JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
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THE STEAM ENGINE AND THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY B. W. BIRSH Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England
few books 'on the chemical industry mention the steam engine, and very few writers on the steam engine appear to be interested in chemistry. Yet the steam engine and the chemical industry developed side by side and many famous personalities that occur in the one story also feature in the other. One can start as far back as Robert Boyle, who was assisted for some time in his famous work on pumps by one Denis Papin, a former assistant of the Dutch astr.onomer Christiaan Huyghens. Under Boyle's guidance Papin developed a steam engine in the form of a cylinder and piston. The cylinder held some water, which, on applying heat externally, boiled and drove the piston to the top of the cylinder, where it was held by a catch. On cooling the cylinder and releasing the catch, the piston was sucked down again and useful work could be performed on both VERY
strokes. Although Papin's model %as only a toy with a diameter of 2'/2in. he was aware of its importance and described it in 1690 as a "new method of obtaining very great moving powers at small cost." Thus we see that in the workrooms of Robert Boyle, often described as "the father of chemistry," was also born the embryo steam engine. Fifty years later the first chemical factory was built in England by Dr. John Roebuck, who introduced the use of lead chambers for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. Not enough is known of this energetic industrialist, probably because he finally went bankrupt, but not before he had succeeded in quite a number of major enterprises. His sulfuric acid factory seems to have paid its way, and he bought some coal mines in Scotland with the proceeds and began setting up the Carron Ironworks, the first of their kind in Scotland.
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His coal mines were unfortunately flooded and he set about looking for a powerful pump t o make them workable again. Newcomen (1663-1729) had succeeded in constructing a steam engine that really would pump the water out of deep mines, using Papin's principle of a cylinder and piston, and engines had been built on his design since 1712. Roebuck was, however, introduced to a young instrument maker, named James Watt, who had invented a method for economizing on the coal consumption of the Newcomenengine. Watt had been financed by Professor Black of Edindurgh University t o the tune of £1,200 but Roebuck bought out Black in return for a two-thirds share in Watt's patent of 1769. Watt failed to solve Roebuck's problem and the latter's many commitments finally proved too much for him and he was forced into bankruptcy by his creditors. These were so unimagiuative that they attached no importance t o the twothirds share in Watt's patent and were quite pleased to allow it to pass over to Matthew Boulton for the £1,200 that Roebuck had paid for it. Boulton was a successful Birmingham manufacturer who was inspired with the possibilities of the new industrialism. He immediately said that he would only take part in a scheme "to serve all the world with engines of all sizes. It would not be worth my while t o make for three countries onlv. but I findit verv " much worth my while t o make for all the world." The combination of Watt's en$neering genius and Boulton's business acumen proved highly successful and for 25 years the firm of Boulton & Watt held undisputed sway, selling engines t o all Europe. During a visit to France in 1786. Watt met the French chemist ~ertholletand was shown &wund his laboratory. 'one experiment out to entertain the &tinWished visitor was the effect of the discovered "chlorine" on cloth. which was r a ~ i d"l vbleached. As soon as Watt returned home he tried out the process on a large scale in the bleaching yards of his father-inlaw, Macgregor. The new process was found to bleach in a few hours material that previously had to be left in the open air for months. I n this way James Watt initiated the chlorine industry, still one of the main pillars of the chemical industry. So far we have dealt largely with the practical men who built the steam engine and also developed the chemical industry in England. But among the men who are famous for their theoretical work there are also found many who shed light on the problems of both. Lavoisier, who finally disproved the pNogiston theory and helped to set out the theoretical basis of modern chemistry, also did some valuable research on the relation between heat and work. Joseph Black, whom we have already referred to, carried out some
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fundamental researches on the alkaline earths which helped t o elucidate the nature of acids and alkalies and their salts. He also discovered the phenomenon of latent heat and was therefore able to help James Watt in understanding some of the processes of the steam engine. But the most important point where the theoretical aspects of chemistry and the steam engine meet is in the fact that the elderly John Dalton was tutor t o James Prescott Joule. Little is known of this relationship except that Dalton insisted that his pupils be grounded in mathematics before starting any chemistry, and that Joule relates that Dalton seemed attached to his brother and himself. Yet there are so many similarities in their work that it is hard to believe that Dalton did not have a powerful influence on his young pupil. Both men deduced far-reaching generalizations from a few quantitative measurements combined with a religious belief in the ultimate simplicity of nature. Joule's immediate confidence in his own work, which he started publishing at 19, shows a faith, almost certainly inspired by Dalton, in the possibility of learning Nature's laws by direct experimentation and quantitative measurements. The guiding theoretical principle for both of them was their belief in the permanence of a world created by God. Thus Dnlt,nn ... ....wrnt,e: . ..... -
No new creation or destruction of matter is within the reach of chemical agency. We might as well attempt to introduce a new planet into the solar system, or to amihilate one a l r w ~ yin existence, a8 to create or destroy a particle of hydrogen.
A generation later Joule wrote: I shall lose no time in repeating and extending these exp&ments, being satisfied that the p n d agents of Nature are, by the Creator's fiat, indeahuelible; and that wherever mechanical force is expended, an exact equivalent of heat is always obtained.
Joule's early work was designed to discover whether electromagnetic machines could ever compete with steam engines and his discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat laid the foundation for a scientific study of all power engines. This can only be comparedin importance with Dalton's atomic theory which has enabled the chemical industry to build on such a firm basis. Enough has been said to show that in their initiation and development the two problems of the production of power and the production of powerful chemicals have interested and been solved by the same group of people. This close relationship has continued to the present day, when most power plants still derive their energy from a chemical reaction and, in the important electrochemical industries, a n increasing number of chemicals are produced by electric power.
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