WILLIAM S. HILL Member, Examining Corps, United States Patent Office
Process for Treating Fish Livers. No. 2,345,099. L. O. Buxton, Belleville, New Jersey, assignor to National Oil Products Company. This patent involves a more efficient process of recovering vitamins A and D from fish livers. An older and well-known method of recovering these vitamins is steam digestion at IOOoe. or higher. However, it is pointed out that the high temperatures required destroy substantial portions of the vitamin A in the oil and that unfavorable action of various lipolytic enzymes in the oily substance splits part of the oil into glycerol and free fatty acids. Darkening also occUrs. because the proteins become partially soluble in oil. Another older process is to treat the crushed fish livers with glacial acetic acid and anhydrous sodium sulfate, heating the mass to above 70°C. to coagulate the liver protein and permit separation of the oil, and then mechanically removing the supernatant oil which separates from the mass. The present process includes crnshing the raw fish livers and then treating with a water-miscible lower aliphatic acid such as acetic, formic, or propionic and an organic solvent for the liver oil. The oil-solventacid mixture is removed from the treated mass and the oil freed of solvent and acid. A much improved yield is obtained because the acid penetrates and carries solvent into the liver cells while the enzymes are deactivated and thus prevented from splitting the triglycerides of the oil into glycerol and free fatty acids. Mercury Detecting Method and Apparatus. No. 2,345,090. Porter H. Brace, Forest Hills, Penllsylvania, assignor to Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. Mercury and its compounds, although extremely important in the conduct of the present war, represent a dangerous health hazard to the workers in plants using either the element or compounds containing it. It is now thought that the compounds are much more dangerous than the element itself. In order to combat the menace a good method of detecting its presence in air is needed. The present patent allegedly accomplishes this result. Heat alone is sufficient to break down some mercuric compounds such as the oxide, sulfide, and chloride. Others which will not respond to this treatment may be decomposed almost quantitatively by strong heating in the presence of lime. In one modification of the method, a sample of the contaminated air is drawn into a heated tube containing a porous plug of lime. This dissociates the mer-
curie compounds ilnd produces a corresponding proportion of free mercury. The gases are cooled and allowed to travel over a transparent strip containing selenium sulfide. Free mercury present in the gases will cause a darkening of the strip in proportion to the percentage of the substance present. A beam of. light is projected through the strip and onto a photoelectric cell. Attached to the cell is a recording mechanism which can be calibrated to read the amount of free mercury present in the gases. Another method described makes use of the principle that mercury vapor will absorb light of specific wave lengths, such as 2537 A. A beam of ligh t from a low pressure mercury arc lamp which emits light rich in the suitable wave lengths is passed through a chamber containing the collected mercury vapor and then allowed to impinge on a photoelectric cell. Suitable recording apparatus is connected to the cell.
Process for Preparing Hydrobromic Acid. No. 2,342,465. Frieda Goldschmidt and Friedrich Deutsch, Rehoboth, Palestine. Hydrobromic acid is a substance which the student rarely sees outside of chemical equations. A new method of preparing it is now offered by the patentees. In the first stage of the process sulfur bromide is fonned by dissolving sulfur in an excess of brominc. 28 + Brl ~ St Br2 In the second stage, sulfur bromide, bromine, and water are caused to react as follows: 5oB"
+ 5B" + SH,O ----+ 2H,SO. + 12HB,
The second reaction can be carried out by mL'
