Electrolytic Cell
date: label: Date made
content: 1937 - 1938
notes: label: Description
content: Gift of William T. Miller
label: Description
content: William T. Miller (1911-1998) was an organic chemist who spent most of his career at Cornell University and established a reputation as an expert on fluorine and its compounds. When he began his work, fluorine had a well-deserved reputation as a highly reactive, dangerous substance that was difficult to work with. Although its theoretical existence as a chemical element had been understood since the early 19th century, and some of its compounds were well known, all attempts to isolate it failed. Finally the French chemist Henri Moissan developed a process for generating pure fluorine in 1886. His discovery was rightly hailed as a major breakthrough (Nobel Prize 1906), opening the field of fluorine chemistry to many further developments. Before World War II these included, most notably, the development of the Freon family of refrigerants, and the low-friction material Teflon.
label: Description
content: When, during World War II, the Manhattan Project faced the challenge of separating the two main isotopes of uranium (U-235 and U-238) in order to build an atomic bomb, fluorine chemistry became a vital part of the effort. Physicists had just discovered that only the rare isotope, U-235, would undergo fission when it absorbed neutrons. A uranium bomb would not be possible unless the U-325, forming less than 1% of the total, could be isolated. This isotope separation would be very difficult because the chemical properties of the two isotopes are identical. Several processes taking advantage of the very slight difference in mass of the isotopes were tried. One of these, gaseous diffusion, required that the uranium be converted into a gas and forced repeatedly through a porous membrane. The only suitable gaseous compound was uranium hexafluoride.
label: Description
content: The gaseous diffusion plant, constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was gigantic, and would be filled with pumps, valves, and miles of piping, all exposed to the extremely reactive uranium hexafluoride. The Manhattan Project called in several fluorine experts, including Miller, to develop seals, gaskets, lubricants, coolants, and other components that could withstand the corrosive conditions. Miller began his share of the work at Cornell, and continued it in secret at Columbia University, devising methods for producing non-reactive fluorine compounds that could be used as oils, greases, and waxes for the plant. These products, and the techniques for making them, proved to be highly successful; they were “still in production by essentially [Miller’s] method” forty years after the end of the war.
label: Description
content: Miller and his group also developed processes for manufacturing fluorine polymers of high molecular weight, which behaved like conventional thermoplastics. These “found a wide range of applications in the Project in situations where a chemically resistant seal, gasket or tube was essential.”
label: Description
content: [Cont. in "web description 2"]
label: Description
content: [cont. from "web descriptiion 1"]
label: Description
content: The collection that Miller gave to the Museum consists of 91 individual parts that compose about a dozen assemblies. They range in date from the late 1930s through the late 1940s and perhaps later. They include electrolytic cells, pressure apparatus, apparatus for storing and dispensing fluorine, valves, valve seats, samples, and other parts. Materials include nickel, Monel metal, glass, and asbestos. They specifically include items made for the Manhattan Project work. It is rare for such things to survive; the high security of the Project usually prevented its products from getting into private hands. Miller prepared an elaborate and detailed “catalog” identifying each object in the donation; this is in the accession file and is an essential reference.
label: Description
content: The first object in the collection, .01.1, is the first fluorine generating cell designed by Miller at Cornell. It was constructed from nickel castings inside an asbestos jacket in 1937-1938, and was used by Miller and his students until the Manhattan Project work provided for two new and larger cells. (Ref.: WTM Catalog E1.1)
label: Description
content: Miller was a creative, energetic, highly competent chemist, well respected by his peers. When World War II was over, General Leslie Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project, wrote him a personal note thanking him for his service. The famous “Smyth Report,” describing for a popular audience the story of the Manhattan Project and published just as the war ended, credits “W.T. Miller and his co-workers,” along with several other individuals and companies, for developing new coolants and lubricants. In 1974 Miller received the American Chemical Society’s Award for Fluorine Chemistry, and in 1986, the Moissan Medal.
label: Description
content: The Miller collection complements the Manhattan Project objects in the Museum’s Modern Physics collection. The collection is well documented: we have Miller’s specific catalogue of the items in his donation, as indicated above, and in addition Cornell University has an extensive, well-organized collection of Miller’s papers that includes documentation of his Manhattan Project work.
label: Description
content: References
label: Description
content: R. E. Banks, D. W. A. Sharp, and J. C. Tatlow, eds., Fluorine. The First Hundred Years (1886-1986), Elsevier Sequoia, 1986, pp. 123, 125, 127-128
label: Description
content: Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, Princeton University Press, 1945, p. 182
label: Description
content: "William Taylor Miller, 87, Organic Chemist" The New York Times, 1998 November 27
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Chemistry
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. William T. Miller
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0268.01.1
label: accession number
content: 1993.0268
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0268.01.1
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Electrolytic Fluorine Cell
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal, nickel (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: asbestos (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 in x 11 in x 17 in; 27.94 cm x 27.94 cm x 43.18 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall approximate: 16 in x 11 1/2 in x 11 1/2 in; 40.64 cm x 29.21 cm x 29.21 cm