The Chemical World This Week RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY
MARCH 2 9, 1 9 6 5
CONCENTRATES
Direct digitol computer control of a glossmaking furnace has been demonstrated by International Business Machines Corp. For the past six months, an IBM 1710 process control system has been used on a standard glassmaking furnace at the Newark, Ohio, plant of OwensCorning Fiberglas. The system has operated largely unattended for the past four months. In the DDC system, a single digital computer performs the functions of many controllers (such as thermostats and transducers) which monitor temperatures, pressures, and flows. OwensCorning hopes to replace its present system with more advanced systems to control 100 to 150 closed loops on multiple furnaces. Harold Boeschenstein, Owens-Corning board chairman, says DDC systems are to be installed on glass furnaces at the company's plant located in Battice, Belgium, and in a new wing of its Aiken, S.C., plant. A claim that there is a direct biochemical link between smoking and bladder cancer is being made by Dr. William K. Kerr and his co-workers at the University of Toronto's Banting Institute. He bases his conclusion on the increase (by about 37%) of o-aminophcnols excreted by smokers compared to nonsmokers. Some of these compounds, which are intermediates in tryptophan metabolism, are carcinogens and could account for what seems to be a higher incidence of bladder cancer among heavy smokers. Dr. Kerr suspects that smoking somehow interferes (via an "enzyme block") with the process that metabolizes tryptophan to nicotinamide, the end product of that amino acid's metabolism. Less nicotinamide is excreted by smokers than by nonsmokers, the Toronto work (30 metabolic studies of six people) shows. Enrichment of krypton-85 by thermal diffusion is under way at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The plan is to produce research amounts of 45% krypton-85 from fission product krypton gas that normally contains only about 5% of the isotope. Up to 4000 curies a year will be concentrated in the study. The isotope has a half life of 10 years. It's used in medicine to trace and estimate blood flow through the heart, and in industry for detecting leaks and for other applications. Krypton-85 might also be useful as a heat source, ORNL says.
A containment vessel for use in deliberate rupture tests at a nuclear reactor installation will be designed and built by Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel. Under contract to M. W. Kellogg, PDM will fabricate components of the vessel (70 feet in diameter and 129 feet high) in Des Moines, Pittsburgh, and in Provo, Utah. Function of the vessel in surrounding a pressurized water reactor is to contain steam and water effluent when the reactor ruptures. This is planned as one in a series of tests during a safety-test engineering program at the National Reactor Test Station at Idaho Falls, Idaho. Other tests will involve rupture of nonnuclear reactors. A railroad door 33 feet high will permit a shielded locomotive to move test packages into and out of the vessel. During operation, the door will be sealed against internal pressures up to 46 p.s.i.g. PDM will begin assembly of the vessel late this year. Self-sustaining operation of a closed-system, gas-turbine cycle has been achieved. The
gas turbine was designed and constructed by Mechanical Technology, Inc. (Latham, N.Y.), for the Atomic Energy Commission and the Bureau of Mines. AEC and BuMines consider the turbine the predecessor of turbomachinery for large power plants using either nuclear or fossil fuels as the heat source. The gas-lubricated turbocompressor is capable of speeds up to 24,000 r.p.m. at 1300° F. At design conditions with nitrogen as the coolant and lubricant, the unit simulates a turbocompressor for a 30-kw. electrical power conversion system. The unit can operate on a variety of gases. A new, highly active weed and grass killer has been developed at Dow Chemical. Tradenamed Daxtron, the herbicide is 2,3,5-trichloro-4pyridinol, a systemic agent. It is absorbed in phytotoxic amounts by both roots and foliage and has moderately long residual life. To date, field trials of Daxtron have been carried out in California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and in the Southeast, Dr. E. R. Laning of Dows field research station in Davis, Calif., told the Western Weed Control Conference, in Albuquerque, N.M. These trials indicate that dosages as low as 0.5 pound per acre have good knockdown activity and continuing action. Further study is needed, however, to determine Daxtron's full potential, Dr. Laning stresses. MAR. 29, 1965 C&EN 39
