On the Trend of Chemical Invention.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 6, 1 April 1909, Page 206

On the Trend of Chemical Invention.

(By Robert Kennedy Duncan, Professor of Industrial Chemistry at the University of Kansas.)

One of the rarest and most valuable of the powers of man is "foresight," the ability to divine "the trend of things" — the trend of events, or, it may be, the trend of knowledge ; its exercise, too, forms one of the most interesting and most agreeable of preoccupations. But the Patent Office is a place in whose activities one may determine this "trend of things" not by this rare power of divination, but just by the merest observation. There, there lie actually in statu nascendi to-morrow's ways and the implements of to-morrow's civilisation. It ought, therefore to be profitable to examine into the activities of this office during, let us say, the last year, in order to discover therein what is interesting and significant. Now, the Commissioner of Patents may be likened to a wine merchant. He has in his office the wine of human progress of every kind and quality — wine, one may say, produced from the fermentation of the facts of the world through the yeast of human effort. Sometimes the yeast is "wild" and sometimes the "must" is poor, and while it all lies there shining with its due measure of the sparkle of divine effort, it is but occasionally that one finds a wine whose bouquet is the result of a pure culture on the true fruit of knowledge. But it is this true pure wine of discovery that is alone of lasting significance, and since it is for the most part to be found in those

discoveries that are classed together as "chemical patents," I shall devote myself to them alone. It is not the subject-matter of the patents that is of such interest; it is the fact that Fischer, the greatest living master-mind in organic chemistry; Ostwald, the giant amongst the physical chemists ; Soddy who with Ramsay discovered the degradation of radium into helium — and many other men of this type and standing, should be patenting their discoveries. A few years ago the university professor who "degraded his science to utilitarian ends ' ' became a pariah among his fellows, and to take out a patent was of all sins against the cloth, the one least forgivable. It was the duty of the man of science "to give his discoveries to the world. ' ' But things are now sweepingly different. Through the invasion of industry by science it has appeared that the scientific method is just as strictly applicable to useful as to "academic" knowledge; furthermore, it appears that the world is becoming increasingly convinced that ideas are property — just as truly property as homes and lands; and finally it appears that no man, however noble may be his desires, can "give his discoveries to the world." This last clause may not be obvious, but to see it one has only to reflect that a discovery can go to the people only through the industries, and that the industries inevitably place upon it all that the "trade will bear." The necessity is laid upon the university professor of associating with the newly wealthy cultured class upon a self-respect-ing basis, and has led him to feel that with entire propriety he may patent his discoveries. Not only so, but the patenting of a discovery actually forwards it. This appears in a conversation which the writer recently had with Professor Lippman of Paris, the discoverer of the wonderful interference process of colour photography. Said Professor Lippman, "In order to forward the development of this process I refused to patent the fundamental idea." The result was that nobody would touch it. "If you wish to give such a discovery to the world, you should patent it." At any rate, whether it is to be deprecated or commended, the "trend" is there as an unmistakable fact, and every year we shall see an increasing number of patents taken out by the academicians of science. First in obviousness among the patents are those which deal with the utilisation of waste. Thus with fuel: Through the gradual depletion of the fuel resources of the older countries and the conservation of our own through combinations of capital, the consequent rise in the price of fuel the world over has forced contemporary men to look for burnable material in what was the waste, of former days, in coal-dust. This coal dust is mixed with some binding material in order that it may appear as little briquettes of various shapes and sizes — mixed, it may be, with tar; plaster of paris and chromatised gelatin ; cement and tar ; or linseed meal, sulphur, flour, glucose, and lime. In certain cases substances are added to increase its combustibility — substances such as manganese dioxide or nitre. Not only coaldust, but turf also appears in many patents. In order to turn the turf into fuel it is dried and mixed superficially with resin for pressing, or, it may be, with naphthalene. Artificial stone is the subject-matter of many a patent. For the most part it con-

sists of cement mixed with asbestos, although, instead of this, sawdust and paraffin may be mixed with sand and a solution of magnesium chloride ; or again, it may be made out of the mineral magnesite, mixed with zinc oxide and magnesium chloride, or silicic acid. Many examples appear in foods. Thus with coffee : Many patents propose a coffee extract made for the most part by grinding the beans with volatile solvents and afterwards extracting the fatty and aromatic substances by water ; others, again, are concerned with the removal of the noxious ingredients. Proposals are made to pass superheated steam through tobacco with the object of removing the injurious nicotine, which is subsequently condensed and is good, we are informed through another patent, for tanning hides. These are but trivial, though interesting, examples of a tendency which to-morrow will be an actual phase of our civilisation. Ever more and more our foods and indeed all the implements of our civilisation will be refined away of all unessential constituents and will be reduced to the pure active principles. Attempts have been made in recent years to produce nitrogenous material out of the nitrogen of the air; it is the most unimaginative fact in the world that men must either solve this problem' or starve. One promising, and, indeed, actually successful process for this purpose is that of Birkeland and Eyde of Norway, who on a large scale are now causing the nitrogen and oxygen of the air to combine under the influence of flaming electric arcs. Another process for the fixation of nitrogen, which is to-day being used over Continental Europe and for which several factories are now being built in America, depends upon the production of calcium cyanide by pouring the nitrogen of the air over red-hot calcium carbide. It is evident that the manufacturers of cyanide will also need to look to their laurels. Perhaps the most interesting patent in this connection is one based upon a wholly novel method of converting atmospheric nitrogen into the fixed and useful form through the metal calcium which is now obtainable at a comparatively cheap rate by the electrolysis of the fused chloride. Still another patent interested in manufacturing products from air proceeds to make ammonia by passing the nitrogen from the air mixed with steam over hot turf. Altogether, we see that, in common with the initiators of all other processes and as typical of the course of invention, the original converters of atmospheric nitrogen are not unlikely to be drowned in the flood of new processes that take their origin from them — the invention dies, but invention lives. Oftentimes it happens that a substance whose properties are supposably thoroughly understood assumes new properties through the application of a new process. Thus with graphite. Its utility through lead-pencils and stove-blacking suddenly, in recent patents, is supplemented by a supreme utility as a lubricant. Of course the fact that graphite has lubricating powers has been known and used for generations, but that it had a unique value in that respect it remained for Mr. E. Gr. Acheson to demonstrate through his process for the production of deflocculated graphite. The story of the way in which he was led to this discovery constitutes an interesting

chapter in the history of invention. In 1901, Mr.Aeheson discovered first, that the clay which was used as a binding material for these crucibles the American manufacturers found it necessary to import from Germany, for the reason that the German clay was more plastic than the American. And he found next that a chemical analysis failed to account for the difference. Now, these German clays are what are called secondary clays — clays that have been transported from one place to another by the forces of nature, and they owe this property of plasticity apparently to this transference. Why? ""Well," said Mr. Acheson, "possibly the increased plasticity is due to the solution of vegetable matter through which the clays are dragged." And so he ground his clay in an extract of straw! The result of this daring inference and consequent experiment was astonishing ; the clay assumed a condition of fine division, it remained suspended in the water, and it was plastic. As Mr. Acheson was acquainted with the interesting record of how the Egyptians compelled the "children of Israel to forego straw in the making of bricks, and as he believed that the benefits of the straw were due not to the fibres, but to the water extract, he called his clay so treated "Egyptianised clay," and so it took its place in the market. It turned out subsequently that the active principle in this extract of straw was tannin. Now, in 1906 he discovered a process of producing a fine, pure, unctuous graphite, which he was desirous of using in oil as a superior lubricant. But he found that the graphite so suspended in oil quickly settled out of it, and that it was only by grinding his graphite in water containing a little of this same tannin that it would remain in a homogeneous mixture. So treated, however, the graphite assumes a state of division so fine that its particles may almost be called molecular, and its suspension either in oil or in water is almost indefinite in duration. Deflocculated graphite, as this tannin-treated substance is called, has a wholly remarkable value as a lubricant, whether mixed with oil or with water. Through tests carefully carried out Hs remarkable power in that respect has been illustrated. Even when mixed with water to the extent of only 0.2 per cent., it has a good lubricating value, and with, also, the curious consequent effect that the water in which it lies does not rust the iron of the bearing. "Monox" is produced by stealing the oxygen away from silica by heating it in the form of glass-maker's sand in contact with coke in an electric furnace. Under these circumstances the ' ' silicon monoxide flies out from the veritable volcanolike effect of the furnace reaction in the form of a voluminous brown smoke — so voluminous that when simply shovelled into a box it weighs only about two and a half pounds per cubic foot. So formed, it constitutes an extremely fine, silky-feeling, light-brown, opaque powder, whose properties bid fair to make it a new industrial agent. Thus it becomes powerfully negatively electrostatically charged on the slightest provocation, and because of this it becomes possible to collect it upon a fabric in such a fashion that while it will permit a gas to pass through the fabric unimpeded, it will definitely stop all fine particles, from tobacco smoke to germs. As a screen for sterilising air it seems, therefore, to have a broad field of application.

There exists in Germany a wide area of peat bogs that heretofore have been of little use ; this for the reason that the amount of fuel required to evaporate the water in the peat is almost as large as the amount of dry peat obtained. But the discovery of the new process of electric osmosis, as it is called, suddenly raises the value of these great peat-fields to a high potential. To obtain the dry peat it is only necessary to convey the peaty water to a metallic caldron connected with one pole of a dynamo and to insert into the mater a metallic rod connected with the other terminal. Under these circumstances, the particles of peat rapidly migrate to the central rod, where they form a hard, caked mass which may be lifted out practically dry — and all this with the expenditure of an insignificant amount of energy. Recent patents by the aggressive experimenting industrial firms of Germany, such as Meister, Lucius, and Bruning of Hochst, foreshadow a wide general application of this entirely interesting phenomenon. Ever since the dawn of the age of iron, men have desired to weld one metal with another — to weld, for example, iron and copper for the making of weapons and for the use of husbandry and building. Unable to accomplish this directly, they had to resort to the art of brazing, by which copper and iron might be joined together through a hard solder composed of brass and zinc. But such a joint was always imperfect, and sooner or later gave way to a severe stress According to Professor Simpson, of London, in order to weld a bar of iron to a sheet of copper it is only necessary to wrap the uncleaned copper closely about the bar, to bury the bar so wrapped in a crucible containing finely-ground retort-carbon containing a little sugar water to make it binding, and finally to heat the crucible in a furnace for half an hour to a temperature somewhere between the melting point of copper and iron. The result of this simple operation is a weld of extraordinary perfection and tenacity, tougher than either of the metals that constitute it. Most prominent among the oxidising patents are those concerned with the making of the peculiarly active modification of oxygen known as ozone. Since ozone when it has accomplished its work reverts to pure oxygen, it constitutes, if it could be prepared cheaply, the ideal oxidizer. It is formed from the oxygen of the air under the influence of an electric discharge, and it is in the arrangement of the circumstances under which this discharge takes place that the patent specifications are chiefly concerned. One man would pass his oxygen through hollow electrodes with fine openings into the ozonising chamber; another would employ an electrode consisting of sets of needles; and still another would discard electricity for ultraviolet light At present almost the only industrial uses for ozone are the production of vanillin from oil of cloves, as it is practised at Niagara Falls, and for the large-scale purification of water. But with the extraordinary activity of invention in this field we may easily forsee a rapid extension of the use of ozone in industry. As for reducing agents, the new powerful sodium hydrosulphite, which, an the result of many years' work, is now appearing from the great German "Badische" firm, will percolate through numerous processes. Altogether, outside of the significance which is integral to the subject-matter of each patent, there is the wide-sweeping

significance of the application of pure science to industrial ends, and, therethrough, the entrance of efficiency into factory practice. That the one follows upon Lhe heels of the other is best exemplified by reference to Germany. Fully threequarters of all the patents of real cheiniea> interest are German in origin, and it is o^ course m German^ that we find efficiency ir factory practice the sine qua non to its operation. The manufacturer who does noireaiise in a pr^tical way that he can nc longer rely tor success upon trade combinations, upon cheap r-aw material, upon ar ultra-protective tariff, upon negligent gov ernment supervision, and so on and so on but that henceforward essentially he mus f -,tand or fall by the degree of efficiency he has obtained in his factory will bitterly rue his ignorance and his negligence