Sept., 1922
T H E JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
Potash in America-Two
787
Years' Progress
By John E. Teeple CONSULTING CHEMIST,
50
EAST4 1 ~ 1ST.,
N E W YORK,N.
Y.
PRODUCTION Their particular hope of success lies in recovering soda ash and UCH PROGRESS as we have to record is not in increased other by-products. Cheap fuel is also a necessity here and an produetion. In 1915 our production was practically oil well is now being put down to furnish it. The Nebraska nothing; in 1918 it reached a maximum of 54,000 tons lakes have been fully describedZ and there is no doubt that of KzO; in 1919 it was 32,000; in 1920 it was 48,000; and in they will play an important part in permanent production. The alunite beds of Utah have been receiving a, good deal 1921 it amounted to about 8000 tons from less than 20 plants. To-day, in July 1922 as I write this, of attention from both promoters and only one commercial plant. is in full opertechnical men. The manufacture of potation making potash as a main product. ash and alumina or aluminium salts from This is the American Trona Corporation alunite is a perfectly feasible operation, plant on Searles Lake in California. InWhen someone is willing to spend the time cidentally, this company has probably and money necessary to get systematic spent more time and money on systematic information and work out manufacturing and fundamental research and developdetails this should be a real part of our ment work than any other, which may industry. If anyone has done this up to account for its being in operation. the present it has not become a matter The by-product plants in commercial of public knowledge. The prospectuses operation include the molasses distilleries, that happened to be presented to me so of which the U. 8. Industrial Chemical far have consisted of partial information Company is probably the chief producer, and half-baked details. One large comthe cement plants and blast furnaces, the pany seems to be making real progress. Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company in The story of Wyoming leucite is much the lead, and the sugar companies using the same as that of alunite. Leucite is a the Steflens process. That is about the proper source of potash, and one company whole story of production in America seems to be making real headway in the to-day. Of the 128 plants reporting prosolution of the problem. duction in 1918, over 100 made nothing The Inyo Chemical Company of Deep in 1921. Some few were abandoned as Springs Valley, Calif., has had a pilot J O H N E. TEEPLE plant working on a natural potash brine war babies that could not live in peace times, but many are simply standing by continuing the at that place. The method is refrigeration to remove study of their problems and hoping for Congress to give sulfate, then concentration by evaporation. They announce them the temporary protection that will carry them over that the experiments have been successful and that this distressing period and enable them to make a permanent they are now constructing a 10-ton per day plant.3 Other potash industry here. natural brines rich in potash could be worked if people would The year 1921 was the worst we expect to see in potash study them. production. The outlook for 1922 is better. The American Texas potash deposits have received as much newspaper Trona plant alone, although it only recently reopened, publicity as a prima donna. No doubt soluble potash is should produce more in 1922 than all America did last year. there but no one seems to know whether it exists in comIt has already exceeded 50 tons of K20 per day and in Sep- mercially workable quantities. There is no reason why it tember, after some minor troubles are worked out and a should not and we certainly hope it does. Under the method third smaller unit is in operation, it should be going at a of taking samples with core drills outlined by the Bureau rate of 22,500 tons of KzO per year, or over 60 tons of KzO of Mines, future oil wells will serve as prospect holes for potash per day. This is equivalent to about the output of the three and in a short time we will know just what we have to exlargest German mines, or 5 average-producing mines, or 15 pect from Texas. t o 20 small ones. POSSIBILITIES DEVELOPMENT WORK Mention should be made of some nonoperating plants Something Of the Progress made by nonoperating which look promising. The Eastern potash plant to operate on New Jersey greensand has been in construction several panies has been previously mentioned. Of more interest, years, represents a large amount of money, and is not yet however, is the development of the Ones Who have already finished. Little idea can be formed regarding its position in succeeded, who are now working. A typical statement of a permanent industry until it has an operating history back the problems encountered in a by-product potash plant and a of it. The and the hopes of its OPmerS have been successful solution of the difficulties is found in the description of the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company's methods.' repeatedly described.' N~~~ of the plants in Nebraska are now operating corn- Given 35,000 CU. ft. Of gas per min. a t 750" c.,Containing five mercially, but some of the companies are understood to have 1bs. of KzO and a lot of other material that YOU do not want, given careful thought to their problems in recent years. 2 A m . Fntilisev, April 23, 1921.
S
1 Sci Amcuicon, July 16, 1921; THIS JOURNAL, 18 (1921),693;Chem. Mer. Eng , 25 (1921), 1056.
* Chem. Met. Eng., 26 4
(1922). 1034. Ibid., 25 (1921), 316.
T H E JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMIXTRY
788
how would you recover the potash at a profit12 If you are interested, read the solution in their article. The problems of a brine working plant, like that of the American Trona Corporation, were described last year. Progress since that report has been good. Equilibrium study of the system sulfates, chlorides, and carbonates of sodium and potassium between 20’ and 100” has been completed for our purpose. Other equilibrium studies have included borax, metaborate, carbonate, bicarbonate, and other combinations. Of some scientific interest is the discovery by Mr. W. E. Burke of still another double salt, NazBz04.2NaC1,4H20, to which he has temporarily given the euphonious name of “teepleite.” Some practical applications of these studies have been: (1) An improvement in the grade of potash produced (for the last two months the product made has not in any week dropped below 95 per cent of KCl and several weeks has reached 98 per cent); (2) increase in the percentage of potash recovered; (3) simplified method of making borax; and (4)cheap and simple method of making boric acid. Work on the other difficulties has been equally successful. Foaming in the evlporators has been entirely under control for a long time, The presence of borax as an impurity in potash has not been a problem for nearly three years, in spite of the fact that our friends, the recent enemy, are still talking about it. Dr. Whitney, Chief of the Bureau of Soils, recently issued another official statement on the high purity of American potash to counteract their propaganda, and agricultural experiment stations all over the country have been doing the same thing. It is amazing how many restatements of truth it takes to kill one lie. Other improvements in evaporating, cooling, handling, and control have all reduced production costs. Much research work is under way, directed toward recovery of other valuable products from Searles Lake, and this is progressing favorably. COSTAND MARKET Potash is one of the very few materials that is cheaper now than it was before the war-64 cents per unit to-day compared with an average of about 80 cents formerly. Converted to marks, this is about 330 marks to-day compared with 3.3 marks in normal times. The German workman used to receive 3.50 to 5 marks ($0.84 to $1.20) for a day’s work. Now he receives 150 to 300 marks, say, 30 to 60 cents. In marks his wages have been multiplied by 50, while the price of potash has been multiplied by 100. I n dollars he receives less than half what he did before, and works a whole day for what the American workman receives per hour. It takes on the average 12 to 15 days’ work in Germany to produce 100 units or one ton of actual KzO. This sells here a t $64 and the labor cost for the 12 to 15 days’ work is about $6 or $7. In America we would pay for that same amount of labor about $40. As a matter of fact, the labor spent to produce a ton of KzO in America is less than four days in a good plant. We can turn out four times as much potash per man-day as they do, but we pay the man eight times the price the German receives. This is bound to continue so long as the value of the mark is falling faster than the price of German labor in marks is rising. There will always be a discrepancy because the American workman demands and we want him to have a higher standard of living than any other workman. This is why the industry needs temporary protection now. It will continue to need it until the production costs can be cut still lower. If we had a standard by which we could measure cost in terms of man-days, power, and steam on an even basis, America could probably sell at a profit to-day a t any price 6
THISJOURNAL, 13 (19211,249.
Vol. 14, No. 9
that Germany could. But with the American man-day costing 8 to 10 times what the German one does we are calling for temporary help.
PROPAGANDA In a review of this kind it should not be necessary to discuss propaganda and possibly it ought not to be done, but it is necessary and is going to be done. Last fall we were deluged with a series of interviews from bankers, college professors, and business men. All agreed that there was no American potash industry, never had been, and never would be, and anyway American potash was bad and dangerous and God had given Germany good potash and plenty of it. It was almost sacrilegious to consider any potash but the German. For such a wide diversity of men, none of them directly connected with potash, there was an astonishing unanimity in ideas, and even in words and figures used. One could almost believe the interviews were mimeographed in one office. Then some interviews from fertilizer men complaining of the impurities in American potash, and specifying borax and salt. At that very time the nitrate of soda they were using often contained more borax than any American potash, and the German potash they used frequently contained more salt than it did potash. Again, about June first, we find advertisements in papers like the Rural New Yorker and the Louisiana Planter still harping on borax in potash, apparently in the hope of influencing some poor ignoramus who had not seen the repeated official government denials that harm could come from American potash more than from any other. These advertisements were signed “United States Soil and Crop Service, Potash Syndicate.” This name looks harmless and patriotic but it is the official name of the Propaganda Office for North America of the German Kalisyndikat. I would not bother you with this recitation except that it is a part of the struggle for existence that American potash has been making for the last two years, and an appreciable amount of time of technical men in the industry has been consumed in combating just that kind of stuff. Many of us hoped that with the departure of the Kaiser from German affairs God and His Providence would no longer be restricted to Germany, but might be allowed to operate elsewhere. But not so! Within a month, two German business men assured me that Germany had a world monopoly on potash which could never be taken away. God had given it to her and she could starve or feed any part of the world she chose. This is of course hard on America. Who put the potash in the Nebraska and California lakes, the Utah marshes, the cement rock and the molasses, the greensand, alunite, and leucite? Are they not as natural as anything the other side of the Rhine? And are they not more accessible, being on the surface instead of far underground? German propaganda is meant for the unthinking and the unthinking often swallow it, particularly if it is signed with what looks like an American name.
THEFUTURE The foregoing is a picture of the American potash industry during the last two years as I see it. To be a large industry that will protect Americans against future high-priced potash it needs some support and encouragement now. Some part of it will live whether it gets that support or not, but may be not enough to be a real protection. These plants cannot start operation again suddenly if they are allowed to die now. It takes time and money, and money does not lightly reenter an industry that has been allowed to fail from lack of public support at a critical time. We will have a large industry if we support it now, and a small one whether it is supported or not.
