THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Cellular plastics seek markets in the home Consumption (millions of pounds per year)
Furniture upholstery Bedding Appliances Resilient flooring Construction Textiles and simulated leathers
1965
1970
1975
161* 128*
185* 150* 65 60 160 110
245* 176* 90 150 300 155
18 5 50 —
•Million cubic feet of all materials. Source: SPI.
180 million pounds a year by 1975. The furniture industry also finds outlets for cellular foams in case goods and chair and sofa coverings. Case goods, a term used to describe tables, chests, desks, and cabinets, represent a market of 6 million pounds this year for foams. By 1975, consumption of foams in case goods should increase to 50 million pounds. This year, about 80 million pounds of vinyl foam will be used in coverings for furniture. By 1957, furniture coverings will use 250 million pounds of vinyl foam. Bedding materials should grow 3% a year through 1975, Mr. Kristoff predicts. Urethanes will have about 40% of this market in 1975, on a volume basis, he adds. This year, about 70 million pounds of flexible polyurethane foam will be used in bedding. By 1975, this use should require 130 million pounds. In flooring, Mr. Kristoff expects that about 10 million pounds of urethane foams will be used this year as rug backing. By 1975, 40 million pounds should be required for this use. The market for cellular vinyls in resilient flooring should rise from 30 million pounds this year to 150 million pounds by 1975, he adds. In appliances, the cellular plastics used for insulation are rigid urethanes, styrènes, vinyls, and olefin foams. Urethanes have the largest share of this market. In appliances, about 35 million pounds of urethane foams will be used this year. By 1975, this should rise to 70 million pounds. Mr. Kristoff says that it will be a generation before cellular plastics reach the 1 billion pound-per-year level in construction. Construction currently represents a market for 35 million pounds of styrene and 60 million pounds of urethane foams a year. By 1975, consumption by these markets should be 100 and 200 million pounds, respectively. Miscellaneous uses in the home can add up to a sizable quantity of cellular 18 C&EN NOV. 18, 1968
plastics. Cups and trays are now a 60 million pound-per-year market and are growing 10% a year. Other uses are in packaging materials, toys, and flower arrangements.
EDUCATION:
Surgery May Kill AC3 Although one can't write an obituary just yet for the Advisory Council on College Chemistry, the prognosis following NSF surgery appears most serious. The scheduled termination of National Science Foundation supportnow AC a 's sole source of funds—doesn't automatically make the council a terminal case. But if it survives, its method of operating will no doubt change. AC 3 learned of NSF's decision not to approve a new grant proposal for support of about $500,000 per year some six weeks ago. C&EN heard about the fund cutoff when the council's fall meeting 10 days ago was canceled. At that time, the council's executive committee met to explore avenues of continuing its programs. Two factors make the fund cutoff particularly acute, AC 3 executive director Gordon M. Barrow tells C&EN.
ACs director Barrow Inadequate funds to maintain programs
One, of course, is the lack of a new grant. The second is the expenditure ceiling imposed by NSF on AC 3 's sponsoring institution, Stanford University. This compounds the council's problems by limiting what it can spend from funds already authorized under its old grant, which expired Oct. 3 1 . In effect, the funds that trickle down to AG { through Stanford University are inadequate to maintain council programs, Dr. Barrow says. Current as well as future council activities have been curtailed. Specifically, the council will: • Cancel this year's consultant service and regional conference programs in midstream. • Postpone publication and distribution of council documents and reports. • Cancel two projects in the new grant proposal. One involved an R&D effort on the freshman chemistry laboratory course. The other concerned a series of teacher resource units which would have tackled the problems of teacher obsolescence and course development. Right now the council is trying to achieve an orderly closeout of its many projects, and it expects to wind up its activities before the next academic year begins. Dr. Barrow hopes that the council can retain its identity past that point. But on the key question of how to accomplish this, AC 3 's executive committee will only say that negotiations and discussions with other members and organizations, including ACS, of the academic chemical community will have to precede any steps to maintain its overall effectiveness and continue its present activities. For its part, NSF says that it will welcome proposals in the undergraduate education area from individual chemists.
MORALITY:
Scientists on the Couch In the near future, the scientist and the technologist will hear so much about the damage done by science to society and the need for control of science, they could well develop guilt feelings for having the moral insensitivity to become scientists or technologists in the first place. The cause: society's "moral indigestion," resulting not from change itself but from the rapidity of change. Thus did Herbert D. Doan, president of Dow Chemical, sketch a possible result and Bishop Richard Emrich, Episcopal Bishop of Michigan, specify the cause of a situation scientists find themselves in today. Together with Dr. William Knisely, director of biology and medicine at Michigan State University, and Dr. James
URANIUM:
Shortage by 1973
Dow's Doan Bishop Emrich Society's monal indigestion W. Colbert, Jr., associate director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, they made up a panel to discuss research man and society. The panel discussion was held in Midland, Mich., during the 25th annual Fall Scientific Meeting sponsored by the Midland Section of the American Chemical Society along with Dow and Dow Corning. Although, as Mr. Doan states, science now stands accused by society because it is potentially harmful, today's atmosphere may seem mild before long. The biological age is upon us, Dr. Colbert says, and what is to happen in the next 30 years will produce a cultural shock no one in the western world is prepared for. All the panelists agree that direct control of science and technology is at worst wrong and at best futile. Mr. Doan was perhaps most specific. We should recognize that we can't control science and technology directly, he says, but, at the same time, we must control their effects. It should be the Government's task to set up rules and guidelines, Mr. Doan says. The policies, he feels, should not be arbitrary but should arise from the value systems of society, since society creates the ethics, mores, morals, and value systems to which institutions respond. Moreover, Mr. Doan points out, scientists and businessmen must help the Government set the rules, but this should be carried out in the historically decentralized way of the U.S. Looking toward coming biological discoveries, Dr. Colbert says that it is important for a new science to develop. It will arise out of and combine biology and systems theory. It is necessary, he says, because chemistry and physics can go only so far in giving explanations of biological entities. Bishop Emrich points out the need for a guiding principle. This, he says, should be human nature—the desire for a more truly human life. Citing a French saying that "He was born a -man and died a grocer," Bishop Emrich makes the point that it is also possible to be born a man and die a business executive, a bishop, or a scientist.
By 1980, non-Communist world demand for uranium will be close to 100,000 short tons a year of U 3 O g . Thereafter, demand will continue to expand. This is the view of nuclear experts from 18 countries who attended last week's International Conference on the Constructive Uses of Atomic Energy in Washington, D.C. The cosmopolitan meeting was sponsored by the Atomic Industrial Forum and the American Nuclear Society. For the U.S., AEC projects will demand about 40,000 short tons a year of U 3 0 8 by 1980. Cumulative U.S. demand through 1980 would total between 240,000 and 290,000 short tons of U 3 0 8 ; the remainder of the world would require a cumulative demand of between 160,000 and 220,000 short tons. Nuclear industry experts expect that total world commitments in 1971 or 1972 will absorb the entire capacity of mines now in operation (25,000 to 30,000 short tons), and of reactivated mines currently inactive. With a lead time of only two or three years, the experts warn that mine redevelopment work should start very soon. Any expansion of demand beyond 35,000 short tons a year after 1973 could only be satisfied from new ore reserves not yet discovered. As contracts being made today generally involve commencement of deliveries not earlier than three to four years hence, the experts feel that the years 1972 and 1973 will represent a turning point in development of the uranium market. One U.S. expert says that "the encouraging market outlook has led a growing number of companies [and many oil companies] to engage in uranium exploration activity [total surface drilling planned for the years 1968-71 amounts to nearly 100 million sq. ft.] and the stepped-up exploration in the U.S. is discovering uranium." Experts agree that the price for natural uranium will not advance much further than the current U.S. $8.00per-pound level until the next decade. But the need for increasing production capacity—growing faster for uranium than for other metals—is likely to increase the uranium price by the middle of the next decade when newly discovered deposits are expected to become important sources of supply of the metal. The European experts estimate that a factor which might influence the trend of prices will be the division of the world market into the U.S. market and the non-U.S. market. Said one French expert, "For 1 Mw. in 1980,
the U.S. has 1.07 short tons of reserves, and the remaining western world, 3.72 short tons." H e added that this division is due to Atomic Energy Commission policy which has imposed restrictions on imports from abroad of uranium intended, after enrichment, for U.S. users. The European experts feel that this division may "cause price fluctuations and market disorganization."
SALT:
East Coast Solar Source The happiest man on Long Island in the Bahamas last week doubtless was Harley L. Bradley. Mr. Bradley is plant manager for Diamond Crystal Salt's solar evaporation plant there, and his first shipment was due in Port Newark, N.J., following an investment of some $5 million and seven years of effort in site selection, preparation, and plant construction. Output will be sold mainly to the chemical industry for caustic-chlorine manufacture and to cities and states for snow removal. Diamond Crystal expects to reach peak capacity of 350,000 to 500,000 tons a year by 1972. Solar evaporation is historically an ancient method, but except for production at Great Salt Lake, San Francisco, and San Diego is not used much in the U.S. As solar evaporation production goes, Diamond Crystal's process is fairly standard: Ocean water moves through a succession of ponds where sun and wind concentrate it. The concentrate eventually ends up in a series of 13 ponds where final crystallizing takes place, laying down a 6inch layer of salt. Ponds are 'liarvested" once a year, the scooped-up salt washed and drained, and then stockpiled for shipment. The "plant" covers about 24,000 acres, and it takes roughly two years from initial intake to final deposition. Now that the plant has a stockpile from the first harvest (this past September), shipment will be continuous. According to Diamond Crystal president Charles F. Moore, the company expects its solar plant to help meet the demand for chlorine, especially along the East Coast, where Diamond Crystal sees ocean bulk shipping as permitting it to compete effectively and efficiently. The company is the country's third largest salt producer (International Salt and Morton International are the leaders). Its capacity is about 1800 tons a day by evaporation of brines in Ohio and Michigan and about 6000 tons a day by rock salt mining in Louisiana. The new solar evaporation plant will add somewhat more than NOV. 18, 1968 C&EN
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