Axis Cracker

A new and partly secret weapon of war looms ominous and ugly against a smoky New Jersey sky, its monstrous steel guts exposed in a 20-story skyscraper without walls. Its immediate purpose: to speed the production of 100-octane aviation gasoline. Its probable destiny: the overthrow of new oil-refining methods that are already growing old (see p. 87). Its proud master: Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

Standard's new catalytic cracking plant was dedicated last week with bunting, a band and speeches in Standard's vast and drafty old boiler shop at Bayway, N.J. Even as Standard's new president, Ralph W. Gallagher, spoke, the six-million-dollar "cat cracker" was running full blast, spewing forth a censored quantity of the basic ingredients for high-octane gasoline, TNT and synthetic rubber.

Powder That Pours. Standard's "cat cracker" improves on previous catalytic cracking. It functions with a minimum of moving parts (only pumps and blowers), manpower (eight men)--and without pause. In the past various catalysts*--usually porous, claylike materials--have been used to help break up the complex hydrocarbon compounds and recombine them into more usable form. Catalytic cracking, with various catalysts and conditions of use, can be controlled to a far greater degree than the older thermal cracking, in which reactions are produced by high temperatures and pressure. But coke (carbon) is by the nature of the reaction deposited on the catalyst, affecting the speed and control of the process, and hitherto it has been necessary to call halts while the catalyst was burned off or a switchover was made to fresh catalyst.

Standard Oilmen are proud of their "cat cracker" because it is the first to operate continuously. Instead of passing oil vapors through a catalytic bed or chamber, as in older devices, the process uses a powdered catalyst so fine that it acts like a liquid, is carried along by the very vapors it cracks. As a powder, the catalyst exposes the maximum surface to the reaction.

The oil vapors and the "fluid" catalyst are forced under 10-lb. pressure through tiny holes into a reaction chamber at a temperature of around 800-975DEG F. In scant seconds the oil is cracked and the mixture--vapors, gases and carbon-coated catalyst--moves up through cyclone separators where the powder is dropped into a spent catalyst chamber. From there it flows into a regeneration chamber where a stream of air burns off the carbon at a temperature of 1,000-1,150DEG F. The powder, still moving, is cleaned of remaining gases in more cyclone separators and an electrostatic (Cottrell) precipitator, goes next to a storage chamber (where it is kept turbulent by a stream of air), thence by gravity through a valve into the oil intake, thus completing the cycle.

Meanwhile the cracked oil goes into conventional fractionating towers from which emerge the various oils, gases and vapors that are 1) the base stock for making 100-octane gasoline; 2) special hydrocarbons from which are made the blending agents (alkylates) to kick up still higher the octane rating of the base stock; 3) other hydrocarbons which are the raw materials for alcohols and butadiene.

Asked if the Axis might not develop the same process, Standard's Gallagher hitched his shoulder a little higher, murmured it was not likely: key to the process is a synthetic and costly catalyst which is a commercial as well as a war secret.

Standard's Bayway "cat cracker" is the first of its kind on the Eastern seaboard and the first to be publicized. Two others, proving the process, have been hot at work for months. Some 33 continuous-process "cat crackers" are scheduled, only a few of which will be operated by Standard itself.

Bombs for Berlin. The importance of 100-octane gas to the United Nations is that it provides so much extra power that it permits airplane protective armor and such safety features as self-sealing gas tanks without sacrifice of speed. Said Standard's Gallagher: "When a long-range offensive can be mounted against Berlin or Tokyo, 1,000 planes will be able to carry nearly 5,000,000 more pounds of bombs per trip because of 100-octane, than if 87-octane (yesterday's superfuel) were used." U.S. bombers with 100-octane have the power to lift with a shorter run, can thus operate from smaller fields, be more quickly dispersed in the event of enemy bombing. Fighters also are airborne faster, have added power for altitude and acrobatics.

Sixteen companies are now producing 100-octane gasoline; Standard Oil of New Jersey alone is making over 60 times as much as it did two years ago. Said President Gallagher: "Iso-octane--the ingredient which makes this fuel so powerful--cost $30 a gallon when first used in the laboratories. By 1933 the price had dropped to $16. A year later 1,000 gallons were sold to the U.S. Army for $2 a gallon. Today it is between 15-c- and 20-c-."

To U.S. citizens fingering their three-gallon gasoline coupons, the prospect of plentiful high-octane gas after the war is not academic. Present automobile engines cannot take full advantage of its extra power, but it makes possible the designing of an engine which will drive a family automobile 40 miles on a gallon.

* A catalyst is an innocent chemical bystander whose mere presence on the scene promotes or hastens an activity in which the catalyst itself is not involved. Common example: vegetable oils are solidified with hydrogen, in the presence of nickel as a catalyst, to make kitchen shortening.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.