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Ith^r^A V A R I - H I A T EXTRACTION RACKS # / / * * , I N D I V I D U A L RHEOSTAT C O N T R O L FOR EACH HOT PLATE Suitable for extractions with various solvents, these racks can also be used for any laboratory application requiring clean controllable heat. Precise temperature control assured to 640° F, Current consumption is materially lowered through selective use of any number of hot plates as desired. Will pay for itself in a short time. Available in 6 or 2 unit. "Write for literature 6-34-1. PURCHASE FROM YOUR LABORATORY SUPPLY DEALER
precision Scientific £ o . 3 7 3 7 W . C o r t l o n d St. r C h i c a g o 47, ILL, 46-48
154·
*TMIE British Electrical and Allied Research Association ( E R A ) in its annual report for 1947 reviews research progress in many fields. Work on electricity tissue paper o f exceptionally high resistivity has yielded valuable results. Resistivity has been found to be a function of a certain kind o f purification associated with the termination of the cellulose chains by divalent metal ions. Scientific analysis enabled FORA to treat paper on a small scale t o exhibit properties superior to those hith e r t o obtainable. Progress made in the knowledge of imprégnants and sealing methods employed in the manufacture of scaled impregnated capacitors made from t he improved paper resulted in capacitors showing excellent properties. Problems o f commercial production await research. A German gas turbine installed at the works of C. A. Parsons Co., Ltd., is available in a dismantled state for examination b y interested members of the ERA. At t h e same time, research on steam is in act i v e progress. T h e association is supporting, at t h e Imperial College of Science, Ijondon, investigation of the properties of high-pressure, high-temperature steam. T h e object is to extend the tabulation of s t e a m data u p to pressures of 6,000 p.s.i. a n d temperatures of 1,400° F. Considerable progress had been made o n creep and corrosion of steel a t high temperatures, including short-time tests on molybdenum steels at 630° F. Increasing evidence of the value of copper-nickeliron alloys in resisting corrosion had been gathered in course of condenser research. Admirable original researches are in progress a t Cambridge, Sheffield, and Nottingham Universities on fundamental physical and structural principles of magnetic properties, including effect of order, precipitation hardening, saturation, magnetostriction, and the Bitter figures on single ferromagnetic crystals. Lastly, E R A is collecting information on load characteristics of consumer.
Sludging
in Benzene
Absorption
Whereas o u t of 380 U.K. gasworks washing for benzene by gas oil only 24 experienced major sludging difficulties before the war, no less than 27 or 28 out of 30 coke oven plants using petroleum oils suffered from this complaint. The war, demanding every ounce of benzene, gave a stimulus t o the investigation of the problem, and the results are summarized i n "Report o n Investigations of the Ben-
CHEMICAL
zole Technical Committee, 1942-1946, OD Sludging and Corrosion in Benzole-Absorption Plants" (available from British Information Services, N e w York 20, Ν. Ύ., at $2.05). Substances reponsible for sludging are unsaturated compounds derived partly from the gas and in part from the oil. Oxidation and condensation, rather than polymerization, play the major role, and thickening and sludging represent, basi cally, ozidation processes. It appears likely that the gas responsible is carried mechanically in the steam used in the still since this meets the oil at its maximum temperature, and this suggests that at tention to oxygen content of boiler feed water might b e worth while. T h e com pounds formed are soluble in creosote oil; hence, creosote thickens b u t does not deposit sludge except i n extreme condi tions. They are virtually insoluble in petroleum. Elementary sulfur derived from hydrogen sulfide seems to play a part but does not appear to be able to act in the absence of oxygen. T h e committee has formulated several workable steps for reduction and elimina tion of sludging on a practical'scale, and reduction of sludge troubles. They in clude operating on purified gas; removing tar fog wholly before benzene extraction, prescrubbing gas with· u p to 40 gal. of oil per million cubic feet, treating this oil sepa rately; reducing to the minimum oxygen entering the oil in circulation; reducing the C;il stripping temperature to below 130° and stripping benzene from the oil as completely as possible b y using live steam in plant. Though the committee has done much work and covered a lot of fruitful ground, it concludes: "The problem of sludge formation in benzole absorption plants ie most complex and elucidation of the nature of t h e various reactions involved is not likely to b e completed until much more work has been done."
New Chemotherapeutic
Group
T h e Society of Chemical Industry meet ing in the rooms of the Royal Society in London on March 2 favored the formation of a group having foremost among its ob jects discussion of the production and properties of organic chemicals required for therapeutic purposes, as well a s allied problems arising in the production of inor ganic and organic chemicals not primarily required as intermediates for other branches of chemical industry. An ad hoc committee of nine members, under the chairmanship of Sir Jack Drummond, wat
AND ENGINEERING
NEWS
set up t o consider the title and scope of the proposed group. Titanium
Pigment
Further increase in output of titanium pigments is indicated by the recent successful private placing of a million 4.25% £ 1 cumulative preference shares of the British Titan Products C o . , Ltd. Proceeds of the issue are to housed for completion of two new factories this year o n e at. Critnsby, Lincolnshire, ami the other a t Burnio, Tasmania. A t its Billinjrhain factory the firm i s currently producing eight times 1934 output. I t s two new plants will augment output considerably, since the capacity at Grimsby will bo equal to that of the present much-enlarged Billingham plant. The ordinary £1,125,000 capital of British Titan Products is held jointly by the ICI, Ltd., Ooodlass Wall and Lead Industries, t he Imperial Smelting Corp. through a subsidiary, and It. \V. Creel* and Co., operating unit of Greef-Cheniieals Holdings, Ltd. Gaswarks
Produce
Cur htm
Black
The Gas World of March 27 reports that the Severn Valley and Gas Consolidation Group of companies have successfully pioneered the manufacture of carbon black for rubber trade, while a t the same time making town gas from pitch, tar, or oil. In 1940 the group's Stourport gasworks showed that a good g a s of 400 B.t.u. could be produced from tar. That produced was equivalent t o 26,000 cubic feet or 104 therms per ton o f tar. Five years ago the first dry carbon pbwdei was sold t o British rubber manufacturers, and w a s made from soft pitch in the Jones gas and carbon black plant at t h e Gloucester gasworks, which was simultaneously producing gas of 300 B.t.u. per cubic foot of good characteristics a n d l o w specific gravity. Two similar plants at Cheltenham and Swindon arc successfully operating with fuel oil. They have a combined capacity of 12,000 tons of oil to produce 4,000 tons of carbon powder a year. Bedford
Park,
Russian
London
Atomic
•
Princes
Riaborouyh,
England
CHOLINESTERASE True bovine erythrocyte cholinesterase
•
ARTERENOL HCI (L- and DL-) Nor-epinephrine HCI
•
Research
2 6, N O . 2 1
pacity of the Red bureaucrats" and insufficient finance—despite the large sum stated above. Kapitsa himself is said to have been severe in his criticism. After the war Stalin showed personal interest in this field of research and* some drastic changes are said to have been made. Further equipment was obtained from abroad —Sweden and Switzerland—and an intelligence department established for the purpose of, among other things, getting information from other countries. Home supplies of uranium ore were* supplemented by imports from Czechoslovakia; two large factories for instrument construction were erected in Voskar Ola and Uralmashzaved, near Sverdlovsk, in the Urals; and the Ministry of Chemical Industry had the special duty of ensuring adequate supplies of the necessary chemicals. Its chief was M. (!. Purvukhin, assisted by leading scientists including the president of the Academy of Sciences, at. that time Prof. Vavilov. It was. confidently expected that these efforts would be successful, and in August 194(5 Molotov (Commissar of Public Relations) said that in two years Russia would be in advance of Britain or America. It may be added that, under the new Five Year Plan begun in 1946, it was provided that new centers of key industries shall be well dispersed, mainly in the east, away from closely populated areas. \Y. G. C A S S
NEW PRODUCTS < y * " NEW VISTAS ^ BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH
V . S. SWAMINATIIAX W. A, England
In ION (Itevista Espanola de Qui mica Apicada) for February 1948 is a note b y Rafael Miralles (author of "Espanoles en Rusia") on atomic research i n the Soviet Union. Although it probably docs not add very much to what is already known in high government circles in America and England, it serves as a reminder that the problems of nuclear energy have by no means been neglected i n Russia. In fact, they have been closely studied for some years, as one would expect from the keen interest taken in all branches of physics in that country; and in 1944 the sum of 51.4 billion roubles (about $400 billion) is said to have been allocated for atomic and related research. A representative commit-
VOLUME
tee of scientists and engineers was set up under V. L. Komarov, president of the Academy of Sciences. Work has included intensive search for sources of uranium and other radioactive minerals in those parts of the Soviet Union which . are thought to be geologically the most promising, such as the Urals, the Kazakh Republic, and parts of Siberia. No essential details of this or other branches of the work appear to be available. A year before the above grant was made and committee appointed a special ministry known as the People's Commissariat for Projectile Armament -subsequently changed to Ministry of Construction of Machinery and Instruments—had been set up, with Peter I. Parshin as chief commissar and V. P. Andreyev as deputy chief. The new department grew rapidly, and by 1945 had about 40 factories and research centers under its control. Atomic research was in the hands of a special section under B. N. Byezrukov, and a huge research establishment was built in arctic Russia, in a closely guarded enclosure* at Ukhta in the neighborhood of radioactive mineral deposits. The director of this establishment was N . A. Volkov, and his staff included eminent Russian physicists such as Kapitsa, Semenchcnko, Alikhanov, and others. It is a little strange to learn from Miralles, however, that progress for a time a t all events was by no means satisfactory, due to the "proverbial inca-
3,4-DIHYDROXyPHENyLALANINE "DOPA" — an unusual amino acid
•
DIPHENYLACETONITRILE Intermediate for analgesics and antispasmodics
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WINTHROP-STEARNS
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