1942: Chemistry

The war has, of course, been the dominating influence throughout 1942 in chemistry as in practically all activities. The requirements of the military establishment and lend-lease have brought profound changes and stimulated many important developments, but in many cases information concerning them cannot be published during the emergency. To a great extent the story of 1942 is concerned with the rapid development and utilization of products and processes.

The chemical industry has turned more and more to production for war needs, and this has necessitated great expansion of many units, as well as considerable readjustment. Concurrently a number of related industries have been converted from their normal activities to work that at first glance would seem not even related to their peacetime interests. Several of the large chemical companies have contracted with the Government for the erection and management of war plants, owned by the Government, where their skilled direction and personnel are proving invaluable.

The personnel problem arose early in the year and confronts the chemical industries even more than the colleges and universities. Trained and experienced chemists and chemical engineers are needed in war work in ever-increasing numbers, and when new plants now under construction come into operation, the need will be even more acute. To improve this situation some colleges and technical schools are speeding up their instruction, adding evening courses, even encouraging the enrollment of women.

One of the great differences between this war and World War I is where scarcities have appeared. Twenty-five years ago we lacked potash, nitrogen, dyes — all now available here in sufficient quantities. On the other hand, unexpected scarcities keep cropping up, often in places where only a few months ago there were surpluses, as in metals, rubber, plastics, silk.

The Alien Property Custodian in December announced that he had taken over some 50,000 enemy-owned patents, many of them covering such important chemicals as dyes, drugs, alloy steels, aluminum, and magnesium. These are to be licensed to United States manufacturers, and already a considerable number of applications have been received.

Early in 1942 many difficult problems were suddenly put to the chemists and chemical engineers of the country; the Japanese overrunning of the Far East removed our source of supply of essential strategic raw materials.

Rubber.

The rubber situation has undoubtedly been foremost in the public eye of late. Although during the past few years several types of synthetic rubber had been brought into commercial production on a small scale in the United States for specialty uses, they had had to compete with cheaper natural rubber. Our stockpile of natural rubber had been built up to a size the largest in our history, yet still far below the needs that developed.

Last spring and summer rubber chemists worked night and day, while over their heads raged the controversy of whether to use alcohol or petroleum for making butadiene, and which process should have precedence in making other types of synthetic rubber. The report of the Baruch Committee and the appointment of W. M. Jeffers as Rubber Administrator brought order out of what had approached chaos. As The New York Times said editorially, 'Unquestionably the very best formula for synthetic rubber is the one President Roosevelt has hit upon. It comprises Baruch, Compton, and Conant. The finest ingredient for producing any mixture is brains.'

The problem of supplying needed rubber was thrown squarely into the laps of the technical men, to be solved only by the production of 'synthetic rubber' in quantities heretofore hardly imagined. Our goal is now 877,000 tons annually, and if the program can be carried out it is expected that in September 1943 synthetic rubber will be manufactured in large enough amounts to offset the drain on the natural rubber stockpile.

In May two of the Government's new plants erected for synthetic rubber went into production. The making of butadiene, to be polymerized into rubber, from alcohol and from petroleum has gone forward faster than at one time seemed possible, but late in December it was reported that the program was lagging. Delays in finishing synthetic rubber plants are traceable to the demand for new aviation gasoline refineries, that require the same sort of equipment as the butadiene plants. There are bottlenecks in such equipment as heat exchangers, boilers, turbines, and electrical equipment, which must compete with army and navy demands.

In spite of the rush to get into production the types of synthetic rubber that we know how to make, research has gone forward in other directions, and Flexon, similar to butyl rubber, and Noropol, made from soybean and corn oils, are now being tested on a pilot-plant scale; and a rubberlike substance made from dairy by-products has been announced. The Houdry process for catalytic cracking to produce butadiene commercially from oil was announced in July, and a catalytic process of oil refining known as isoversion is expected materially to increase production of 100-octane gasoline and synthetic rubber.

A great deal of attention has been devoted to producing substitutes for rubber. At least three types of resins familiar as the interlayer in safety glass have been used in waterproofing fabrics. Formulations of ethylcellulose plastics have been developed to replace rubber in electrical tape, insulation, and coated fabrics. An elastic yarn from vinylite resins is said to be superior to rubber for military equipment because of resistance to sunlight, tropical heat, and humidity. Resistoflex, a rubber substitute compounded from polyvinyl alcohol, is used in gas and air lines on automatic machines for forming radio tubes, for tubing and hose, washers, and mechanical parts. Transflex tubing, used to secure continued effective insulation on aircraft flying at high altitudes, is transparent, flexible, and resistant to brittleness down to —50° C. Synthetic rubber thread has been made from Ameripol and put into parachutes, gas masks, respirators, etc.

The United States Department of Agriculture reported an economical process for making butylene glycol from farm crops, and has developed it to a pilot-plant scale. Useful as an antifreeze and in commercial solvents, it is also being studied as a possible link in the production of butadiene.

Auto tires made of 99.84 per cent synthetic rubber are now being tested on the highways of the country. Several plans have been advanced looking to the use of reclaimed rubber and also of such synthetics as Thiokol for tires for civilian use.

A new method of reclaiming used rubber, which is said to increase the capacity of certain existing equipment by 60 per cent, has been developed by the U. S. Rubber Co. The processing cycle is reduced from 16 to 9.5 hrs. and the quality of the finished reclaim is improved.

A mission has been sent to Russia to study synthetic rubber methods there.

Concurrently, investigations of guayule, the Russian dandelion, and other possible rubber-bearing plants have taken on new urgency and plantings have been made on a large scale. Efforts are being made, with gratifying success in spite of small tonnages, to secure as much natural rubber as possible from South and Central America, and recently an abandoned rubber plantation in Hawaii was reported as about to be tapped after years of neglect.

Medicinals and Pharmaceuticals.

Quinine was obtained largely from Java until the Japanese blitz, and its scarcity is especially serious when our armed forces are fighting in the malarial swamps and jungles of the Far East. Efforts are being made to get natural quinine from South and Central America, and three substitutes have been developed — totaquine, atabrine, and pamaquine naphthoate. Atabrine is now being produced in this country at the rate of half a billion tablets a year and promises to give excellent service.

Work has continued on the sulfa drugs, which worked almost a miracle after Pearl Harbor, bringing about absence of pus in wounds, mildness of postoperative reactions, and swift clean healing of wounds, even when contaminated with soil. Not a single massive infection was found ten days later, whereas in World War I infection killed 80 per cent of men with abdominal wounds. After Pearl Harbor not a single loss of arm or leg was necessary because of infection. These drugs have also been found helpful for such diverse ailments as the common cold, peritonitis, impetigo, subacute bacterial endocarditis, and skin infections.

Sulfanilylaminoguanidine, similar to sulfaguanidine, has been prepared and found useful in treating bacillary dysentery. A British scientist showed that sulfanilamide attacks bacteria by starving them. It resembles p-aminobenzoic acid, which some bacteria need for growth, but does not promote growth.

A new surgical dressing that is useful for burns and wounds has been made from a sulfa drug film that can be cut and rolled like a bandage.

Antibodies were formed artificially in the laboratory for the first time, by modification in shape and structure of large molecules of certain blood proteins, serum globulins, which takes place in the presence of disease germs or virus particles.

Experiments at Johns Hopkins hinted at the existence of a paternity chemical. Ability to become fathers was lost by human volunteers who lived on a diet lacking in arginine, one of the ten essential amino acids.

Curare, the deadliest of all poisons, was isolated in pure crystalline form, four times as powerful as curare extract.

Fluorescein injected into a vein is used to show under ultraviolet light how fast blood is flowing through the body and whether amputation is required.

Clotting globulin, the natural clotting constituent of blood, is separated in highly concentrated form from clear blood plasma and offers new hope for hemophiliacs and help in surgical treatments to prevent excessive bleeding.

Vitamins.

Discovery of the structure of biotin was announced by Vincent du Vigneaud and is expected to pave the way to the synthesis of this supervitamin. The empirical formula was established about two years ago.

Vitamin E is now being produced, starting with soybean, cottonseed, and corn oil. Recent advances include the production of pure crystalline vitamin A and its esters, crystalline alpha-tocopherol acetate, and gamma-tocopherol palmitate, and isolation of the new provitamin A, which has been named kitol and isolated from whale liver oil.

Riboflavin, vitamin B₂, was to be required in enriched flour beginning July 1, 1942, but the date had to be postponed to April 20, 1943, because sufficient vitamin was not available for the purpose. Concentrated riboflavin has been made from whey.

Persimmon leaves were found to be rich in vitamin C. This vitamin was reported helpful in hay fever and in staving off heat prostration. It seems to be drained from the body in perspiration, like salt, and can be supplied in tablets in a similar way. Color blindness was helped by vitamin A treatment. Germs that destroy pantothenic acid were suggested as being at the root of the gray hair problem. Synthetic vitamin K was suggested as a preventive of tooth decay.

Substitutes and Alternates.

A number of substitutes for rubber have already been mentioned. Many metals and structural materials have also become scarce, and the plastics that were first considered as replacements are feeling the pinch in their turn, as raw materials become unavailable while the demand continues to mount.

At the Second National Exposition of Chemical Industries, held in Chicago the last week of November, the exhibit of the American Chemical Society was devoted to 'Substitutes and Alternates,' many of them products of the other exhibitors.

Tin is one of the critical materials, especially now when canned foods are needed in ever larger quantities for the fighting forces and for Lend-Lease. Quick-freezing and dehydration are helping and new types of containers are being developed. A fiber container that can be made on the same machines used for fabricating metal containers promises to be excellent for dry products, drugs, spices, etc. Lead tubes for tooth paste have wax or resinous coatings to protect the contents. A lacquer substitute for tin coatings, made from lactic acid and vegetable oils, can be used with evaporated and condensed milk and cheese.

Half of the tin in a can can be saved by a new electroplating process, using a neutral instead of alkaline solution, which gives a thinner and more uniform coating. Lead bearings can be used in place of tin, and alloys with lead as base metal in Diesel engines and air compressors.

The electrolytic tin-plating industry is being expanded to take care of a large portion of United Nations' tinplate needs. A year ago there were only two continuous tin-plating lines capable of handling strip 30 in. wide at speeds above 300 ft. per minute. Now 14 new lines are in operation.

A new process for recovering tin from tin cans has been put into commercial operation after being tested for five years. Methods have been worked out for recovering about 24 lbs. of tin oxide and almost a ton of scrap steel from a ton of discarded cans.

Silver can replace tin in soft solders and in brazing alloys, and can be used in bearings for aircraft engines. Silver-lined containers are being considered for foodstuffs, chemicals, etc., as investigation indicates that pore-free deposits of silver 0.001 in. deep on deep drawing steel are readily obtainable, and on suitable base metals deposits as thin as 0.0001 in. are possible. It seems practicable to manufacture relatively low-cost silver-lined containers, such as barrels, drums, and the like. Silver can replace copper in bus bars, windings for transformers, and similar electrical apparatus. However, although there is a large stock of silver in the country, most of it is held by the Treasury and under existing laws can be released only in comparatively small quantities and for uses where the silver can be returned after the war.

Saran is a chemically resistant thermoplastic resin that as pipe and tubing offers almost unlimited possibilities in chemical processing plants. It is tough, durable, flexible, lightweight, and resistant to abrasion and corrosion.

Lead pipe and tank linings are replacing rubber in industrial operations. Lead gaskets and collapsible tubes are saving tin and aluminum. Leadfoil laminated wrappings are being widely used, and lead coatings save zinc, tin, cadmium, and nickel formerly used to protect iron and steel. Lead alloy couplings are used for copper and bronze on certain types of cement-asbestos pipe.

Zirconium oxide is replacing tin and antimony oxides in the ceramic industry, and zirconium and titanium products take the place of mica and steatite in the electrical field. Lignin and lignin plastics are used in place of phenolic plastics or metal. Paper tubes are now manufactured to precision tolerances on specially adapted heat die machines, and automatically wound spirally. Palladium alloys have been developed to save platinum, no longer allowed in jewelry.

Fused glass drops, just as good as formerly imported sapphire jewel bearings for electrical indicating instruments, are now being produced in quantity in this country. A radio panel can be made from a layer of spun-glass cloth sandwiched between fireproof plastic.

Thousands of hoarded pennies and nickels were turned in as the result of a recent drive instigated by the shortage of copper and nickel. A nickel-less 5-cent piece containing 56 per cent copper, 35 per cent silver, and 9 per cent manganese instead of the 75 per cent copper and 25 per cent nickel in the old 'nickel' is now in circulation. The manganese had to be added to reduce electrical conductivity to the level of the older coin, so it could be used in slot machines. The Treasury is ready to begin minting pennies and a new 3-cent piece of zinc-coated steel to save copper.

Molybdenum is used instead of tungsten in a tough alloy for cutting steel with steel. Stainless steel mobilized with silver alloys becomes more stainless and more workable.

Self-lubricating iron bearings, saturated with oil, used in place of bronze, save copper.

In a new process for chlorinating paper pulp, the method of application ensures a uniform mixture of chlorine and pulp and greater efficiency in the use of chlorine. Dresinate, a wetting and emulsifying agent, has been developed for use with alkaline metal cleaners, to replace some of the chlorinated solvents, now scarce because of chlorine shortage.

Nitroparaffins, made by treating propane with nitric acid, may bring a revolution in the paint industry. A cork substitute has been made from sugar cane, felted into boards and laminated with weather-resistant asphalts.

Wheat germ, suggested as a war diet substitute for cheese, beefsteak, etc., has been found as good or better than casein for maintaining growth.

New oils made from linseed and soybean are replacing tung oil in quick-drying paints. Peanuts and soybeans are becoming key United States crops and finding continual new applications. With coconut oil imports from the Philippines cut off, domestic sources of oil gain in importance.

New strains of sesame, important for its oil, have been obtained by treatment with colchicine. They produce approximately the same number of seeds, but 56 per cent larger.

The full-scale commercial production of a new synthetic quick-drying oil called Conjulin, made by isomerization from linseed and similar to tung oil, has been started.

Metals and Minerals.

The huge increase in armament for our mechanized army has brought steel and other metals to the scarce list.

The United States in 1942 produced more than a 1,000,000,000 lbs. of aluminum and next year expects to make 2,100,000,000 lbs., 63 per cent more than world production in 1938. A new aluminum industry is springing up near the Pacific coast. Recent developments have been a new lighter stronger alloy, a process for making forged aluminum cylinder heads for aircraft engines, new and improved methods of fabricating aluminum, new chemical and electrochemical finishes, as well as synthetic resin coatings, and new processes for using low-grade bauxite ore.

A new process recommended to the War Production Board makes it possible to include a substantial quantity of clay with low-grade bauxite ore in producing alumina.

A new ferrosilicon reduction process for production of magnesium from dolomite uses relatively simple equipment and the reaction proceeds smoothly and without hazard. Several companies are interested in putting it to work.

A welding process that will make possible all-magnesium airplanes has been perfected. Magnesium is being reclaimed by a new welding method, using helium.

The Bureau of Mines has done a great deal of investigation and exploration this year, swelling estimated mineral reserves of chromite, manganese, mercury, iron, tungsten, nickel, bauxite, and higher-grade alumina clays by more than 32,000,000 tons. Production of helium was increased more than 3 times over 1940. WPB authorized construction of 5 mills to produce flake graphite from American deposits. Topaz from South Carolina was found to provide a suitable substitute for Indian kyanite in refractories. A pilot plant is to conduct tests of a gas-reduction process for making zinc, and another to test methods of producing sponge iron, to provide low-carbon iron in place of scrap. Sponge chromium 99.8 per cent pure, should be valuable in the manufacture of special steels, brass, and bronze materials.

A new source of vanadium found in the phosphate ores of Idaho, is estimated at 6,000,000,000 tons, enough to make this country self-sufficient.

Experiments are now under way on a new steel made without chromium, that can be electrically welded into seamless tubing on available equipment.

Metallurgists have developed five new blended hardeners for steel, using boron and small amounts of aluminum, which are expected to ease the alloy steel shortage.

It has been found that iron can replace all nickel and a third of the copper in printing plates.

Miscellaneous Developments.

A very unusual ceremony took place in Chicago November 20, when Vladimir N. Ipatieff was honored on the occasion of his 75th birthday, which was also the golden jubilee of his career in chemistry and his golden wedding anniversary.

Synthetic cellobiose, the fundamental building block of cellulose, has been made. This will give scientists a better knowledge of how cellulose is put together and enable them to use it more effectively.

The synthesis of lactose was announced by C. S. Hudson of the United States Public Health Service. Its structure had been known for some time, but it had never been synthesized previously.

Synthetic p-cymene, useful as an intermediate in the manufacture of phenols, thymol, and menthol, was announced, and a plant to make it is under construction.

The need for nickel and cobalt for wires in certain types of vacuum tubes was eliminated by the development of an iron-glass seal. A series of glass compositions has been devised which can be used with iron and certain iron alloys, because the rate of expansion is very close to that of iron.

A porcelain glaze for insulators has increased the strength of porcelain more than 100 per cent, made manufacturing easier, and imparted better weather-resistance.

Plastic lenses for cameras and spectacles can be protected from scratches by a glass film a few thousandths of an inch thick.

Mass production of precision lenses for microscopes, projectors, and other optical instruments has been made possible by a scientifically controlled process of heat-treating optical glass.

Sandless glass containing compounds of tantalum, tungsten, and lanthanum with boric acid is now being made on a small scale. Used in aerial cameras with compound lenses, it gives better definition over a wider area with no loss of lens speed.

Microphotography now has its own journal, The Journal of Documentary Reproduction. A new type of safety microfilm is an ultra-fine-grain panchromatic negative film with a high inherent contrast and outstanding resolving power.

Electron microscopy, newest of research techniques, received a stimulus at the first formal meeting of its devotees in Chicago at the time of the Chemical Exposition. The National Conference of Electron Microscopy was organized there and officers elected. New instruments, smaller and more easily used than previous models, are now available.

Infrared rays are being used to dry textiles after dyeing and finishing processes. Dyes have been made directly from soft coal, instead of from coal tar.

New chemical products for crime detection include a developer for latent fingerprints, and a fuming apparatus for developing fingerprints on greasy surfaces and fabrics.

Improved synthetic camphor yield is seen in a recent patent that deals with new technique for increasing the yield of an important intermediate, bornyl chloride.

New applications of melamine resins are in buttons and in treatment of paper pulp to impart great wet strength to the sheet and increase resistance to folding.

Pliofilm is being used in airplane and similar industries to hurry fabrication of templates.

Celastic, a colloid-treated fabric, affords quick repairs and alterations for patterns of metal castings, speeding military production.

A new fumigant for grain and flour, chlorinated nitroethane, is highly penetrating and deadly to insects but harmless to humans.

Levulinic acid, formerly a laboratory curiosity, has been made from cornstarch and may find uses in industry and medicine.

New synthetic plant hormones have been prepared at the Boyce Thompson Institute from organic acids by addition of atom groups containing chlorine, bromine, and iodine. They cause formation of seedless fruits and induce profound changes in growth.

Bromelin, an enzyme from pineapples, is used to make tough meats tender.

Bubblfil is air trapped in a continuous stream of cellophane bubbles. It is buoyant as kapok and is used in air compartments of lifeboats and life rafts and in pontoons.

Foamglas, weighing 10 pounds per cubic foot, can be sawed and drilled, and is being made in commercial quantities. Because this glass will float, it is finding use in lifesaving devices of the Navy and Air Corps.

Aqualized paper fabric, a substitute for cloth and burlap, is made by interlocking and fastening individual fibers, giving inherent wet strength independent of coating or sizing.

Waxy starch from selected strains of corn and sorghum may replace imported tapioca in textiles, industry, and foods.

Smokeless powder is now being made from wood cellulose pulp as the result of a new process. It is estimated that the development will save the United States Government $20,000,000 in 1943 and will free Canada and Australia from dependence on cotton.