WEALTH FROM WASTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19712, 11 August 1927, Page 6

WEALTH FROM WASTE.

| A TRIUMPH OF RESEARCH. production of furfural. EXTRACTION FROM OAT HUSKS. MANY INDUSTRIAL USES. K ~~~~~~~ BY STUART H. WILSON, M.SC. Most people have some appreciation 0 f the valuable service science has rendered to industry, but few perhaps fully realise the great progress that has been made in the last few years. In no branch is this more noteworthy than in chemistry. Every year seems to be marked by the introduction of new products, or cheaper methods of making ones already well known. Substances that were formerly merely laboratory curiosities are now commercial products. An instance that springs to the mind is the rare gas helium, first discovered in the sun by means of the spectroscope, and now extracted in large quantities from natural gas for filling airships, and quite recently used to replace nitrogen in the compressed air supplied to divers to alleviate the distressing complaint from which they are liable to suffer. One can also instance little-known metals such as vanadium, tungsten, chromium, now as alloy steels indispensable to the motor-car industry, and even useful to the housewife as constituents of stainless steel knives. Specimen Jars to Tank-cars. Even to those who have made chemistry their study, some of the recent developments come as a surprise, quite a romance of "industry. They will 'remera. ber the cupboard of organic chemicals that every university laboratory has, where were to be seen innumerable bottles containing a few ounces of organic liquids, The student learnt their properties, and made a few experiments with them, but he regarded them as of only theoretical interest, and would hardly have believed that in a few years they would be booght and sold not in pounds or gallons, but in tank-car lots. One can mention butyl alcohol, now produced in large quantities by the fermentation of grain, and used for lacquers and varnishes, ethylene glycol, used in America for anti-freezing mixtures in motor-car radiators, and tetraethyl lead, used as anti-knock in gasoline. A few years ago an organic liquid called furfural was similarly merely a laboratory curiosity. Before 1922 it cost in America from 6 dollars to 30 dollars a, pound; in January, 1925, it cost on a dollar, and as production increased its price fell from 25 cents in September, 1925, to 15 cents in Slay, 1926." In 1921 quotations were for a few pounds in glass bottles; in 1926 for tank-car -lots of fifty to sixty thousand pounds. These -figures show not only that a new industry has been developed, but also that other industries have been provided ..with a valuable raw material. Indeed, there has been hardly time for the possible applications of the new material to be fully exploited; a few years ago even its present uses could not have been dreamed of at its former "prohibitive price. Research in Waste Materia!. The discovery of the process of making furfural illustrates the. value of research, even if it is unsuccessful in its primary aim. Large quantities of oat hulls are left as a useless residue in the manufacture of breakfast foods. Methods were sought of disposing profitably of this valueless by-product. Efforts were made to convert it into a digestible food for animals. It was found to be possible though not profitable to convert the hulls into sugar, but instead, in the course of/ the investigation, a method was found of producing furfural The process is simple. The hulls have oufc to be heated by steam in digesters with dilute acid, and then the furfural may be distilled off and collected. Even the residue that is left is not wasted, for it is used as fuel. Now that furfural is available cheaply its use is being rapidly extended. One of its most important uses is linked np ■with another interesting development of this century. The work of Baekeland, an American chemist, has led to the production of artificial resins, formed by combining formaldehyde, well known as a disinfectant under the name formalin, with carbolic acid, a product of coal tar. These artificial resins have received extended use in the manufacture of artificial amber, varnishes, electrical insulation, and fnoulding . compositions. Mixed with a filler such as wood wool, they can be formed under heat and P£?®"sure into rigid moulded articles. The range of application embraces such articles as billiard balls, switchboards ior battleships, casings for scientific instruments, armatures and commutators for dynamos, telephone receivers, umbrella handles and ornamental articles. Ids compositions have excellent insulating properties, and the recent developmen of broadcasting has meant a great demand for these compositions in the instruction of radio apparatus. Now furfural has properties similar to those o formaldehyde, and it has been found possible to use furfural also in the production of artificial resins. Thes9 resl °® have their own particular range of us fulness, and are especially suitably varnishes. Dressing for Treei Furfural has the peculiar property of penetrating wood. This is rather inconvenient, in that the liquid f" anl ?. be stored in wooden barrels, but to propertv it owes another extensive us » as a germicidal and fungicidal dressing for trees. No doubt the fraii-showing and afforestation industries ot this 00 T try will derive benefit frow its use. , mention other instances of its wide rag of usefulness, it is interesting to no that it has been used as a flavouring tobacco, as a leather dressing, and fly repellent. . , t, The production of a material of usefulness from a waste product so clearlv the value of scientific mves ig tion in industry. The older coun n have certainly in this respect great vantages. In the first place, their \ dustries are conducted on such a. s » scale that it is profitable to make of by-products which would otherwise wasted. Secondly, they have the ' in well-equipped laboratories ana staffs of scientific workers, of inv e gating the problems that arise in dustry. This country has also in . primary and secondary industries ma e of potential value going to wa^* e ! this example shows the profit tna often be drawn from waste. 1 productions are to compete with t»°_ , wealthier countries, then full , l ' se be made, with the aid of scientific ledge, of all waste and bv-produc _ •