Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-04-06
Vanilla F|avoring
From Trees Hint
New Forest Wealth
Chemists Are Told
Wood By-Produets
May Include Food
By q STAFF Correspondent of The Star.

By Staf Correspondent OF The Star.
BALTIMORE, April 6.-Flavoring
vanilla ice cream from Canadian
hemlocks, an opening wedge for
the utilization of one-fourth the
substance of wood which now goes
to waste in manufacture of white
paper and rayon, was announced
before the American Chemical So
ciety here today by group of Mont
real investigators.
Already, it was revealed by Prof
Harold HILBERT of McGill Univer-
sity, Canadian factory is in OPP
Grafton making several hundred
pounds day of vanillin, the chief
component of vanilla extract, out
of this waste which hitherto has
polluted streams, poisoned fishes and
been a constant "headache' for
wood and paper chemists.
Vanillin, DR.. HILBERT said, prob
ably is just start for a long line
Of industrial products, including
foods, which will bring new wealth
to the Northern forests. Of even
more significance than immediate
practical economic value is the fact
that the Canadian scientists appar-
emily have uncovered one of the
fundamental principles of plant BIZ
ology.
Mysterious Lignin Probed.
The hitherto wasted substance is
hgnin, blackish- brown, sooty ma
terial which is diffused through
wood. Ir the past it has largely
def1ed chemical analysis and IA
years ago the McGill chemists start
ed out to determine it's structure,
in order to get at some cheaper way
of getting rid of it. In the manu-
ture of rayon from wood pulp, DR..
HILBERT said. nearly half MILAN
tons of lignin now go to waste every
year.
For the past so years, he said, it
has been known that the substance
could be gotten out of the wood by
boiling with such chemicals as sui
furic acid. It was known to be de-
posted on the cellulose cell wall
during the process of plant growth
and in order to make cellulose pulp
from wood equal in quality to cotton
cellulose, it was necessary to remove
these crust infiltrations without at
the same time damaging the pulp
fbers.
Prof. Hibbert's discoveries came as
the elimination of the work of many
research students and assistants.
but were based, he said, on certain
theoretical deductions of his own as
to the mechanism of the most fun
damental process in nature, the
cornerstone of life. This is the wav
IN which a plant grows under the
influence of sunlight and the green
coloring mater, chlorophyll, present
IN the leaves of the growing tree.
This pigment acts as a catalyst for
Transforming water and carbon
dioxide, breathed in by the plant
from the atmosphere, into sugars.
Two Principal Sugars.
One Of these sugars, glucose, is
built up into the cellulose cell wall
Of the plant, the chief skeletal ma
,erial of the plant kingdom. The
other principal sugar is fructose. It
seems to serve as the fuel of plant
life, which gives it the energy to
seep breathing and hence growing
and staying alive. The plant, like
The animal. is living furnace, it
vas pointed out.
The end products of a plants
breathing, DR.. Hilbert said, are
carbon dioxide and water-the same
with which the process
started. What becomes, he asked,
Of the "ashes" of the fructose, coal
Of plant life.
He conducted his earliest expert
ments with simpler form of plant |
life, studying the fermentation of |
sugars by yeast and analyzing the
products Of yeast breathing. Some |
OF these were comparable to Ignin,
but simpler. The next step came
when Drs. A. B. Cramer and M. j. |
Hunter of the McGill Laboratory
were able to isolate by mild chemical
treatment certain water soluble sub
stances which apparently are closely
related to lignin, although up to this
time the wood waste has been con-
sidered as insoluble in water and
inert to any chemical reactions.
These are oily substances which can
be broken up quite easily. They are