CHEMICAL PRICES:
Another Round of Hikes The chemical industry continues to increase prices of chemicals. It would be hard to uncover a group of chemicals that didn't experience some upward movement in prices in the past three weeks (C&EN, March 9, page 13). Contracts in the industry are written to provide for price changes 15 days before the beginning of a new quarter. The ides of March, 1970, will be remembered as a time when the chemical industry moved to bring many large-volume and key chemicals into higher price ranges. Many of the price increases announced by leaders are sticking and some are not. It may take some weeks before the full impact of the current wave of price hikes is known. The chemical industry is its own best customer. Most high-volume chemicals are sold within the industry. In a sense, the current increases mean higher costs for raw materials to users down the line. Eventually, however, price increases at the wholesale level are passed on to the man on the street—a fact which isn't lost on an administration concerned with curbing inflation. In addition to increases already made, Union Carbide says that prices of major chemicals such as methanol, acetone, epichlorohydrin, and hard and soft detergents will be raised. In addition, the firm says new price differentials on drum quantities of most liquid chemicals sold by the pound will be established. Dow also raised prices on a number of chemicals in its second round of increases. These include brake fluids, epoxy resins, flocculants, and methylcellulose. Dow also raised the price of dry and liquid caustic soda. An exception to the increases was made by Ethyl Corp., which reduced the price of seven of its aluminum alkyl compounds.
METHANOL:
Giant for Celanese Celanese Chemical plans to build a giant methanol unit at its Clear Lake, Tex., plant. This 200 million gallona-year unit will make Celanese selfsufficient as well as a seller of methanol, and it could help ease the tight supply situation for methanol. The price increase of 2 cents a gallon for methanol, first posted by Union Carbide, may be maintained by the current tight supply of methanol. The new posted prices are 28 cents a gallon in the East and 30 cents a gallon in the West. Large volumes of meth12 C&EN MARCH 16. 1970
THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Methanol output expands at about 8 % a year Production (billions of pounds)
The uses of methanol have been growing at about 10% a year on average. However, capacity has not been gaining at the same rate during recent years. If announcements of new capacity during the past two years had all been followed by ontime plant construction and troublefree plant operation, the tight supply situation could instead have become an oversupply situation. As a result of startup delays of various kinds, operable methanol capacity during 1970 probably will be less than 5.5 billion pounds. If demand doesn't exceed 4.5 billion pounds, producers won't have to strain too badly. But shutdown of small, old units, in spite of improved catalysts, and further startup delays could keep the pressure on producers.
PROCESSES: 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970" •C&EN estimate Source: U.S. Tariff Commission
anol sold under contract go for less. About half of the methanol now produced is used to make formaldehyde. Celanese requires large volumes of methanol to make formaldehyde beyond its own methanol production of about 100 million gallons a year, or 670 million pounds. Celanese's total formaldehyde capacity is more than 1.25 billion pounds annually, part of which is made by direct oxidation of hydrocarbons and not from the methanol made concurrently or purchased. Celanese expects to get output from part of its new unit during the fourth quarter of 1971. The unit will use Imperial Chemical Industries' lowpressure methanol process, a process that operates more economically at large volumes. Probably half or more of the total announced capacity will come on stream in late 1971. The strain on domestic methanol capacity has been with the industry with only intermittent easing since 1966. Besides direct manufacture, methanol for various uses is obtained from imports and from polyester production. These latter two sources probably account for less than 8% of direct production. Uses of methanol other than formaldehyde are many. Solvents and the polyester dimethyl terephthalate each account for 10% of production. Other smaller uses include various derivatives such as methylamines, methyl chloride, and methyl methacrylate.
Know-How in Reverse The growing success foreign companies are having in selling their technology in the U.S. was brought home in Celanese Chemical's plan (see above story) to use Imperial Chemical Industries' (ICI) low-pressure process in a giant methanol plant at Clear Lake, Tex. It was further emphasized in Reichhold Chemical's plan to use German technology for the 60 million pound-per-year maleic anhydride plant it will build at Morris, 111. Reichhold's $16 million facility will use a process developed by Ruhroel-Veba Chemie. Earlier this year National Petrochemicals said it would use technology licensed from Belgium's Solvay et Cie for a new reactor line to be added to its high-density polyethylene plant at Deer Park, Tex. And Northern Petrochemicals has licensed technology from West Germany's BASF for the 500 million pound-per-year lowdensity polyethylene plant it is building at Joliet, 111. Also, General Electric has just started to produce some new polyimide molding resins using technology it licensed last year from France's Rhône Poulenc. The Celanese methanol plant will be on stream late in 1971. Monsanto and Georgia-Pacific are already building 100 million gallon-per-year (1000 tons per day) methanol plants at Texas City, Tex., and Revecca, La., respectively. These three are the major methanol plants contracted for in the past year, and all three will use ICI technology. In addition to its giant methanol plant, Monsanto has two other projects under way using imported technology. A phthalic anhydride plant
with a capacity of more than 100 million pounds and due to be on stream in late 1970 is being constructed at Monsanto's Texas City facility using technology licensed from BASF. Also at Texas City, Monsanto is building a 150 million pound-per-year oxo alcohols plant. The oxo plant, to begin operating in the second quarter of 1971, will use technology licensed from Ugine Kuhlmann in France. Enjay Chemical is expanding plasticizer capacity and recently unwrapped plans for a 130 million pound-per-year phthalic anhydride plant and expanded oxo alcohols facilities scheduled for 1972 startup. Enjay's oxo alcohols technology is licensed from Sekisui Chemical of Japan and the phthalic anhydride process uses BASF technology. As to whether this recent reverse flow of technology indicates a narrowing of the technology gap that is supposed to exist between U.S. and foreign industry is debatable. But it does point up the fact that the market in ideas and expertise is larger than ever and that chemical companies are becoming increasingly more willing to license or swap know-how.
Synthetic Insect Eggs Spur Pest Control Research Synthetic insect "eggs," encapsulating a liquid diet in delicate wax shells and replacing expensive natural eggs, have been developed by scientists at Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Tex. The "aphid lion" green lacewing larva feeds by punching a hole in the tiny capsule and sucking out the man-made dietary fluid. Dr. Richard Ridgway, U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist, and C. E. Schuetze, SwRI chemist, plan to scale up to pilot plant "egg production," and then to release armies of the predator aphid lions in cotton fields to attack two serious pests, the bollworm and budworm.
HORMONES:
One from Hypothalamus Possible treatment of thyroid disease and similar clinical conditions has taken a giant step forward. Two teams of scientists have synthesized a hormone of the hypothalamus that has activity in man. The new synthetic, thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) releases thyrotropin ( T S H ) , a hormone responsible for correct functioning of the thyroid gland. Medical use of the natural hormone has been prac-
Karl Folkers Chance to solve unknowns
tically impossible because of its limited availability and high cost. The new synthetic TRH and demonstration of its physiological activity in man is a culmination of more than 10 years of research in several laboratories. The combined groups of Dr. Andrew Schally, Veterans Administration Hospital, New Orleans, and Dr. Cyril Bowers, Tulane University school of medicine, New Orleans, and a group led by Dr. Roger Guillemin, Baylor University school of medicine, Houston, isolated the natural hormone from hypothalamus glands of pigs and sheep. Over many years, however, the New Orleans group isolated only a few milligrams of material from glands of more than 250,000 pigs. The New Orleans group gave this material to Dr. Karl Folkers, University of Texas Institute for Biomedical Research, Austin. It was Dr. Folkers' group, which included Dr. Jan B0ler, Dr. Franz Enzmann, and Dr. JawKan g Chang, in collaboration with the Louisiana scientists, who first established the structure of TRH and in doing so achieved its organic synthesis. The Houston group achieved companion success with sheep hormone and showed that it has the same chemical nature as procine TRH. Synthetic TRH, explains Dr. Folkers, is a tripeptide of glutamic acid, histidine, and proline. Its structure is pyro(glu-his-pro) ( N H 2 ) and
from test results to date it is identical to natural TRH, he says. In a small pilot study involving 12 patients, Dr. Bowers found that intravenous injection with synthetic TRH gave increased blood levels of TSH within two to 10 minutes after injection. Levels of growth hormone, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone didn't change. That implies specificity of action of TRH, according to Dr. Bowers. TRH is thought to be the first of a group of at least seven neurohormones that indirectly control such vital processes as growth and reproduction. Dr. Folkers says that the solving of the chemistry of TRH may greatly accelerate solving the remaining unknown neurohormones.
NUCLEAR ENERGY:
U.S.S.R.'s Peaceful Uses The U.S.S.R. is conducting an extensive program to develop peaceful uses of nuclear explosives at a time when the U.S. Plowshare effort is being drastically cut back. Keeping faith with the author's prerogative to tell it first, Atomic Energy Commission officials disclosed in a carefully measured fashion some details of the Soviet effort before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy 11 days ago. The pace at which AEC officials talked in public was set by MARCH 16, 1970 C&EN
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