C&EN's REVIEW end PREVIEW

Wmgm

Push on Process Development . . .

. . . brought new products and lower costs, as industry faced production cutbacks

JL ROIH ( HON ci ι H.\( KS liKui;1 headlines during 1958*s lean months. But there was little slowdown in pilot plants and process development labs as chemical companies pushed their search for \ \ a \ s to chop production costs. A survey by the National Industrial Conference Board bears this out. XICB found that budgeted spending for research in 1958 was up 1 0 ' ' over the previous year. And the greatest proportion of these funds went toward applied research and development.

Some new processes developed in 1958 brought with them new products. In many cases, though, new ways were found, and modifications were made to existing methods, to make products al­ready on the market. Cost-cuttinn was perhaps the most obvious objective. The reasons for this were twofold: First, there was the never-ending at­tempt to lower production costs in a highly competitive field. Secondly, the recession's sting underscored the need for economy all along the line.

Several industry spokesmen actually refer to the recession as a blessing in disguise. They explain that in main cases chemical companies were con­tent to rest upon their laurels, oblivious to the inefficiencies which had crept into their production methods. For in­stance: wasted manpower, inefficient use of equipment, poor yields, and overly expensive raw materials, to name a few. Many process improvements were put into use in 1958—in time to help plants ' "belt-tightening" measures. Others, still in the development stage, will come into play in 1959. some per­haps still later.

• MeteIs Get α Polish. Metals, from iron ore to uranium, were the subject

Strategic Materials successfully proof-tested its Strategic-Udy process for direct reduction of iron ore in a semiworks plant at Niagara Falls, Ont., in 1958. This is the electric furnace at the prototype; slag tap is at left, metal tap at right

of much process study in 1958. Strategic Materials put its Strategic-Udy process into a prototype plant at Niagara Falls, Ont. Aim: to make iron by direct reduction of iron ore. The method is not yet economically feasible but could be ii coking, power, and capital investment costs continue to rise. Strategic-Udy may well find a niche in the steel capacity expansions slated for the mid-1960*5, with possible savings in capital costs cf up to 5 0 % .

Last year, Goodrich Atomic revealed how it recovers $1.5 million worth of

uranium from waste solutions at its gaseous diffusion plant in Portsmith. Ohio. The process, which recovers uranium as uranium hexafluoride, is also used by Union Carbide Nuclear at its Oak Ridge and Paducah gaseous diffusion plants.

Watch for high purity metals made by electron bombardment melting. Such a process was developed jointly by Stauffer, Mallory-Sharon, and Temescal Metallurgical. Niobium, tantalum, titanium, and molybdenum are some metals which can be made

J A N . 5, 1959 C & E N 4 3

Hercules Powder's Maggie process for concentrating nitric acid uses magnesium nitrate instead of sulfuric acid as

dehydrator, packed columns instead of tray columns for dis­tillation. Maggie eliminates costly sulfuric acid concentr-ators

extremelv- pme via the electron bom­bardment route. T b " partnership eventually plans a licensing program lor commercial production.

On the lighter side is helium gas. Thanksgiving Day, 1958. offered dra­matic evider.ee of the critical shortage of helium. That day. the famous bal­loons in Macys annual parade were filled with air and held aloft by huge mobile cranes. But Bell Telephone Laboratories unveiled a process earlier in the year for recovering helium which drew wide industry attention. Bell's method calls for helium diffusion through bundles of fine glass tubes.

A possible 10 million cubic feet of helium now wasted daily might be re­covered by Bell's process. It plans to license the proeess to interested com­panies.

• Oil Industry Busy. Petroleum re­finers continued to look for new and better ways to squeeze more end prod­uct out of the crude oil barrel in 1958. Two such processes came from Uni­versal Oil Prod nets—Alkar and Bu ta­mer. Alkar salvages the light olefin content of refiners' fuel gas as alkyl aromatics. Example: converting ethyl­ene to ethylbenzene. Butamer. which converts η-butane to isobutane, should help satisfy demand for alkylation plant feedstock. Some Alkar and Butamer plants are on the design boards now, and are slated to go on stream this year.

American Oil came up with a work­able liquid-phase permeation process in 1958. The company found that one component of a mixture may be prefer­entially soluble in the polymers of a

membrane film, and that these films can be tailor-made. As a resut, it can process a mixed-alcohol product by permeation cheaper than by 1 texane azeotroping. Membrane permeation is available for license, says Amoco.

On the production side of the oil business, oil shale economics made news in 1958. Denver Research Insti­tute disclosed more details of the Aspeco process by which, it claims, oil can be produced in Colorado and de­livered on the West Coast at costs of S 1.42 to $1.92 per barrel. Current quoted prices for California crude run about $3.00 per barrel. Aspeco uses a "fireless cooker": aluminum oxide balls provide heat in a retort drum.

Chicago's Institute of Gas Technol­ogy took the gas, rather than oil. route. It would hea t oil shale with hydrogen at 1200° F. and 2000 p.s.i. to extract between 9 0 ' ' and 100'/ of the organic matter. The result is a pipeline gas which may well compete economically with natural gas.

• Hither and Yon. Process develop­ment was not restricted to any one seg­ment of industry in 1958. New pro­duction methods, and modifications to existing methods, cropped up through­out the entire chemical process indus­tries. Hampshire Chemical jumped into the chelate business, an apparently overcrowded field, armed with an eco­nomically attractive process. Rather than the commonly used sodium cya­nide, Hampshire starts with hydro­cyanic acid to make ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid. From it come all amino acid chelates.

National Carbide put the ax t o the cost of making acetylene by devising a method to reclaim waste calcium hy­droxide, a by-product of the company's acetvlene production. National con­verts calcium hydroxide to calcium oxide at its Calvert City, K>\, plant. This is simple, but National also de­veloped a high pressure briqueting machine which molds the oxide par­ticles into stable briquets without us­ing a binder.

Here are a few more of the many other process development highlights of 1958:

• Procter and Gamble switched from sodium reduction to catalytic hydro­génation to make long chain, fatty al­cohols. Its high pressure process, which reduces esters rather than acids, residts in "considerable savings/ ' says P&G.

• Another new money-saver is "Mag­gie," Hercules Powder's nitric acid con­centrating process. With it, Hercules switches from sulfuric aciu to magne­sium nitrate as dehydrator. changes from packed to tray distillation col­umns, and eliminates costly sulfuric acid concentrators.

• Hooker Chemical cut cost coiners with its new process to recover hydro­gen chloride and chlorine. I ts con­tinuous two-zone solvent extraction process eliminates the need for costly anticorrosion equipment. Claims fcr the new method: initial ouday halved, operating and maintenance costs sliced more than 50'<, less downtime.

NITRIC REFLUX

NITRIC L CONDENSER NITRIC

NITRIC ι ACID <60<X>)

I MAGNESIUM L CARBONATE V v . ' »x

RECYCLE NITRIC

9 9 - f % NITRIC^ ACID

S2<2 £ 2 o O — o.

. < ζ < , 5 >

ACID SALT FEED NITRIC I

STORAGE]

4 4 C â Ε Ν J A N . 5, ! 9 5 9