Science: Out of the Retorts

The American Chemical Society, meeting in Columbus, Ohio, last week heard that:

> The growing U.S. war demand for chlorine—e.g., for making synthetic rubber; ethylene glycol, which cools the Army’s high-speed airplane engines; ammonium picrate, the Navy’s chief source of explosives—can be met by a new process which 1) requires no electric power, 2) simultaneously produces another badly needed chemical, salt cake. By electrolysis of chlorides (mostly sodium chloride, common salt) the U.S. now makes about 2,200 tons of liquid chlorine a day. But demand is far outstripping supply: engineers last week estimated that a ton of chlorine goes into making a tank, two tons in the making of a plane (in its plastics, paint & varnish, degreasing chemicals, rubber, some alloys). The new process, announced by Chemical Engineers Arthur Warren Hixson and Alvan Howard Tenney of Columbia University: sulfur, through burning and catalysis, is changed to sulfur trioxide gas which is then infiltrated through common salt. The resulting compound (sodium chlorosulfinate) is decomposed by heat to produce salt cake (sodium sulfate) and chlorine. Salt cake, of which the U.S. has imported 40% of its supplies from Germany, is vital in the paper, glass and heavy chemical industries.

> Sulfamic acid, for 60 years a mere laboratory curiosity, is now being produced on an industrial scale and used widely. Du Pont Chemists Martin Eli Cupery and Wallace Emerson Gordon announced that the sulfamates are excellent flameproofing agents for paper and fabric. Ammonium sulfamate sprays will kill ragweed, poison ivy and other noxious plants.