Evening star., 1942-01-24
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.

BY Th0m1S Il. Henry.
Two Columbia University chemists
have developed method by which COM
mon salt can be split in halves, releasing
without the use of electricity greenish-
| yellow suffocating gas which is one Of
the most essential of all war chemicals
The gas Is chlorine. Shortages OF this
vital element during the past few months
have threatened to delay some of Amer
icas most important defense efforts The
supply is almost unlimited. Extraction
has required electric power and ma
terials for machinery badly needed in
| other lines.
They have found Drs Arthur w. Hix-
son and Alvan H. Tenney report to the
| American Chemical Society, a way of
producing chlorine by infiltrating salt
with sulphur gas which splits the mole
| cule without any use of power.
Ordinary table salt or rock salt is half
chlorine. The new method makes it
possible to extract the gas in the neigh
borhood Of great salt deposits without
the necessity of transporting 1t to a
source of electric energy.
A plant capable of turning out 100 tons
of chlorine day, they estimate, can be
| set up by the Government at a cost of
about $2500,000 The total productive
| capacity OF the Nation now is about
1900 tons day.
The significance Of the element is seen
from the fact that approximately two
tons of chlorine goes into the manufac-
ture of an airplane and ton into every
tank that comes of the assembly line
Neoprene, chief ingredient of synthetic
rubber, contains large amounts of the
chemical. Ethylene glycol, used to cool
the Army's high-speed airplane engines,
| requires chlorine in its manufacture, and
1t is one of the chief ingredients of am
monium pictrate, the Nays main source
of explosives. 1t also is used to make the
| lucite windows of modern long-range
bombers and in the waterproof plastic
| insulations Of anti-magnetic cables now
used to protect ships against magnetic
mines.
Huge amounts of chlorine, the two
chemists point out, are used to purify
water supplies of armies In the field. 1t
is one of the chief ingredients OF vari-
Gus deadly gasses
But even more significant Is the neces-
sity Of chlorine in daily life.
Large amounts are required for fumi-
eating grain placed in elevators. Last fall
the situation became so acute that for a
time the Government faced a loss of
about 81 900, 900 a day through deteriora-
ton of stored grain. Priorities were
secured in time to save the situation.
About a third Of the available supply In
the past has been used for bleaching
paper. Quite dirty-looking newspapers
would result from shortage of it.
Another common use is in clothes
cleaning establishments. The long
stretch Of hot weather last fall, requiring
constant cleaning of suits, threatened
real crisis for time.
In the new process, Drs. Hixson and
Tenney explain, sulfur is burned in air
to produce dry sulfur trioxide gas. This
gas is infiltrated through salt, producing
material which, when heated, creates
salt cake and chlorine simultaneously
The chlorine is separated and the gas
reduced to liquid.
|. The heat generated by the burning sui
fur is greater than the amount needed
to bring about the separation thus elm
mating need for the huge amounts of
power now required.
There are great deposits Of salt in
Michigan. Texas. New York, Kansas and
Louisiana, it is pointed out. Stocks of
millions of tons of sulfur from the Gulf
States now are on hand
The salt cake, a by-product of the
process, also is significant for war uses,
Drs. Hixson and Tenney explain. 1t is
an important raw material in the glass,
paper and rayon industries Before the
war about 40 per cent of the Nations
supply came from Germany.
hEHH
Trained scientists should be at the
| front as haison officers between armed
forces and university and industrial lab
oratories.
There also should be scientific at
taches at all embassies.
Such are the recommendations of
conference of British scientists and tech
nicians, which included some of the
Nations foremost specialists. The gist
of their discussions has been given
out by the British Press Associa-
ton here. Delegations were named to
place the program before the appropri-
ate Government departments
The presence of trained scientists in
the armed forces is vital, declared Prof.
Levy of the Imperial College of Science.
They could bring back from the
battlefelds," he said, technical infor-
nation necessary to the conduct of the
war. This must not be left to backstage
men not actually at the front conducting
warfare.
What Germany and Russia have
done has filled us with amazement, but
both countries possessed planned econo-
mics whereas we have been behind in
every application of science in warfare.
Users of tanks and planes must be
scientifically trained and those higher in
command must include scientists"
The present liaison, it was stressed by
DR.. D. P. Riley, foreign relations officer
of the Association of Scientific Workers,
'is too much at the top and does not
penetrate the rank and file. Scientific
officers should be appointed Immediately
to our embassies. Anglo-American con-
tact is close but technical collaboration
compared to that in Russia is still the
|