The Chemical World This Week RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY
MAY 30, 1960
CONCENTRATES
ί Chemicals from cool mine wastes is the goal of a new process developed jointly by North American Coal, Cleveland, Ohio, and Strategic Materials Corp. The companies won't reveal de tails of the process, say only that mine wastes are reacted with sulfuric acid and that aluminum sulfate is one of the products. NAC plans to make the sulfate at a new 40,000 ton-per-year plant at Powhatan Point, Ohio. Part of this plant's production will be used to iron out some of the final stages of the process, which aims for aluminum oxide as the end product. These last steps are still in the pilot plant stage. • Ceramic-like polyester resins that can stand 1000° C. have been made in the laboratory by Artrite Resin, a British polyester producer. Three years of research by the company's chemists has resulted in "a new field of chemistry," says Dr. G. Ader, an Artrite director. The discovery could revolutionize missile and rocket develop ment, and so details are top secret. But, Dr. Ader says, it seems likely that Britain is leading the West in this field. • Research in aggregates and soils is the larg est item in a highway research program recom mended by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. The committee sees need for a $34 million effort spread over 4 or 5 years in 19 high priority areas, sets $10 million of this for soil and aggregate in vestigations. More knowledge in this field is urgently needed, the committee says, "because of the accelerating demand for road building materials and the diminishing supply of ag gregates." One possibility, according to the re port: Nuclear energy may transform clays and other undesirable materials into useful aggregates. • New basic research unit at Esso Research and Engineering will concentrate on long range re search in the various sciences, says Eger V. Murphree, company president. Some initial areas of study: new chemical reactions, relation of molecular structure to the properties of matter, and electrochemistry. Dr. John P. Longwell will head the unit, which will encourage contributions to the scientific literature. Basic research on petroleum and chemical products and processes will be handled by other divisions.
• Low temperature natural rubber results from changing the carbon backbone just enough to prevent orientation, say scientists of the British Rubber Producers' Research Association. The modified rubber stiffens at one thousandth the rate of natural rubber. Dr. J. I. Cunneen and his associates find that thiolbenzoic acid or sulfur dioxide can turn the trick. In a commercial proc ess, they say, butadiene sulfone can be used, since it releases S 0 2 in the rubber on heating. • Carbon tetrachloride can induce fine grain structure in aluminum alloys, according to Aluminiumwerke Nuernberg G.m.b.H., subsidiary of Aluminium Ltd. Of particular value to automo bile makers, grain refining gives aluminum cast ings better machinability and higher strength at higher temperatures. Key to the new process to improve hypereutectic Al-Mg alloys: preheated CCI4 vapor in a nitrogen carrier—introduced into molten alloys containing small amounts of ti tanium and boron—decomposes to carbon. This, in turn, forms dispersed nucleating agents, TiC and TiB 2 . ί Controlled crystallization of sea water to make large ice crystals has been successfully dem onstrated on a pilot plant scale. The pilot unit grows crystals large enough to make subsequent washing and separation of impurities practicable (C&EN, May 2, page 43), according to joint de velopers Struthers Wells and Scientific Design. The Office of Saline Water is sponsoring the work; the companies expect government approval within the next few weeks for financial help to build a larger pilot plant, probably at an East Coast site. ί Trace amounts of toxic or noxious gases in the air can be detected and measured by a fast, very sensitive automatic instrument. Called the M-S-A Billion-Aire, the unit is sensitive to a few parts of gas per billion parts of air, Mine Safety Appliances told the annual meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association. Principle of op eration: effect of air contaminants on an electric current through ionized air. An alpha ray source continuously ionizes the atmosphere in a detec tor chamber; contaminant particles in the atmos phere lower the ion current between oppositely charged electrodes. MAY
30,
1960
C&EN
41
