze Age. Steel developed slowly through the centuries until the modern blast furnace and open hearth have made it a hundred times as common today as any other metal, and our present civilization is well-nigh built on the ferrous metal industries. Advances in science and metal technology produced the dynamo, and that, in turn, made possible the economical production of aluminum and magnesiummetals completely unknown when the Thirteen Colonies revolted, and mere laboratory curiosities or jewelry store materials until the late eighties. In fact, this very month of February includes the fiftieth anniversary of the day when young Charles Martin Hall, just out of college, rushed in from the paternal woodshed to show his sisters the first buttons of aluminum which he had made by electrolysis of the oxide dissolved in molten cryolite-the process by which aluminum has been made ever since. To bring to commercial fruition this laboratory success, and to make aluminum the fifth metal in the world in point of tonnage, in the brief span of the working life of men still active in the industry, is an achievement which has taxed both technical resources and faith. We can afford to look back and smile at the boyish enthusiasm with which aluminum was tried for every possible and impossible use, seeing in the
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successes the germs of progress and the possibilities of profits to finance further development, and in the failures often only a lack of technical development which later years have been able to supply. While many of the problems have been chemical and metallurgical, their successful solution has always had an economic angle, and we are therefore glad to present in this issue an article by the Director of Research of the Aluminum Company of America, analyzing the commercial and economic aspects of the aluminum industry. May the competition between metals always be based on sound technical and economic facts, and may the best one win!
ARNEGJE
AND CHEMISTRY. The centenary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie, which occurred November 25,1935, brought out the fact, in at least some headlines, that he was the first man to apply chemistry to steel. In 1872 he experienced some difficulty with certain ores and the trouble proved too much for his practical steel men. He then decided that, with the services of a chemist, he might obtain more satisfactory results, and this was the case. The chemist, remaining in his employ, shortly thereafter reported that Carnegie Steel was literally throwing money away in the shape of scale-a sort of skin which forms on hot ingots and later falls off. It was considered a great nuisance in iron and steel mills, for it piled up and had to be carried away. The chemist found this scale to be richer than the ores commonly used and Mr. Carnegie began, not only to use scale found in his own plant, but to buy it from competitors, many of whom were glad to exchange it for the cartage. They wondered, too, to what use the scale was being put, and emuch later learned the answer! Considering the changes which have taken place in the steel industry since 1872, Mr. Carnegie must be credited with being the first to have the foresight to bring into it a factor-the chemist-which has done more to change the character of the product and the methods by which steel is manufactured than any other. The evolution has been a slow one. A. D. Little was often fond of telling about a steel mill superintendent who, repeatedly urged by the management, finally accepted a chemist on his staff, but specified, “Send down one who can play the violin. We can stand his nonsense by day if he will only entertain us by night.” Following control, research was begun in a timid way, but now the amount spent by the steel industry on research each year is estimated by the Wall Streel Journal as about three million dollars, with the result that costs have been lowered, the output has become more diversified and of better grade, and alloys have been produced which have kept the industry in the forefront. One wonders how many other manufacturers may still be throwing money away because it has not occurred to them to give the well-trained chemist an opportunity.
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MA~281 FEBRUARY, 1936
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
OCIETY MEETINGS. In 1935 the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY spanned the continent with a record meeting in New York in the spring and a highly successful gathering in San Francisco in August. These meetings are helpful in so many ways that it is not difficult to uinderstand their popularity. Each serves its own piart of the country but reaches far beyond that area through the return of attendants to their homes, the publication of scientific contributions, and the attention accorded the sessions through the daily press. H:ere, from metropolitan dailies to the country weekly and in magazines of international prominence, we find const,rucitive comments. The thought-provoking value of such publicity is well illustrated by the editorial “Chemistry and Life” which appeared in the New York Times:
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Electrons, positrons, alpha particles, protons, neutrons-what a complex the atom has become. The physicist is baffled in his attempt to explain what matter is and invents new systems of mathematical logic to enlighten himself. But the chemist? For the time being he serenely pursues his old-fashioned way. For the practical purposes of the laboratory and the factory the atom is still the hard, round, infinitesimal billiard ball that it was wlhen U. S. Grant was President-the ultimate particle. At the San Francisco meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETYit was evident that this obsolete atom is still a good working tool, thereby proving again that a theory need not be true so long as it works.
And then the editorial goes on to discuss the many ways in which the “old billiard ball of an atom has been working,” and says, “It was plain at San Francisco that the chemist is probing deep into the mystery of life,” concluding that: In their quest of reality the physicists find themselves contemplating a set of equations. Somehow reality has slipped away. And so it promises to be with this searching for the secret of life. So many atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen in geometric chains and patterns-is this life? The chemist knows better. I n the end he must concern himself with the electrons, protons, and other fundamental particles which he now ignores. When he does he will find himself treading the same path with the physicist. For both will find that the problem of life and of matter is the problem of the cosmos.
Secretary Manning of the California Section gives the reaction of a trained journalist in the following words : Every AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY convention demonstrates that the practice of chemistry is not entirely devoid of social interests and that the chemist is becoming more and more interested in his fellows and other men. The American chemist is extremely fortunate in the opportunity which is afforded him to associate with this organization. At these national meetings membership seems no longer a matter of convenience-an economical way of receiving chemical literature. One becomes imbued with a spirit which is differenthe realizes the worthwhileness of an organization for which many have worked so hard and to which a few have consecrated all of th1:ir working life. ‘Toall chemical engineers and chemists, we offer this advice-
join the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY and support its activities. Attend its conventions. Every professional man owes a certain definite proportion of his time to this type of professional activity. And the paradox is that the returns from participation in such activities are continuously greater and more than justify the cost. Participation in the human side of chemistry mellows a man and makes him philosophize on other things. W. A. Noyes in his Priestley Medal address at San Francisco pointed out the material accomplishments of scientists. But he further pointed out our responsibilities to the future: There can be no doubt that the nations of America and of western Europe are abundantly able to furnish work and a reasonable standard of life for a11 their people. It is absurd that during the last fifteen years millions of men and women have been unemployed and dependent on “relief.” We as chemists should contribute our part to the solution of this problem. Chemistry is not an isolated science with sharp lines separating it from physics and biology or even from economics, sociology, or political science. We should see clearly that we live in surroundings that are in realit a universe in which each part has relations with every otxer and that we ignore these relationships at our peril. This knowledge should have a profound influence both on general education and on the way in which we train men to be chemists.
And so we plan for 1936-Kansas City in the spring, Pittsburgh in the autumn. Again two centers of chemical activity which will provide information and inspiration to thousands of those who find in chemistry and the opportunity for service it affords the most interesting things in a workaday world. ECISIONS. The most important decision which the director of research is called upon to make is what research shall be pursued and when shall it be stopped if it does not give expected promise. Recently, when a group of industrial leaders visited selected industries that are founded on research, they were told in Rochester by C. E. K. Mees that such a decision is too often made by the body least competent. Jn his opinion the best person is the man who is actually doing the research, the next best is the head of the department who knows all about the work; after that you leave the field of those well qualified and go to increasingly worse groups-the research director who is wrong about half the time, a committee, wrong most of the time, or the vice presidents who are wrong all the time. It is obvious that, as the problem goes from group to group, it falls more and more into the. hands of those who have their own interests and who are quite likely to recommend curtailing expenditures on all other projects save their own. The decision of the man conducting the work is based on intimate knowledge of what the actual prospects are, and presupposes his possession of the fundamental requisite in scientific work-namely, intellectual honesty. Research laboratories and institutions are constantly faced with the necessity of making momentous decisions. It is highly important that this be the responsibility of those fully qualified to judge under all the circumstances.
