News of the Week Cresylic acid plant completed by M e r i c h e m C o . · · · N e w laboratory o p e n e d b y USDA i n P a s a d e n a · · . E n g i n e e r i n g c o m p a n y f o r m e d b y W· C. H e d r i c k · . · C h e m i c a l s f o r t e x t i l e s t o b e m a d e b y Z i m m e r m a n !^«OMPLETIO2\T of its new $500,000 plant
^* for the manufacture of cresylic acid, which went on stream during the latter part of April, is announced by the Meri chem Co. of Houston. Tex. Using A section
of the Merichem
petroleum arbmatics as raw material, the company is producing high-purity (99%tar acids) cuts in three boiling ranges, 183° to 205°, 205° to 230°, and 230° to 245° C. The purification is a complex
Co.9s new cresylic acid plant a t Houston,
Tex.
operation involving nine distinct steps and very close control by instrumentation to assure uniformity of product. In view, of the high purity obtained, the company expects its products to compete favorably with coal-tar cresylic. They are available in drum and tank car lots. The new plant is situated on sin 18-acre tract on the north side of the Houston Ship Channel, near the aluminum chloride plant of Nyotex Chemicals, Inc. Officers are F. E . Lewis, president, J. T. Files, vice president and secretary, and R. D. Loesby, vice president and treasurer, al) formerly connected with Dow a t Freeport. Earlier operations of the company were in jobbing chemicals and soap manufactur ing, but these lines were discontinued when the old plant burned in early 1948 shortly after construction of the new plant had begun.
USDA Opens New Southwestern Laboratory
Diethanolamine Warehouse
stocks o f Diethanolamine a r e
available in principal industrial areas. Larger quantities a r e shipped
directly from our
plants. Boston Phone or write our nearest office for complete information.
Albany NswYork Nowork
Philadelphia Baltimore Charlotte
CARBIDE AND CARBON CHEMICALS CORPORATION UNIT OF UNION CARBIDE A N D CARBON CORPORATION 30 EAST 42nd STREET
ITTil
NEW Y O R K 1 7 , Ν . Υ .
Products Distributed in Canada by: Carbidt a n d Carbon Chemical», 1·ι»·ϋ««!, Tarante
1284
A new research laboratory, devoted to expanding the uses for fruits and vege tables grown in the Pacific Southwest, has been established at Pasadena, Calif., by the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry. This new federal Laboratory replaces the bureau's research station in Los Angeles, established in 1912. Funds for the Pasadena building were provided under the Research and Marketing Act of 1946, and construction began about a year ago. Head of the laboratory is E. A . Beavens, formerly in, charge of research for the bureau at Los Angeles. His group will work closely with citrus producers' associations in California and Arizona and with other groups interested in crop utili zation, including scientists of the Cali fornia Institute of Technology. Cost of the installation including fixed equipment is approximately $320,000. It houses five chemical laboratories, a pilot plant for studies of fruit-processing methods on a semicommercial scale, constant temperature rooms, and other necessary facilities.
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Cleveland Cincinnati Detroit Indianapolis Chicago St. Louis Houston San. Francisco SoatHo
Los Angeles
C H E M I C A L
New Houston Construction
Plant Firm
W. C. Hedrick, architect and engineer, has formed the Wyatt C. Hedrick Engi neering Corp., with headquarters at 5214 San Jacinto St. in Houston, Tex. The firm will design petrochemical, absorption, natural gasoline, and electric power plants and refineries. Mr. Hedrick will serve as vice president and treasurer and has secured as president G. M. McGranahan, formerly vice president and general A N D
E N G I N E E R I N G
NEWS
manager of the MeCarthy Chemical Co. W. H. Bowen, vice president, has had several years of experience in purchasing, •expediting, and construction for both the Dow Chemical Co. and McCarthy. R. H. Gaddy is secretary.
New Firm to Make Chemicals for Textiles Bernhard G. Zimmerman has organized Zimmerman Associates, chemists and •engineers, at Guilford College, near Greensboro, N. C. * Research laboratories and a plant for manufacturing fine organic chemicals for the textile trade have been temporarily located at Guilford College. Production has already been started on a number of specialties for textiles and cosmetics. Laboratory work will be started in the near future on the production of intermediates and dyestuffs. Plans are now being made for the construction of a vat dyestuff plant in the South. It will be the policy of the company t o employ only graduate chemists and engineers in both research and production. Dr. Zimmerman was until recently employed as consultant and southern sales representative for the Hart Products Corp.
Newark
CLOTH
FILTER
METALLIC
Bureau of Mines Features Titanium at Open House Demonstrations of the varied research on ductile titanium and titanium-base alloys highlighted the open house exhibition held by the Bureau of Mines Eastern Experiment Station, College Park, Md., on April 21. The exhibit was held in connection with the Department of Interior's Century of Conservation observation and included demonstrations of boiler water research and testing, refining of secondary metals, microscopic and fluorescent examination of ores, bloating of clays for lightweight aggregates, detection of rays emanating from fissionable minerals, and electrostatic, magnetic, and flotation concentration of ores, plus simulated mining hazards and application of physics to mining.
Texas Plants
F o r many years, processing engineers who demand the best in Metallic RIter Cloth have specified NEWARK. This cloth offers a combination of accuracy and durability — a superior cloth with a long service life. Newark Metallic Filter Cloth is available in a wide variety of metals and in plain, twill, dutch, double dutch, twilled dutch and other weaves. O u r wide experience in the processing field is your assurance of the right cloth for your filtration problem.
Delayed
Samples are available.
A number of projected plants in the Houston, Tex., area have been delayed indefinitely or shelved. N"o construction has taken place on the paint plant announced by Hart and Burns over a year ago (C&EN, Jan. 26, 1948). Plans of the Houston Oxygen Co. to build a commercial unit employing the Schoch lowtemperature electric discharge process for acetylene manufacture are being held in abeyance for an indefinite period. Plans of Reichold Chemicals, Inc., to build an alkyd resin plant in Houston (CAEN, Dec. 13, 1948) after acquisition VOLUME
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N E W A R K /^ACCURACY
M ework u f ire Cloth COMPANY 354 VERONA AVENUE .
MAY
2, 1 9 4 9
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NEWARK 4. NEW JERSEY 1285
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of land have been shelved; purchase had been made.
W. J. Clinicians
Ο F no land
Bill
The New Jersey Legislature has ad journed without taking action on S.94. This is the bill affecting clinical chemists dealt with in C&EN for April 11, 1949, page 1045, and April 18, 1949, page 1148.
Lead Industries Group Reviews Price Effects . A swift correction of the serious world wide lead shortage has been brought about by a free market operating in the Ameri can system of free enterprise, F. E. Wormser, of the St. Joseph Lead Go., president of the Lead Industries Association, told the twenty-first annual meeting of that group. J. B. Haffner, Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Co., observed that "it is doubtful if any year exceeded 1948 in the amount of capital invested in new mining or milling plants, in rehabilita tion of old plants, and in intensified and widened exploration in the northwest area, all of which were directly due to the high price for lead." The statement that if the lead industry can look forward to a period of profitable metal prices, there is little doubt that the mines can continue to sus tain for some years their present rate of production, was added by Francis Cam eron, St. Joseph Lead. Foreign lead pro duction for the next two or three years should approximate 850,000 tons, the same amount as was estimated as world production for 1948, according to R. F. Goodwin, American Smelting & Refining Co. The meeting took place at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.
Texas Vegetable Oil Deodorizer Operating The Texas Vegetable Oil Co. at San An tonio has placed in operation the new eemicontinuous deodorizer developed by the Girdler Corp. for the processing of edible fats and oils. This is the first time such a unit has been used on vegetable oils. Principle of operation is high tem perature-low pressure (450° F., 6 mm. Hg) steam distillation, and novel operating features are a system of splash baf&ing to improve efficiency of steam stripping and a double-shell construction which eliminates refluxing and makes air leakage into the hot oil impossible.
Chemical
Price
Τ Η Ε
W Ε Ε Κ
reau of Labor Statistics. The wholesale price index for chemical and allied prod ucts decreased to 125.7% of the 1926 av erage in January 1949. This was 9.4% lower than the postwar peak reached in January 1948. In comparison, the whole sale price index of all commodities declined to 160.6% of the 1926 average in January, a lowering of 3.1 % over January 1948.
Army Contracts
Awarded
Among recent army contracts exceeding $100,000 awarded to private concerns was one entered into between the Army Chemical Center, Edgewood, Md., and the Glascote Products, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, for 24 reactors of 1,000-gal. capacity for $158,856. Four other contracts for antifreeze cornpounds were let: with the National Carbon Co., New York, Ν. Υ., for 719,150 gal. at $1,200,980; E. I. du Pont de Nemours
