Compounds & Concoctions

The United States is in imminent danger of a petroleum shortage which will swell imports, send up prices of motor fuel, and force a more general use of small, low-powered cars.

So last week warned Dr. Benjamin Talbott Brooks, 50, independent consulting chemist of Manhattan, as the American Chemical Society opened its meeting in San Francisco. Dr. Brooks wanted to make his point especially clear to people who suppose that oil under U. S. ground will last hundreds of years. Distinguishing between shortage and actual exhaustion, Dr. Brooks, famed in his profession for research on refining methods, foresaw that oil dearth would be upon the nation in from five to eight years.

Reserves in U. S. petroleum beds, according to Engineer Brooks, are estimated at ten to twelve billion barrels, and modern methods of appraisal render unexpected "finds" of considerable extent unlikely. At the present rate of consumption reserves are enough for twelve or 14 years, but production falls off sharply before literal exhaustion is in sight. Oil can be obtained from shale and coal; the necessary equipment, however, would cost billions of dollars. "Alcohol," said Dr. Brooks, "as a motor fuel is a question of politics and farm subsidies, not of economics," cannot compete with gasoline until the price of gasoline rises fivefold. Therefore he could only conclude that swollen prices and greater dependence on foreign sources were close at hand.

More cheerful was Phillips Petroleum Co., which more than a year ago instituted a fifth advance in gasoline manufacture. Gasoline was first made by boiling oil, next by squeezing gasoline vapor out of natural gas ("casing-head process"), later by distillation of crude oil ("cracking"), finally by hydrogenation. The Phillips process was polymerization--formation of heavy molecules from light ones with heat, pressure, catalysts (chemical activators). By this method lightweight derivatives formerly wasted or diverted to by-products are made into high-grade fuel. Trade papers pointed out that if all gaseous hydrocarbons produced in cracking were utilized by the Phillips patented process, the extra gasoline output would be about 1,000,000,000 gal. per year.

In San Francisco last week two Phillips chemists, Wayne Zerley Friend and Theodore W. Legatski, had cheerful words to say about two by-product gases, propane and butane, which are easily liquefied for tank car shipment and are in fast-growing use as a low-cost fuel for stationary engines, switching locomotives, tractors, trucks and buses. These two, mixed with oxygen, are cheaper than acetylene as a fuel for welding torches. Since they vaporize easily, they are good refrigerants. Some consumers use the same gallon of propane first as a chemical solvent, next as a refrigerant, finally burn it as a gas fuel.

Other topics discussed at the San Francisco meeting:

Sugar from Dahlias. The roots, or "tubers," of dahlias contain a starch called inulin. If the tubers are heated and squeezed by a giant hydraulic press, the inulin can be recovered and converted into a syrup which yields fructose, the sugar in fruits. Since this sugar is the most easily oxidized of all sugars and twice as sweet as cane or beet sugar, it might be assimilated in small quantities by diabetics, might flavor the food of fat persons who wish to reduce. Properly cultivated, dahlias yield as much sugar, acre for acre, as do sugar beets.

Dry-Ice from Below. The gas that whishes up, at 230 lb.-per-sq.-in. pressure, from wells in southern California's Salton Sea basin, is carbon dioxide, more than 99% pure and free of malodorous hydrogen sulphide. There is probably enough of this CO₂ under the basin to make a million tons of the popular, efficient refrigerant known as "dry-ice." Geologists believe that the supply is continuously renewed by subterranean chemical action. Owing to the high initial pressure, the manufacturing cost should not be more than $10 per ton as against a prevailing selling price of $45.

Smokeless Coal. The annual U. S. loss due to smoke is put at $500,000,000, of which $140,000,000 is for ruined merchandise and cleaning buildings, much of the rest for damage to lungs and respiratory tracts. Salt Lake City's smoke problem is especially acute because the city lies in a natural bowl whose rim tends to keep the pall from dispersing. Metallurgical coke and petroleum carbon, supposedly "smokeless," have been tried there without success. The problem can be solved by treating bituminous coal with superheated steam at 1,000 to 1,400DEG F., driving off the smoke-producing ingredients. Cost of treatment: $1 to $1.25 per ton.

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