month titanium sponge facility at the latter's Nihongi plant. The $5.5 million refining unit will use a sodium reduction technique developed by Nippon Soda. Teijin's contribution, at least initially, will be capital. At the same time, Teijin has subscribed all of a $4.2 million capital increase by Nisso Petrochemicals Industry Co., a Nippon Soda affiliate that produces ethylene glycol and other olefin derivatives. The projected titanium refinery, scheduled for startup late next year, will be a major factor in Japan's production of the metal. Last year's output of titanium sponge by the two current producers totaled 5400 metric tons, about 60% of which was exported. Both Japanese producers (and two of the three U.S. titanium sponge makers) use versions of the Kroll 33 process, in which ores are first converted to titanium tetrachloride. They are then reduced to porous titanium metal by dropping into molten magnesium in an inert atmosphere. Sodium can be used instead of magnesium, and this route is also commercially employed. For its own sodium reduction method, Nippon Soda claims an advantage over the Kroll process in product yield and purity, and says its method also promises an edge in sponge physical properties compared to competing sodium reduction processes. Nippon Soda got into the titanium business in the early 1950's via the Kroll process, but dropped out when a shift in U.S. defense planning ended the first titanium boom a few years later. Subsequent development work in fiber intermediates attracted Teijin's attention. In 1966 Teijin became Nippon Sodas largest stockholder (C&EN, Nov. 21, 1966, page 33) and now has a 20% interest in the firm. Its new investment in Nisso Petrochemicals makes Teijin one-third owner of that subsidiary. Taking yet another tack, the two parent firms have also begun cooperative research toward manufacturing protein from petroleum raw materials.
NATURAL GAS:
Project Rulison Ready Project Rulison, the underground nuclear explosion to stimulate flow of natural gas, now is scheduled for September. As the first commercial project to increase output of natural gas by nuclear energy, it will be a substantial improvement over the experimental Project Gasbuggy of December 1967. Rulison is a joint venture of Austral Oil of Houston (which
will pay 90% of the cost) and the Atomic Energy Commission. If the technique proves to be economically attractive, both the nation and Austral could benefit mightily, C. Wardell Leisk, Austral's chairman and chief executive officer, told a meeting of the Natural Gas Men of Houston. He cites U.S. Bureau of Mines' figures of 1966 which indicate that the technique could add 317 trillion standard cu. ft. to the nation's gas reserves—more than double what the reserves are now estimated to be. The value to Austral could reach $1.2 billion, Mr. Leisk estimates. His estimate is based on the possible recovery of half of the gas present in
data from Project Gasbuggy. In a year since that explosion, the well has produced more than 200 million cu. ft. of gas. Another well located about 400 feet away and drilled into the same formation has produced 85 million cu. ft. of gas during the past nine years. The Project Rulison device will be of a fission type, Mr. Leisk believes. Much less radioactivity should result; probably only about 10% of the tritium found in Gasbuggy will be in the gas. Although no standards for maximum permissible concentrations of radionuclides in the gas have been set, marketing arrangements might include four items, Mr. Leisk says. The gas may be scrubbed to reduce radionuclide concentrations, if any are present. The gas also might be diluted in pipelines with other gas as is now done to reduce carbon dioxide concentration. Use of the natural gas might be limited to nearby industrial markets or to on-site generation of electrical power.
TETRACYCLINE:
Voiding a Patent
AustraPs Leisk To benefit mightily
the 100 sections (640 acres each) under lease to Austral if one explosion is set off in each section. About 120 billion cu. ft. of gas are contained in each section of the Mesaverde formation in the Rulison Basin in west central Colorado. If about 6 trillion cu. ft. of gas is produced and sold for 20 cents per 1000 cu. ft., the gross income therefore would be more than $1 billion. Another $140 million gross income could result from recovery and sale of more than 100 million barrels of natural gas liquids produced with the gas. This income would depend on recovery of 30% of the ethane, 90% of the propane, and 95% of the butane, and 100% of the natural gasoline (C 5 and higher). The Mesaverde formation is porous, but has a very low permeability. Current conventional well stimulation techniques can't release much of the gas. The potential for success which attracts Austral was made clear by early
Tetracycline makers are being hauled into the courts again. This time the Justice Department has sued Chas. Pfizer & Co. and American Cyanamid for an estimated $25 million in damages, asks that Pfizer's patent for the antibiotic be canceled and that the company be barred from collecting royalties under the patent, and wants antitrust action against Pfizer, Cyanamid, Bristol-Myers, Olin Mathieson Chemical, Squibb Beech Nut, E. R. Squibb & Sons, and Upjohn. The civil action suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week. The suit charges Pfizer with fraudulently obtaining the tetracycline patent on Jan. 11, 1955, by "knowingly making false and misleading statements" to the patent office and that Cyanamid "aided and abetted Pfizer" in obtaining the patent by "knowingly making similar misleading and deceptive statements." The suit alleges that the two companies failed to disclose that tetracycline had been produced during the manufacture of another antibiotic, aureomycin, and therefore was not in itself patentable. As a result, the suit contends, Pfizer was able to limit the number of suppliers and the Government was damaged by paying noncompetitive prices for the drug. The suit adds that the seven firms conspired to "monopolize the manufacture and sale of tetracycline." JULY 21, 1969 C&EN 9
THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Pfizer immediately responded to the Governments action charging that the suit is "outrageous. It doesn't surprise us that the Government would try to find some way to make a claim for damages, but to attack the patent after all these years and after all the gv)vernment litigation that has taken place. We don't think the Government has a valid claim, indeed, while we deny the validity of all claims in this matter, there are additional reasons for denying the validity of the government claim." A spokesman for American Cyanamid, commenting on the Government's action, says, "We were not surprised at the Federal Government bringing a suit. It seems that without having studied the complaint what theyVe done is added to that claim for damages a reference to the patent issue that had been a subject of a suit by the Federal Trade Commission." At press time the company was formulating a position on the suit. Tetracycline as a product and tetracycline makers have been before the courts or some federal agency for years. For instance, in 1967, Pfizer, Cyanamid, and Bristol-Myers were convicted of concerted action to control prices and create a monopoly in broad-spectrum antibiotics (C&EN, Jan. 8, 1968, page 13). Following the conviction, an avalanche of trebledamage suits began to pile up against the firms as well as against Olin Mathieson (for its former Squibb division) and Upjohn, even though they were not defendants in the pricefixing case. Then early this year, the five companies—American Cyanamid, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers, Upjohn, and Squibb Beech-Nut (formed when Squibb merged with Beech-Nut Life Savers in 1967 )—offered to pay up to a combined $120 million to settle treble-damage claims against them.
PHOSPHATE:
Expensive Waste Some 478 million tons of waste slimes lie in ponds across the Florida phosphate fields. They contain about 62 million tons of P2O5, and another 4 million tons of P2O5 pour in each year. Putting the waste slimes there costs 24.5 cents per ton of product in a typical Florida phosphate rock mining operation. This is the figure determined by the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Mines in a just-issued report on phosphate waste disposal costs. The study on which the figure is based is one of several undertaken 10 C&EN JULY 21, 1969
by the bureau to gain as realistic a picture as possible of current waste disposal costs in the minerals industries. Another just-issued report, for example, involves waste disposal costs at coal mines in Kentucky and Alabama. The bureau points out that solid wastes generated in mining and processing minerals not only threaten to become an environmental problem but often contain needed mineral values that aren't being reclaimed. The bureau's cost studies are designed to provide benchmarks against which to assess the costs of new and improved waste disposal systems devised in bureau research programs. In determining waste disposal costs for a phosphate operation, the bureau chose International Minerals & Chemical's Noralyn phosphate operations in Polk County, Florida, as typical. Production and slime generation are based, however, on plant capacity rather than on actual records. Phosphate rock mining is essentially a strip mine operation, removing overburden and mining the matrix, a mixture of phosphate pebbles and pellets, partly phosphatized limestone boulders, silica sand, and clay. Hydraulic guns break up mined matrix and slurry it at about 40% solids for pumping to a washer plant. Slimes from the washer plant discharge to settling ponds at an average rate of 40,000 gallons per minute. Slimes are about a third of the total matrix mined. About 30% of bone phosphate of lime values of the matrix remains with the slimes. In its study of waste disposal costs at a Kentucky coal mine, the bureau found that coarse waste, generated by a rotary breaker and jig washer and trucked to dump areas, costs 31.9 cents per ton of waste. Cost for fine waste, pumped as a slurry to a settling pond, is 15.4 cents per ton. Disposal costs at the Alabama mine are similar, but costs for reclamation of coarse waste dumps (not currently being conducted at either place) are higher—$430 per acre or 1.4 cents per ton of waste handled compared to $300 per acre or 0.5 cent per ton in Kentucky.
PROTECTIVE COATINGS:
Safer Windshields The first major use of a new protective coating, developed by Owens-Illinois, will be on the windshields of the U.S. jumbo-jets which go into commercial operation this fall. The "Glass Resin" polymers (so named by O-I because of their glasslike appearance) provide mar, abrasion, and solvent re-
sistance. The polymers also have applications for high-temperature coatings for electronic components and as protective coatings for metals and other materials. Currently, Sierracin Corp., Sylmar, Calif., is using the coating, licensed from O-I, in its proprietary material "Sierracin 311." The firm has contracts for more than $13 million for aerospace transparencies of stretched acrylic which will be coated with Sierracin 311. The first applications are for the windshields and windows of the Boeing 747 Super-Jet and the Lockheed 1011 Tri-Star jumbo-jet. In one test by Sierracin, stretched acrylic panels were subjected to simulated windshield wiper tests. In a noncoated panel, vision was completely obliterated in only a few minutes. On the Sierracin 311 coated panel vision remained unimpaired even after 8 hours of continuous testing. Glass Resin is a highly crosslinked polymer in what is generally called the silicone family, O-I says. The trifunctional, methyl homopolymer cures into a crystal-clear coating. The very hard surface provides mar and abrasion resistance and offers protection against common organic solvents, such as methylene dichloride and acetone, which damage unprotected plastics, such as stretched acrylics or polycarbonate, according to the Toledo, Ohio-based company. The thin (0.5 mil or less) coating is applied by normal paint techniques, such as dipping, spraying, or brushing. The coating maintains, and sometimes improves, the optical properties of transparent plastics. Glass Resin polymers may also find uses as protective coatings for metals and in fiber-reinforced laminates for aerospace applications. However, one of the most promising near-future uses of plastics is for Windshields compared Bottom with, top without coating
