Chemical Engineers

General Electric invited the American Institute of Chemical Engineers to hold its midsummer meeting in Schenectady last week and meanwhile watch Science working for Wealth. General Electric scientists demonstrated:

X-Ray Farm-- Plaything of the General Electric staff is their monstrous x-ray farm on the laboratory roof. C. P. Haskins exposed grapefruit, orange, aster and cotton seeds to x-rays from two to 16 minutes. The grapefruit blossomed five weeks after planting. In nature first blossoming re quires five years' growth. On the contrary, sweet orange seed grew into a twisted, two-leaf plant. As grotesque was a sour orange plant with no green chlorophyll in its stem or leaves. The aster and cotton plants were gnarled dwarfs.

Inhaled Ions. Harvard's assistant professor of industrial hygiene Constantin Prodromes Yaglou is studying the effects of atmospheric electricity on health. The de pendence of gout and rheumatism, among other ailments, on weather conditions seem related to the electric charge, or ion con tent, of the air. In an empty, well-ventilated room the ionization is the same as outdoors, but falls off rapidly in crowded rooms. Dr. Lewis Richard Roller described a machine to count the ions in a room, another to bring the ions up to a healthy ratio. Unless there is something in nature beyond human perception, the chemical engineers at Schenectady see no reason why, with artificial-sun lamps, air conditioners and an ionizer, living in a dungeon would not be perfectly healthy.

Speck of Gas. Engineers long ago learned that metals contain absorbed gases. Recently they learned that in lubrication the oil soaks into metal, oozes out when the machine operates (TIME, June 13). How deep into the metal does a gas go, skin-deep or throughout? Dr. Abraham Lincoln Marshall proved--with special heating, evacuating and analyzing devices --that gas thoroughly permeates metal. From a piece of molybdenum he extracted a speck of gas one-eighth the volume of a common pin, one 100-millionth of an ounce. Dr. Marshall found it a mixture of 43% carbon monoxide, 57% nitrogen.

Flexible Resin. Since Dr. Leo Hendrik Baekeland invented Bakelite from carbolic acid & formaldehyde and demonstrated how useful and profitable such artificial resins may be, a new division of plastics has developed in chemistry. New product is "glyptal," a flexible material which /. G. E. Wright declared is better than rubber or leather for printing machine rollers. It can be used for lithographic rolls and blankets, oil-proof gaskets, floor coverings, special sheetings for the balloonets of dirigibles, gasoline and oil hose, motor-mountings, tooth brushes.*

Cathode Ray Tube Analyzer. To understand the manufacturing possibilities of some materials, x-ray spectra are useful. Analysts get the spectra by striking the material with cathode rays until x-rays flash off. If the material can be put in a vacuum tube the process is comparatively easy. Otherwise the cathode rays must be shot out of the vacuum tube through a very thin metal window into the open air, and then upon material to be examined. This is exceedingly difficult to accomplish. Air tends to dissipate and absorb cathode rays before they can strike x-rays from anything. Dr. Gorton Rosa Fonda exhibited a stubby, 12-in. tube which produces an extraordinary amount of cathode rays in air as a bluish haze around an aluminum window. The device produces 70,000-volt rays from no-volt house current, can be carried with transformers anywhere that quantitative analyses are needed.

Mercury Detector. General Electric built a large, efficient generator at Hartford, operated by mercury vapor instead of steam (TIME. July 8, 1929), is building another at Schenectady. The mercury boilers are dangerous because they might leak mercury, poison the workmen. A delicate mercury detector was in order. It is a yellow plaque of selenium sulfide. A few drops of mercury in a furnace through which pass more than 200,000 Ib. of flue gas an hour, said A. J. Nerad, blackens the yellow plaque. The degree of blackening indicates the amount of mercury present. A photo-electric cell measures the blackening, warns workmen of danger.

Glass Pipes. Dr. Jesse Talbot Littleton Jr. and Harry Clifford Bates came over to the meeting from the Corning Glass Works to describe a new glass pipe joint which Corning sells to chemical manufacturers and food processers. The joints allow pipes to come in short lengths, to be fitted in circuits for conveying purposes, taken apart for removal or cleaning.

* A similar new plastic reported last week from Yardville, N. J. is "thiokol," product of ethylene dichloride and sodium polysulfide. Inventor is Dr. Joseph C. Patrick.

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