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CONCENTRATES
INDUSTRY Nitrogenous fertilizers will go to Red China under a contract signed last week by ANIC, the
refining and petrochemical division of Italy's government-owned Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI), and China National Chemical Import and Export Corp. of Peking. ANIC says that it will ship $6.5 million worth of the fertilizer to Red China this year. However, complete details of the terms of the three-year contract are not available. Chemicals makers generally applaud the Pennsylvania-New
York
Central
merger.
The
merger, approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission, was publically supported by many chemical companies during the protracted study made by ICC following the initial proposal to join the two railroad giants. The new company will be known as Pennsylvania-New York Central Transportation Co. Ultimate benefits to shippers can't be determined yet, but one of the more obvious improvements should be the elimination of delays at scores of interchange points (where railroad cars are shifted from one road to another). Pfizer is readying two new drugs for FDA clearance, company president John J. Powers Jr., told stockholders last week. One is characterized as a "unique" broadspectrum antibiotic in the tetracycline family, and the other as "a new nonphenothiazine-type compound for treating serious mental illness." Mr. Powers says the firm plans to file applications with the Food and Drug Administration in the near future for marketing approval. A new corporation—Holotron Corp.—has been formed by D u Pont and Scientific Advances,
Inc. (a subsidiary of Battelle Memorial Institute), to conduct further research and development on basic inventions in holography. Holotron holds exclusive rights to inventions coming out of research on holography at Battelle and the University of Michigan. Battelle had previously acquired the rights to any patents on inventions on off-axis holography made at the University of Michigan's radar and optics laboratory. (The university and the inventors will get royalties.) Holography involves use of a laser beam to record on photographic film patterns that can later be reconstructed as a three-dimensional image. General
Electric
has developed a completely self-contained fuel cell which can operate for
one year unattended. GE says the unit, which will power a Navy buoy, provides 5 watts of continuous electric power for up to a year. The unit is small—less than 3 cubic feet—and completely enclosed. In operation, oxygen from the air reacts with chlorate candles to generate water. The water reacts with aluminum hydride to yield hydrogen. The hydrogen and oxygen from the air react in a fuel cell, which contains a dry polymer electrolyte, to produce electricity and water.
International Minerals & Chemical has formed IMC Chlor-Alkali, Inc., to build and operate the chlorine-caustic soda plant at Orrington, Me., announced last fall (C&EN, Dec. 13, 1965, page 34). IMC will be principal partner in the $9.5 million venture; minority interests haven't been identified. Capacity of the new plant, which will make chlorine, caustic soda, and sodium hypochlorite for the paper and other industries in New England, will be 120,000 tons per year. Construction contracts will be awarded shortly and work will start in late spring. The plant is to be on stream in late 1967. President of the new firm is Bland B. Button, IMC project director. MAY 9, 1966 C & E N
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