Buenos A i r e s , Sargest c i t y in South America
Trends in the Argentine Chemical Industry
of specialists in chemistry, engineering, and economics. This group spent nearly a year in detailed study of principal industrial activities. Traveling some 25,000 miles throughout the republic, the staff inspected factories, agricultural operations, laboratories, experiment stations, schools, and universities, and interviewed executives, government officials, bankers, technicians, farmers, laborers, and students. The reports prepared embody numerous recommendations for adjustment, technical control, scientific research programs, standardization, and, above all, technological training. Dependence upon Foreign Chemical Sources
FRANCIS G O D W I N , Armour Research Foundation1, Chicago, III· ARGENTINA, more than third the area of the United States, lone hold-out in the program of solidarity for t h e Americas, has plans for industrial selfsufficiency which may in time radically change both her internal economy and her position in peacetime international trade. Traditionally until now Argentina has devoted almost all her efforts to the production of meat, hides, wool, and grains. These things she has sold abroad, and with the proceeds she has purchased automobiles, machinery, chemicals, manufactured goods of all kinds, and, generally speaking, anything else t h a t she needed. In recent years some of the country's leaders have seen that such complete dependence upon foreign markets and sources has its drawbacks. They have also noted that leading nations today are industrial ones. Argentina aspires to this leadership in South America. National Industries Developing Over a period of years, national industries have been developing. The largest of these have had United States, British, or other foreign support, but the governmental policy is to encourage the plentiful Argentine capital to invest in new manufacturing enterprises within the country's borders. Tariff protection has been extended in many cases, and widespread government financing is contemplated. Current shipping conditions have naturally intensified needs and furnished additional incentive. » Affiliated with Illinois Institute of Technology.
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With the development of these new industries has come a realization that one ingredient—technology—is missing. Although the Argentines number 13,000,000, the internal market for manufactured goods is limited by the distribution of wealth and perhaps does not exceed the equivalent of a 3,000,000 population. For at least some of the industries this means that additional outlets must be found through exportation. Furthermore, there are some things such as trucks, automobiles, special machinery, and certain chemicals which Argentina needs from the United States, and to provide exchange with which to buy these she must sell us products which we can use. A continued market here for Argentine commodities requires that standards of quality and uniformity be met in the same manner as our own manufactures, and that improvements in them keep pace with the corresponding technical advances here at home. It was to resolve this situation that the semi-governmental Argentine Trade Promotion Corporation commissioned the Armour Research Foundation in Chicago to survey the economic resources and industrial developments of that country 2 . Purposes of this study were not only to uncover Argentine products needed here, but to discover ways in which scientific research and control could be applied to specific Argentine industries in the interests of present and postwar economy. In making the survey the Armour Research Foundation sent to Argentina a field crew * Industrial Research Progress at the Armour Research Foundation, 1941-42, CHBM. E N G . N E W S , 2 1 , 17 (Jan. 10, 1943).
CHEMICAL
Although the largest part of the Argentine industrial pattern depends directly or indirectly upon the chemical industry, national production of chemicals themselves constitutes only about 4 per cent of the value of all manufactures in the country. Dependence upon foreign sources for finished chemical products and even for as much as 30 per cent of the raw materials used in local chemical manufacture has continued, and it is only now, in these first months of 1943, that sheer necessity has created a serious interest in the full use of Argentine raw materials in Argentine industries. Heretofore native sulfur has been ignored in favor of importation, and acid recovery from smelters has not been practiced. Native coals have remained unmined, their quality and transport cost placing them at a disadvantage against British coal. Charcoal has been made without by-product recovery of any kind, while the corresponding quantities of the usual charcoal by-products have been imported. These things are now changing. Argentine sulfur and coal are being mined and used. Erection of at least one byproduct wood distillation plant is proceeding. A catalytic formol plant is ready to receive methanol as soon as it is produced. Plans are being considered for an Argentine Solvay soda plant to relieve the necessity of over 30,000 tons of soda ash imports upon which depend the local glass industry, quebracho extractors, wool washers, "frigorificos" (meat packers) and others. This year should see 100 per cent local production of acetic acid and perhaps substantial exports to other South American countries. AND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
N e w research laboratory of t h e sovernment-owned Y. P. F.
Sulfur products plant in Aveilaneda
Sulfuric A c i d P r o d u c t i o n
Argentina h a s for some time produced her own sulfmric acid, partially from imported sulfur and to a limited extent through sulfur recovery from imported coal in gas manufacture. The largest of Argentine chemical concerns operates half a dozen plants in t b e republic, including an ammunition factory, and its list of products includes sulfuric and nitric acids, hydrogen peroxide, lime-sulfur, aluminum sulfate, sodium sulfide, chlorosulfonic acid, carbon disulfide, refined sulfur, tartaric acid, cream o f tartar, glyptal and nitrocellulose paints and thinners. Several companies make electrolytic caustic soda and chlorine, and one of these also operates a synthetic nhydrous ammonia plant which meets the country's requirements. A newly built factory for producing citric acid and commercial citrates is being placed in operation. These are but a few of the developments now being seen in the broad Argentine program. Surplus of G r a i n s
A country o f perennial surplus in grains and cellulosie wastes, Argentina is only beginning to tap t h e opportunities in the fermentations field. Her requirements of industrial ethyl alcohol have been met almost entirely through molasses from her sugar cane region, only about 11 per cent of the 32,636,000 liters in 1941 coming from grain. A small amount of butanol and some acetone* are produced by fermentation of corn, b u t other industrial fermentations exclusive of beverages are largely untouched. The close of 1942, however, found the Argentine Government contemplating large—scale production of motor fuel alcohol from surplus corn, as the gasoline shortage threatened t o render useless some of the country's agricultural harvest machinery. Shortage of T e c h n i c a l Personnel
The outstanding problem in the industrial development program is an acute
The newly erected hydrogen peroxide plant near Buenos Aires, using U. S. equipment
shortage of technically trained personnel. Heretofore there has been a very much smaller need for such men, and the few that were required were imported. The national universities have developed along cultural rather than scientific lines, so that even today there are no technical courses comparable with those of the United States and European countries. Research exists in a very limited form in only one or two small laboratories, primarily agricultural. Industrial research has not y e t begun, but government officials are seeking means of encouraging it. Paradoxically, Argentina possesses one of the largest and most modern research laboratory buildings in the world, recently completed and outfitted for the government-owned petroleum company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales, b u t its large staff of research scientists has y e t to be created.
I t is probable that the real industrial development o f Argentina will gather momentum when the necessary supply of trained technologists begins t o emerge from a greatly altered national university curriculum. Argentine educators are among the leaders i n this movement, despite t h e advances which, their schools have made in. the cultural fields. Edmundo Correas, president o f the TJniversidad Nacional d e Cuyo, wrote while touring United States universities in 1942: I visited the faculties of chemistry, engineering and physics. I saw gigantic plants and laboratories where 1400 students work simultaneously with the most up-to-date machinery. W*e cannot help feeling disappointed when w e measure the great differences which exist between these establishments and our own, which lack the most elementary resources. To compare the greatest Argentine university with the best in the United States is to compare two such extremes as the Middle Ages and our own times. Dr. Correas perhaps has taken a strong view, b u t he i s most assuredly attempting to correct the deficiency in his own university. I t is in this t h a t we can b e of help when circumstances again permit, for Argentina is ready t o receive our technology· If s n e does not get it from u s she will look for it elsewhere. The field of science is a common ground upon which greater mutual understanding should be possible. And Argentina is determined to have her industries.
Ret ho, one of the several Buenos Aires railway terminals
