Chemical world This week The Board also approved the spending of up to $35,000 to enable C&EN to continue its current practice of allowing unemployed ACS members to place Situations Wanted advertisements in the magazine without charge. An unemployed member may run such an ad free for as many weeks as necessary, although he must change the wording of his ad after it has appeared in six issues. Funds for this program will be derived from the dues paid by ACS Corporation Associates. In another move, the Board voted to continue paying out of general ACS funds the administrative costs of Project SEED, which is designed to improve the education and career motivation of disadvantaged young people. Previously, the ACS Council had recommended that these administrative costs be paid for out of member and corporate contributions specifically earmarked for Project SEED. By its latest action, the Board reaffirmed its commitment to continue the Society's assistance to this project. Following a recommendation of the Younger Chemists Task Force, the Board approved the spending of $5000 to support the first year of activity of a new Member Advisory Board. This group, which will be formed next year, will serve primarily to recommend new programs or changes in existing ACS programs. The Member Advisory Board (to convene at ACS national meetings), will be open to members of all ages, as well as to student affiliates. Board has four new members:
THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY:
Getting better all the time The report is somewhat naive and a little confused. And in parts it is hard to believe. But the message comes through. The Manufacturing Chemists Association says that things will continue to get better for the chemical industry next year. President William J. Driver's yearend statement presents a picture of increased business volume and steadying prices in 1971 followed by further business improvements in 1972. The report is based on a survey of 34 MCA member companies. And according to the association "a whopping 97 %" of them predict that 1972 chemical industry sales will be up " 1 % to 5% or more" over the 1971 level. Of course, this is not really saying very much. Sales of the chemical and allied products industry have grown at an average annual rate of 8.5% for the past decade. And since 1950 they have declined only twice, in 1952 and 1958. Two thirds of the executives in the survey anticipate that profit margins for 1972 will be up " 1 % to 5% or more." Again this is not too exciting as the 1971 profit margin was the lowest since World War II. About one half of the respondents expect chemical industry R&D spending to increase between 1 and 5% next year. About a third of them expect a decline. Although MCA does not say so, these figures seem to indicate that total industry spending will fall shy of the year-to-
Good, Nixon, Stanerson, Venable
1972 Members of ACS Board of Directors Robert W. Cairns, Chairman Herman S. Bloch Melvin Calvin Bryce L. Crawford, Jr. Mary L Good* Milton Harris Henry A. Hill William A. Mosher
Alan C. Nixon* John C. Sheehan Gardner W. Stacy B. R. Stanerson* Max Tishler Emerson Venable* George W. Watt Frederick T. Wall, ex officio (Nonvoting)
*New members.
Chairmen of ACS Board Executive and Standing Committees Executive Committee: Robert W. Cairns Chemical Abstracts Service: Bryce L. Crawford, Jr. Education and Students: Gardner W. Stacy 8 C&EN DEC. 20, 1971
Finance: Milton Harris Grants and Awards: John C. Sheehan Publications: William A. Mosher Public, Professional, and Member Relations: Henry A. Hill
U.S. chemical shipments this year will total $52 billion 1966
Total shipments ($ billions) Production index (1967=100) Net income after taxes ($ billions) Capital outlays ($ billions) Funds for R&D ($ billions)
1971
$27.3 $40.8 $52.0 55.5
92.8 125.0
$2.0
$3.5
$3.8
$1.58 $3.26 $3.45 $0.88 $1.27 $1.62
Sources: U.S. Department of Commerce; Federal Reserve Board; Federal Trade Commission-Securities and Exchange Commission; National Science Foundation
year increase needed to keep up with inflating R&D costs. One half of the companies reporting to MCA indicate that their chemical exports went up an average of 20% in 1971. If they really did, the rest of the industry must be having a miserable time as total U.S. chemical exports will be up only 5 to 10% this year. MCA's picture of the capital spending outlook for chemical makers next year is incomplete. The report just states that more than half of the industry executives queried anticipate capital expenditures in 1972 will be up some 1 to 5% over 1971. There is no comment on what the others think. STEELMAKING:
Q-BOF process U.S. Steel Corp. introduces a steelmaking process that promises to cut deeply into the output of coal chemicals. The process, called Q-BOF, permits the use of about 20% more scrap per furnace heat in making steel than the conventional basic oxygen furnace (BOF). The use of higher scrap loadings in making a ton of steel reduces consumption of molten pig iron and thus reduces coke and coal chemical output. U.S. Steel chairman Edwin Gott says his firm will install two 200-ton Q-BOF furnaces at its Fairfield, Ala., works. The process was invented by Eisenwerkgesellschaft-Maximilianschutte, mbH. The process was adapted to U.S. steelmaking techniques and large volume by further R&D at U.S. Steel's South Chicago research laboratory. Mr. Gott adds that U.S. Steel's subsidiary, USS Engineers and Consult-
ants, Inc., will offer the process to other steel producers. In the Q-BOF process, molten pig, fluxing materials, and up to 50% scrap are charged to the furnace by conventional means. Oxygen is admitted through tuyeres in the bottom of the furnace rather than through a lance inserted from the top. Propane or natural gas supplemental fuel is also admitted with the oxygen in the Q-BOF process. The supplemental fuel envelops the oxygen and acts as a protective fluid stream to increase both the life of the tuyere and the furnace bottom, according to U.S. Steel. U.S. Steel says that a heat of quality steel can be produced in the QBOF furnace in less time and with higher yields (on the order of 1 to 2%) than with the BOF. Operating costs and capital investment requirements compared to the conventional BOF or open-hearth furnace are also lower, the firm adds. Another advantage of the process is that it doesn't require tall buildings associated with the basic oxygen process. In many cases, buildings housing existing open-hearth shops can be converted to Q-BOF furnaces to improve steelmaking capabilities and to solve air pollution problems. The basic oxygen furnace can readily be converted to Q-BOF, U.S. Steel says. There are 10 operating installations of Q-BOF in the world to date. Nine are in Europe and one is in South Africa. Total annual production from the units is only 5 million tons, however, since the largest unit in use has a capacity of 80 tons per heat. TOMORROW:
The chemical potential The future progress of the chemical industry depends on the industry's applying its unique technology to further serve human needs, says Dr. Earle B. Barnes, president of Dow Chemical U.S.A. The opportunities for the industry to serve are limitless, but three are broad enough to embrace all others, he says. These three opportunities are based on the industry's special know-how to disassemble and reassemble molecules, to solve environmental problems, and to increase job satisfaction. Because the chemical industry's products and new product uses are not predictable, the industry's technology is unique, Dr. Barnes told
ENGINEERING:
Mitsubishi cracker
Barnes:
limitless opportunities
a meeting of the Southwest Chemical Association in Houston. For the industry to take advantage of the opportunities in this special technology requires constant research and development effort, Dr. Barnes says. Changing molecules to answer man's changing needs and to discover and fill new markets is what the chemical industry is all about, Dr. Barnes says. New technology is the ultimate strength that business possesses. The second great opportunity comes from social concern over environmental problems. No other industry is even remotely as well equipped technologically as is the chemical industry to combat pollution and do it at a profit, Dr. Barnes continues. The industry well knows that eliminating wastes at the source will increase yield and reduce costs. This opportunity goes beyond simply curtailing pollution. The industry can use its technology in many ways to improve the environment. It can develop materials that present fewer problems in final disposal and, at the same time, find better ways to return what it produces to the environment, Dr. Barnes contends. Need for increased productivity in America provides the third opportunity, Dr. Barnes says. Personal job satisfaction is the key to increased productivity. It can come from the "whole job" concept, which Dr. Barnes defines as a job in which the worker plans what he does, does it, and then evaluates the results. At Dow, such a whole job program is the "mainspring of our present manpower policy," Dr. Barnes says. As yet, the company has just scratched the surface, but evidence is beginning to indicate that job enlargement will bring fantastic results in both job satisfaction and employee productivity.
The Mitsubishi group, fielding Japan's first entry into the highly competitive area of thermal cracker engineering (C&EN, Nov. 29, page 29), is counting on lower capital cost and faster coke removal than its U.S. rivals when the bids go out for future olefins complexes. Mitsubishi Petrochemical Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, codevelopers of the new equipment, claim an estimated 20% cut in furnace/quench system investment for a given feedstock and capacity compared with the designs of Lummus, Kellogg, Stone & Webster, or others now widely used. The saving, says Mitsubishi Petrochemical, comes from the ability to specify a smaller unit for given capacity than is possible with other commercial cracker designs. To gain compactness, the key departure from previous designs is the pyrolysis and quench-system tubing. In a weld-forming technique developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, these high-alloy steel tubes are given an oval cross section. (Constricted-waist, or peanutshaped, sections are also under study.) More of these oval tubes can be fitted into a cracking furnace of given size, points out Mitsubishi Petrochemical's R&D coordination department chief Akihiko Saegusa, than can tubes of circular section. Thermal efficiency is also higher, he adds, since the bulk of the feed flows closer to the heated tube walls. The Mitsubishi furnace, which uses a vertical tube array for pyrolMitsubishi plant at Yokkaichi
