PRODUCTION: Freon to the Front

Few U.S. civilians even noticed when WPB clamped down on dichlorodifluoromethane (C C12 F2). Most people did not know that they 1) had ever had it, 2) needed it, 3) had lost it.

But C C12 F2 is trademarked by Kinetic Chemicals Inc. as “Freon-12,” and is the nontoxic, noninflammable gas that is the freezing agent in practically all electric refrigerators and air-conditioning machinery. Early this year the U.S. Army made tests, found that Freon was not only the nation’s No. 1 refrigerant but also a No. 1 killer of tropical insects.

During the past two months the Carney’s Point, NJ. plant of Kinetic Chemicals (a joint General Motors-Du Pont subsidiary) bloomed with a 20% expansion. But the Army kept asking for more, and still more Freon. WPB tightened up. Kinetic now has under way another 75% plant expansion. But for the next six months, at least, civilians who want Freon for “comfort cooling” will do without. Notable victims: Price Boss Prentiss Brown, Congressman Sol Bloom, whose office air conditioning was cut off fortnight ago when the Freon leaked out.

Freon in the Pantry. In 1929 the only refrigerants in use were compounds which might possibly poison a housewife or blow up in a refrigerator owner’s face. Brooding on refrigeration’s future, General Motors appeals to big, famed Thomas Midgley Jr., vice president of Ethyl Corp., creator of ethyl gas.

General Motors wanted a quick “discovery.” To act as a refrigerant, a new freezing agent must be found which had a boiling point between 0° and —40° Centigrade. The compound must also be nonpoisonous and noninflammable. Would Mr. Midgley please get busy.

Chemist Midgley buckled down, with a corps of able assistants, in Frigidaire’s Dayton, Ohio laboratory. Compound after compound was examined, tested, cast aside. Finally Chemist Midgley hit on dichlorodifluoromethane (carbon; chlorine; water; and the mineral, fluorspar). It was nonpoisonous, odorless, would not support flame. For the second spectacular time, Midgley had rung the laboratory bell.*

General Motors called on Du Pont to devise a cheap, quick method of manufacture. Kinetic Chemicals was set up in 1931, with Frigidaire the one & only customer. Gradually, other manufacturers began to eye Freon respectfully, began to design their machinery accordingly. By the time WPB called a halt on electric refrigerators early last year, all but two U.S. refrigerator makers were using Freon.

War plants not only air-condition with Freon, but use it to keep precision tools at a constant temperature. Because of its safety, the U.S. Navy and Maritime Commission use it exclusively on ships andsubmarines. Then last May the Surgeon General’s office showed up with a malarial mosquito-killer called an aerosol, publicized as the “mosquito bomb.” The “Mosquito Bomb” is a spray gun holding about one pound of insecticide.

The “hunter” pulls a trigger, releases a high-pressure charge which saturates the air of tent, hut, or dugout with a quick insect-killing mixture of sesame oil and extract of pyrethrum flowers, vaporized by Freon. Aerosol, says the Army, tracks down mosquitoes to the last, remote fold of clothing and tent. Chief producer of aerosol is Westinghouse. But Freon is still the essential spreading agent of aerosol.

To owners of refrigerators and cooling systems now in good working order, the shortage is theoretical. Once sealed in, Freon is good indefinitely, does not wear out or deteriorate. Trouble is that it may leak out. The trade magazine, Electrical Merchandizing, warned its refrigerator-dealer readers: “Make a complete leak test a part of every service call.” But citizens whose Freon is leaking may as well order ice. Freon is at the front.

* Longtime board chairman of the American Chemical Society and recipient of almost every important medal that organization confers, Midgley in 1930 stood before his admiring fellow chemists in convention at Atlanta. Dramatically he demonstrated Freon’s safety by drawing the gas into his lungs, using it to put out a lighted paper. The staid scientists gave him a rowdy ovation.