Happy Coincidence

Toluene--the conclusive T in TNT--goes under full allocation next week. So there will be less for paint solvents, dyes, etc., for civilian use. But for such currently essential uses as blowing the Axis to pieces, the production future of toluene looks bright. Furthermore there is a happy coincidence between the techniques of toluene and aviation gasoline production.

In World War I, the only large-scale commercial method of producing toluene was from by-product coke ovens, which were then a bright new technological improvement over beehive ovens. Germany's Heinrich Koppers, at the instigation of U.S. Steel, had begun revolutionizing U.S. coke production with his ovens in the early 1900s. War and the Alien Property Custodian dumped his properties into U.S. hands (chiefly the Mellons') and also accounted for the growth of Koppers Co., which by war's end was putting a new U.S. coke oven into operation every 60 days, a new U.S. toluene plant every six weeks.

But even this feverish expansion brought U.S. toluene capacity to only 20,000,000 gallons a year (equal to 200,000,000 lb. of TNT); and in 1939 it was still around that level. Since then it has increased by leaps & bounds--and has become a military secret.

As it has in many other fields, petroleum technology has suddenly eclipsed coal technology as a source of toluene. The oil industry is already handling the bulk of U.S. toluene production. The toluene capacity of by-product coke ovens now accounts for only about one-third of total production; the rest will come from two complicated (and increasingly hush-hush) petroleum processes:

1) "Solvent extraction," pioneered by Shell, which produces toluene either as it occurs naturally in some gasolines, or as a distillate from the thermal cracking process; 2) catalytic processing ("hydro-forming") of naphthas.

The first method is hampered by low yields (usually well under 10%). The second has yielded up to 22% and can theoretically yield much more, is the great white toluene hope. Hydro-forming plants now represent about 60% of total toluene capacity and are counted on for whatever expansion may be necessary. The process was developed over the past few years by a number of U.S. oil companies in the course of experiments on high-octane gasoline.

The lovely coincidence in the new toluene technologies: as high-quality aviation gasoline is a by-product of toluene synthesis, increasing the production of one automatically adds to the supply of the other. Another happy sidelight: whereas, toluene from coal costs 27-30-c- a gallon, toluene from petroleum costs less than 25-c-, and the original cost of petroleum-toluene plants is not exorbitantly high. Humble Oil's huge, new catalytic plant in Texas (capable of producing as much toluene as the entire coke industry) cost the U.S. Government only $12,500,000.

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