From Coffeepot to Ashtray

Brazil's one-crop economy is as chronically plagued with surpluses as the U.S. cotton South. In the past ten years the Brazilian Government has bought up more than 70,000,000 bags of surplus coffee from growers, spent millions for fuel oil and labor to burn it. But last week, thanks to a U.S. chemist, it looked as though Brazil might make something on its coffee surpluses. Means: cafelite (pronounced ka-fay-lee-tee), a new plastic.

Herbert Spencer Polin, a young (32) scientist whose home office is a laboratory on the 71st floor of Manhattan's Chrysler Building, got interested in coffee five years ago when Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. hired him for research on roasting methods. Finding that coffee contains all the chemical components of plastics, he went to work on his own to develop a process for combining them.

Method he hit on was to grind green coffee beans, extract the soluble alkaloids (notably caffeine) and part of the oil, cook the remainder under pressure in the presence of a catalyst. The result is cafelite, a dark brown powder which can be colored like other plastics, can be used to make anything from ashtrays to building materials. Out of a Brazilian bag of coffee (132 lb.) the Polin process makes 70 lb. of cafelite, 1 lb. of caffeine, plus smaller amounts of other byproducts, including vitamins D and E.

When word of Polin's experiments leaked out, President Vargas appointed a committee to invite Polin to Brazil, try to develop commercial production of his plastics. Upshot: an agreement under which Polin has leased his patents to the Brazilian Government for 15 years, will serve as technical adviser at plants built by the Government.

This week a pilot plant at Sao Paulo was ready (except for a chemical solvent which must be obtained from the U.S.) to start converting 50,000 bags of coffee a year into cafelite. About to be built, possibly with Export-Import Bank funds, is a $3,500,000 main plant which will consume 5,000,000 bags of coffee a year, produce 350,000,000 lb. of cafelite. Current world production of plastics powders is 500,000,000-750,000,000 lb. a year.

Estimates are that cafelite can be sold in the U.S. for 7-c--10-c- a lb., compared to 14-c--85-c- for plastics powders now in general use. Moreover, cafelite is the only cheap plastic which can be made without using chlorine or chlorine derivatives, now scarce and under full priorities in the U.S.

In the past few years, Brazil has sold all of its coffee that the world market would absorb at considerably less than the current 235 milreis ($11.75) a bag, F.O.B. Growers have received about 2 milreis a bag from the Government for the rest. Now the Government expects to be able to pay a decent price for surplus coffee, get the money back from the sale of cafelite.

Polin, who studied science at various universities without ever bothering to take a degree, has patented about 100 inventions, including an ultra-high frequency radio telephone service used on Navy dirigibles and a remote control device for radios and oil burners. He now works at a new laboratory in Rio de Janeiro, collects sport clothes and pipes (he has a standing order with Dunhill Co. for any new models they turn out). Without benefit of title or speechmaking he has become the favorite U.S. ambassador of good will to Brazil.

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