INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMIXTRY
754
Vol. 16,No. 7
Chemical Research Activity in the Various Countries of the World‘ By E, J. Crane OHIOSTATE UNIVBRSITY, COLUMBUS, OHIO
for the first time d g i n g the war. As might be expected, the recovery since the war of the more seriously affected European countries has reduced the high percentage lead maintained by the United States in 1917 and 1918. However, the approximately 50 per cent gain in percentage standing (from 21.1 to 32.1 per cent of total) in ten years with the war over five years ago is significant. It adds weight to the statement made by Dr. J. C. Irvine, of Scotland, a t the time of the New HavenMeeting of the American Chemical Society in 1923: “The center of chemistry has moved to America.” And it, of course, emphasizes our new responsibility and opportunity in leadership. It will be noted further that the British chemists have maintained a steady productivity, with a small gain in position. France and Germany have recovered well, and about equally, from their considerably lowered percentages during the war. Belgium, too, has come back strong. None of these three countries, however, has regained its pre-war position. The recovery of Austria and Russia has been slower. Japan is gaining in importance as a country turning out valuable chemical research. The two new countries, Czechoslovakia and Poland, are showing chemical activity and Roumania and China now deserve a place in the list.
HICH country is now the most productive in chemical research? How do the others stand? How well have the various countries recovered from the effects of the World War? It has been interesting to attempt to answer these questions and others by a compilation of data based on Chemical Abstracts. The amount of work done in the various countries during any period of time can be gaged with considerable accuracy by the number of abstracts published in Chemical Abstracts of papers appearing in the journals of these countries. Such figures are given below. To be sure, a citizen of one country occasionally publishes in a journal of another, but this does not happen often enough to make any significant difference except in the case of a few of the smaller countries, as Denmark, which do not have important chemical journals of their own. The figures for 1913, 1917, and 1918 were previously compiled2 to show the effect of the World War on the activity in the different countries, 1913 being the last year not affected by the war and 1917 and 1918 the years most affected. These are reproduced here for ready comparison with the 1923 figures, which are new. The figures tell their own story. It is to be noted particularly that the United States still retains its lead, taken from Germany
W
1 2
Received May 17, 1924. 10, 236 (1918); 11, 378 (1919).
THIS JOURNAL,
--
NUMBER OF ABSTRACTS 1913 1917 1918 3940 4602 4136 2741 1560 1531 2481 794 84 1 6539 2065 1258 112 95 539 _ . ~ 286 905 305 474 67 264 326 328 276 22 19 15 36 110 64 129 226 114 2 185 7 254 166 710 17 26 34 zn 17 41 -_ 49 N o t counted N o t counted Not counted Not counted Not counted 42 52 89 P-
COUNTRIES United States British Empire France Germany Austria Italy Russia Holland Norway Sweden Switzerland Belgium Japan Spain Denmark Argentina Czechoslovakia Poland Roumania China Other countries
-
-
-
7
1923 6014 2890 b 2214 5064 151 499 2340 421 33 136 199 175 412 72 8d
26 74 37 17 16 44
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PERCENT
1913 21.1 14.7 13.3 34.9 2.9 4.9 2.5 1.8 0.08 0.58 1.21 0.99 0.38 0.18 0.21
1917 43.9 14.9 7.6 19.7 1.1 2.9 2.5 2.6 0.18 0.62 1.08 0.06 1.58 0.24 0.19
......
.. ..
0:27
0:84
..
....
OF
TOTAL-----1918 45.4 16.8 9.2 13.8 1.0 ~. 3.1 ~
0.7
3.6 0.24 0.40 1.42 0.02 2.78 0.19 0.19 0.54
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1923 32.1 15.4 11.3 27.0 0.8 2.7 1.2 2.2 0.18 0.73 1.06 0.93 2.19 0.38 0.04 0.14 0.39 0 ..20 0.09 0.09 0.23
9,108 18,736 TOTAL 18,681 10,483 a The Japanese chemical literature was not covered completely previous to 1918. b Of these 220 appeared in Canadian, 120 in Australian 91 in Indian, and 74 in South African publications. o Considerable catching up on Russian journals not prekiously obtainable occurred in 1923. d When the 1913, 1917, and 1918 figures were compiled the addresses of authors were given in abstracts. Limitation of available space has made it necessary to omit these addresses since 1921. In preparing the 1923 figures it was not possible, on this account, properly to credit a number of gapers published by Danish chemists outside of Denmark.
The Bergius Process At a recent meeting of the SociCtC de Chimie Industrielle, M. Kling, director of the municipal laboratory of Paris, gave a report on the Bergius process of cracking coal and heavy oils by means of preliminary hydrogenation a t high temperature and pressure, based upon a personal inspection and study of the recently completed plant a t Mannheim, Germany. The process consists in heating the heavy oil in presence df hydrogen under pressure, to temperatures of about 350 C. At a certain point a diminution in rate of increase of pressure with temperature shows that combination has occurred. The cooling curve is considerably below the heating curve, and indicates roughly the amount of hydrogen that has been fixed. When the product resulting from this treatment is distilled, the amount of lighter fractions obtainable is increased from only a few per cent to 80 or more. Furthermore, analysis of the gaseous prod-
uct recovered after the hydrogenation shows that the amount of hydrogen in it is nearly equal to that introduced in the first place. The greater part of this hydrogen can be recovered by a cracking process and re-used. Hence the actual consumption of hydrogen by this process is very low. M. Kling also called attention to the fact that the German owners of the process expect to devote all profits from royalties obtained by license of the patents to support intensive research on extension of the process and on correlated high temperature and pressure problems. There was considerable discussion of the paper, and a doubt appeared to be in the minds of some, based on private reports, as to whether the Bergius process was an actual success. M. Kling felt very sure, from his own observations, that the claims SEIDELL] were fully justified.- [ATHERTON
