Show fire protection made much Cli cheaper cajer by a flame proofing acid by ROBERT D POTTER dallas texas increased low cost fire protection for americas homes should soon be possible through advances in chemical engineering revealed at the meeting of the american chemical society here chemistry by a new process Is now able to make cheaply and in vas vast t quantities an acid from which can be made a unique flame proofing chemical the chemical known as ammonium does not change the appearance or feel eel of fabrics or paper impregnated with it moreover it is not affected by dry cleaning methods so that it will safeguard draperies upholstery and other household furnishings du during ring their lifetime parent raw material of the flame proofing chemical is sulf amle acid which while known for more than years has previously been made only by costly laboratory processes thus its flame proofing ammonium salt was too high priced to be r readily 0 ad a available to most people A method tor for the large scale production of acid has now been devised and put into operation martin E cupery chemical engineer of E I 1 du pont font d nemours co declared in his report to the chemists developed here and in germany acid Is made from urea arid and fuming sulphuric acid by the new process which by one 0 of f the coincidences of science has almost simultaneously appeared in germany and in the united states independently the new large scale commercial method of making acid said mr cupery has made available tor for many uses a new industrial raw material As prepared it Is a colorless crystalline substance looking something like the naphthalene of moth balls but without the odor tor for acid is odorless A particularly useful property of sult amic acid mr cupery asserted is its inability to take up water because it is non hygroscopic this very strong acid can easily be shipped and stored without danger of wetting however the salts of acid of which the flame proofing chemical is only one are soluble in water with one exception immersion mer sion in fact is the way the flame proofing chemical Is applied to fabrics or paper for this reason the materials flameproof pd cannot be washed without destroying the fire combating effects |