The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-03-18

also points to- wards the possible uses for all this production after the war, in what has frequently been hailed as the coming Tight metals revolution"
 Some 46,000 tons of this years production of magnesium are being set aside for War Department ex- perimentation program to find new uses for the metal, especially in air. craft.
 Development of magnesium pro- duction in the U. s. has been in- volved by 10 years of legal battling, on which the Truman Committee now throws some new light and makes some new conclusions tending to .absolve the two principal pre- war American producers, Dow Chemical, American Magnesium and Magnesium Development Corpora tion-the last two being Aluminium Company of America subsidiaries - of much of the abuse that has been heaped upon them, saying that without their efforts, the U. s. might have had no magnesium in- dustry at all.
 l. G. FARBEN IN THE PICTURE
 American Magnesium had stopped production in 1927 after Alcoa had lost $1,000,00O. Dow Chemical had also lost money, but 1t had pioneered new low-coSt process, and Ameri- can Magnesium could buy from Dow cheaper than 1t could produce itself. But in 1881, the Aluminium Com- pany (Alcoa) made an agreement with the principal German pro- ducer, I. c. Farben, forming new jointly owned Magnesium Develop ment Corporation to control Farben patents and processes in the U. s. There followed an infringement suit against Dow which was withdrawn in 1884 when Alcoa and Dow agreed to cross license patents.
 In 1941 the Department of Justice obtained an antitrust indictment against this combination. The Amer ican companies paid fines of $140,- 900, cancelled cross licensing, agreed to rayolty free use.
 Today, the U. s. government has invested approximately $515 900 900 in magnesium production and fabri- eating. Production has been in- erased 80 times, the cost brought down to 201a cents 8 pound (alum- mum costs 1N. Every pound of magnesium replacing aluminium in plane construction permits that plane to carry another half-pound of fuel or cargo.
 PLANTS SCATTERED
 EVERYWHERE
 Today there are two private and 13 government plants, only six of which are now producing at ca pacity.
 Dow Chemical produces mag nesium by electrolysis of sea water or brine from wells at Midland, Marysville and Ludington, Mich, Freeport and Velasco, Tex. Dow "know-how" is used by Diamond Magnesium at Gainesville, O., in recovery from the waste liquors of lime production; and by Interna- tional Minerals and Chemical at Austin, Tex, from the end liquors ! of potash produced from brine.
 Henry J. Kaisers Permanente, Calit., plant, using magnesia ob- tained from brine or magnestie ore, mixes 1t with coke in an electric arc furnace to produce magnesium yapor which IS then condensed and distilled into pure magnesium.
 Original costs of this metal were over dollar a pound, but this has been reduced to 35 cents per pound or cost of production, whichever is less.
 A costly ferro-silicon process, mix ing this ore with magnesium bear ing dolomite ore and heating in retort under vacuum produces mag nesium vapor which is distilled. Half a dozen companies use it.
 A German process adapted by the British Magnesium Elektron, Ltd, interests is used by Basic Mag nesium, Inc, now taken over and ' operated by Anaconda Copper Co., at Las Vegas, NeV.
 It is on this basis that Americas magnesium industry of the future is to be built.