Evening star., 1943-05-30

scrapped after the warp asked an
official, repeating a question which
had just been put to him. I'VE are
going to put out product that will
be superior to natural in every way.
1t will be cheap. Then, the Govern
ment has s6OO,OO0,O0O already in
vested in these plants. What do you
think?"
Covers Hundreds of Acres.
The institute plants sprawl over
hundreds of acres. The buildings
house seemingly endless chain of
giant boilers and compressors, con-
nected by literally hundreds of miles
of pipes. Thousands of delicate in
struments are used Giant storage
tanks for alcohol. butadiene and sty-
rene dot the whole scene.
Manufacture of synthetic rubber
is a striking example of mans DOM
ination of the machine. Little work
is done by hand. In fact, only 1850
men are employed here. 1t is esti-
mated that nearly 400 900 workers
would be necessary to gather plan
tation rubber in quantity equivalent
to the 10000 tons which will be pro-
duced here annually.
At full capacity, the butadiene
plant here will consume $4,000 gal
ions of alcohol day. If this alco-
hol were made from corn, this plant
would use each year the crop from
100000 acres A total of 10000 gall
Ions of water will be used each
minute, enough for the needs Of
cirv the size of Los Angeles. More
than half the electrical generation
of the State of Delaware is needed
to run Institutes machinery. The
equivalent of 140-car train of
coal is used weekly.
3 Units in Full Production.
Three of the butadiene units at
Institute are now in full production.
Together the four will produce 80,-
900 tons of butadiene year. One
of two styrene units, which will
make $4,000 tons a year, is now in
operation. The United States Rub
ber's copolymer plant will have
three units. One of these is now
running. The raw-rubber unit has
produced between 400 and 500 tons
of crude in about a fortnight of
operation.
Institute will be in complete op-
Grafton in August or September.
Plant officials said difficulty is being
experienced in obtaining equipment
for the last two units of the copoly-
mer plant. They spoke of the same
shortage of "components" about
which much has been heard in
Washington in the conflict between
the programs for making rubber,
aviation gasoline. escort vessels and
merchant ships. The institute plants
will be completed two months be-
hind the original schedule, though
officials were hopeful of making up
this time later.
The final product of Institute is
synthetic crude rubber 1t is dried
and pressed into 75-pound bales.
ready for shipment to the fabricat-
ing plant. At this stage it COM
pares with the natural rubber as
it is unloaded from boat in San
Francisco or New York.
There still is much to be done
with Institutes product when it
arrives at the tire factory.
An almost equal portion of carbon
black must be mixed with the rub
ber. Carbon black is nothing more
than the SCOT the housewife finds
on her kitchen walls, by-product
of the burning of gas. 1t lends
strength to the rubber, and without
it synthetic would be useless. Sui
phur is added for elasticity. Some
coal tar is put in as a softener or
plasticizer An anti-oXygen ele-
ment is then applied to prevent the
product from deteriorating when
exposed to air Then it is ready
for fabrication into tires. Because
of the large carbon content, syn
thetic tires will all be black
Production Steps Listed.
Principal steps in making syn
thetic rubber follow:
Butadiene process:
/. Alcohol. made from fermenta-
ton of grain and shipped to the
plant in tank cars, IS passed through
series of converters and, by heat
and the action OF special catalysts
portion of it is converted to
butadiene
2. Butadiene is purified by dis
tilling and washing until it is over