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Show .AMAZING f ' 4 MjwvCKIC3I , - A ... m JT ECRETAHY Lane of the in- i ----TT" Lf iarL JJii terlor apartment recently 7B1B announced that Dr. Walter -f& 3f JS"" Z?Srli IST"" tl$ f V-l 1 F. Rittman, chemical engi- If ' I T C 12 ( ?1 ft 5jf H ' t 1 I I neer of the bureau of mines, If It J ? 3 I B I 1 J I $ r ? had made two chemical dis- ! 3 1 J A J 1 j f 2 , ,tjFl j coveries of epoch-making if 1 ?J 1 1 2 1 j I 1 I VI f C 1 ; H "11 1 importance. One, it was - 4?!iHi i!iiVt " f-'ilv announced, will greatly in- J!' " 7",&MSS4 L'' &?rtV$L crease the production of gasoline; the A,.. ' ' H ' P announcement stated that the other f-sSTS ' t ' Y - ? H '5f 1 will make the United States Indepen- feJ I JS:S&,iK4l ft N$- dent of the rest of the world in the XWSS Jl 1 Mils i production of materials necessary for ff A. J the dye industry and the manufacture 5 Wt"4LTS?feH! of high explosives. These discoveries , ,? J nave the double importance of being V$-JX&J "V M of the highest interest scientifically Ifl 1 and probably of the highest value com- TV 1 mercially. Jf t - - s-f w The old method of refining petro- J kl " 'SJ t0 "?eat up the mater,aI in a I l&C utxvwv or coLunan wtJiznMrV still and condense the vapors coming f ' off. Gasoline is all of the vapor which passes off up to 150 degrees cen- aw, W s neennS work, both in chemical and tigrade. This was a simple distilla- Wllmi V mecnanical lines. tlon process. The experimental work If I In the fal1 ot 1912 he came t0 t of Doctor Rittman has been done at If fh ' 1 ' lumbia university to do the work various ranges or pressure rrom up to '- - which got for him, in June, 1914. the nearly 600 pounds per square inch y ! degree of doctor of philosophy. The down tu partial vacuum ana at ranges W ')iSo i I research work for this degree was car- of temperature from 1,000 degrees cen- V PV ried out in the industrial laboratories tigrade down to the lowest tempera- ' MW of Havemeyer hall, Columbia, under ture at which the apparatus could be -jV - ' " tne direction of Prof. M. C. Whitaker. worked. WT's'' The results of tneae investigations In his laboratory at Havemeyer hall MM W M$L were pub"shed Maif!llanfdIndus' at Columbia university he has an ex- II fWT? n"mer8.of 6 Jo"' U rl and perimental apparatus which occupies K$iJrjO ' Xrtlkezc one end of a small room and in which were upon the subject Thermo-Reae. 7 JECRETAUY Lane of the interior in-terior department recently announced that Dr. Walter F. Rittman, chemical engineer engi-neer of the bureau of mines, had made two chemical dis-1 dis-1 , . coveries of epoch-making - i importance. One, it was announced, will greatly increase in-crease the production of gasoline; the announcement stated that the other will make the United States Independent Indepen-dent of the rest of the world in the production of materials necessary for the dye industry and the manufacture of high explosives. These discoveries have the double importance of being of the highest interest scientifically and probably of the highest value commercially. com-mercially. The old method of refining petroleum petro-leum was to heat up the material in a still and condense the vapors coming off. Gasoline Is all of the vapor which passes off up to 150 degrees centigrade. cen-tigrade. This was a simple distillation distilla-tion process. The experimental work of Doctor Rittman has been done at various ranges ot pressure rrom up to nearly 600 pounds per square inch down tu partial vacuum ana at ranges of temperature from 1,000 degrees centigrade cen-tigrade down to the lowest temperature tempera-ture at which the apparatus could be worked. In his laboratory at Havemeyer hall at Columbia university he has an experimental ex-perimental apparatus which occupies one end of a small room and in which he can make experiments upon any oil under any conditions he chooses. The results are carefully tabulated and the products produced are analyzed. Before Be-fore carrying out these actual experiments, experi-ments, however, the problem was attacked at-tacked from the purely theoretical side. Working from a theoretical standpoint, stand-point, the expected results were mapped out and then the experiments were tried under the chosen conditions condi-tions in order to either verify or disprove dis-prove the prognostications. Using this general method of procedure, the research re-search was carried on and the discovery discov-ery made of the conditions necessary to produce larger yields of gasoline from petroleum. Later were found the conditions necessary for the production produc-tion of toluol and benzol from petroleum. petro-leum. The consumption of gasoline by automobiles, au-tomobiles, motor cycles, aeroplanes, motor boats, and the various types of Internal combustion engines used for power has increased enormousl' in the last few years. The increase In the number of motor vehicles shows this, for, according to the best estimates, there were, in 1910, 350.000 such vehicles; ve-hicles; in 1912 there were 990,000, while at the present time the number has reached 1,500,000. Upon the assumption as-sumption that each motor vehicle uses ten barrels of gasoline per year, the demand from this source alone would be 15,000,000 barrels of 42 gallons each. The gasoline exported and that used for other purposes makes our annual consumption reach a total of about 25,000,000 gallons, which is the present pres-ent production. The supply has not been increasing as fast as the demand, however, and even now it would be inadequate were it not for the fact that in the last three years many new processes have been ptented for increasing most of the production. These have had no commercial com-mercial value, however, except one, the Burton process, which Is controlled con-trolled by the Standard Oil company. The situation which developed when this process was brought out three years ago was an Interesting one. The supply of gasoline was so nearly exceeded ex-ceeded by the demand that the situation situa-tion was very critical and the price was high. There was a real "gasoline problem." It seemed impossible to meet the Increasing demand with an adequate supply. ; Benzol was also put forward as a substitute. It was found possible to use this material for motor vehicles in Europe to a certain extent by employing em-ploying special carburetors, although It was not entirely satisfactory. After all, nothing was really able to take the place of gasoline in being entirely en-tirely satisfactory, nor was there an adequate supply of any other material. It was at this time that the Standard Oil company solved the "gasoline problem" by utilizing the Burton process, proc-ess, which gave prospect of an abundance abun-dance of gasoline for some years at least, However, the independent refiners, refin-ers, who were prevented by the patents Ironi using this superior method meth-od of distilling their crude oil, could not materially increase their output of gasoline, and it is in this connection connec-tion that Doctor Rittman's discovery will be of such great benefit. Not only will it be available to the Standard Oil company, but it will be at the disposal dis-posal of any reputable company in the United States. The patents, when they are issued, will be given absolutely to the people of the United States, and measures will be taken to insure that the new process will never be allowed to anyone any-one to use as a monopoly. The discovery as to gasoline is perhaps per-haps exceeded in importance, however, how-ever, by the discovery of the fact that such products as toluol and benzol, heretofore obtained from coal tar alone, can now be made from petroleum. petro-leum. In normal times there is produced an enormous quantity of benzol and toluol in Germany, where, as in all Europe, the'eoke is made in by-product ovena, and the tar and its associated products saved. In the United States only about 25 per cent of the coke is made in such a way as to save the byproducts. by-products. Benzol and toluol are raw materials in the manufacture of many medicines, dyestuffs and explosives. The fact that the United States is apparently to have a plentiful source of raw material mate-rial for the making of these will probably prob-ably be a stimulus to the building up here of new industries. Up to the time of the present war Americans produced pro-duced only a small fraction of the dye-stuffs dye-stuffs actually used in American industries. in-dustries. The fact that since the outbreak out-break of the war the United States has been unable to obtain an adequate supply of dyes has had already an effect in causing effort to be made for launching an industry for the production produc-tion of dyestuffs. The Rittman discoveries are also of the utmost importance as to explosives. explo-sives. In case of a war in which the United States would be shut off from an outside supply of benzol and toluol, it -would be able to produce for the use of the army and navy from its large supplies of petroleum practically any amount of these materials desired. Many of our modern drugs and medicines medi-cines are made directly or indirectly from benzol. The production of this latter material at a cheap price would be a great stimulus to the building up of a large synthetic drug industry in this country. At the present time Germany Ger-many has a monopoly in this business. The man who has made these notable no-table discoveries was born in Sandusky, San-dusky, Ohio, December 2, 1SS3. in 190S ho received a bachelor of arts degree from Swarthmore college, in Pennsylvania, and in 1909 he received re-ceived his master of arts degree from the same place. During 1909 he served as chemist for the United Gas Improvement Im-provement company of Philadelphia. He served as lecturer and laboratory instructor in Swarthmore from 1909 to 1912, and continued his studies in engineering, en-gineering, so that he was granted a degree of mechanical engineer in 1911. While at Swarthmore, and especially during the last three years, he was engaged in professional chemical engl- neering work, both In chemical and mecnanical lines. In the fall of 1912 he came to Columbia Co-lumbia university to do the work which got for him, in June, 1914, the degree of doctor of philosophy. The research work for this degree was carried car-ried out in the industrial laboratories of Havemeyer hall, Columbia, under the direction of Prof. M. C. Whitaker. The results of these investigations were published in the May and June, 1914, numbers of the Journal of Industrial Indus-trial and Engineering Chemistry, and were upon the subject "Thermo-Reac-tions in Carbureting Water Gas." In this research work was laid the foundation foun-dation for the work which led to his discoveries. This piece of research was so much praised that he was asked to take a position with the United Unit-ed States bureau of mines at Pittsburgh Pitts-burgh as chemical engineer. After accepting this position he continued to study the problem of obtaining larger yields of gasoline in the distillation distil-lation of crude oil. He found that at the laboratories in Pittsburgh there was not the kind of apparatus that was required for the work which he had in mind. The work which he had done in studying the thermal reactions in the carbureting carburet-ing of water gas required a special piece of apparatus, and this had been designed and built in the laboratories in Havemeyer hall, so that it was desirable de-sirable that in the continuance of his researches he be able to use this apparatus. ap-paratus. Through the courtesy of the university authorities he was able to take up hfs investigation for the bureau bu-reau of mines in one of the private laboratories of the department ot chemistry, where he could make use of the apparatus which he had formerly for-merly used as a graduate student. While his experimental distillation apparatus is not large enough to be called factory size, it is much larger than the ordinary laboratory size, and he was enabled to get results which gave indications that the process was feasible on a commercial scale. Doctor Rittman is modest in his claims and desires to have tiso to perfect his processes in larger size units before making any statements as to the cost of the production. The apparatus which has been used in all of the experimental work is practically prac-tically the same as that used in the research which won for him his Ph. D. from Columbia university last June. The oil, which may be a crude oil, and which by the ordinary process of distillation dis-tillation might yield no gasoline at all, is introduced into the apparatus by a feeding device which control the rate at which it is led into the f-rnace. Besides crude oil it is possible to use residues which remain from former distillations by the old process, and even the oils from the California oil fields, which yield practically no gasoline. gaso-line. As the oil enters the top of the furnace it comes in contact with a mass of hot steel balls which vaporizes vapor-izes the oil. The furnace itself, into which the oil vapor next passes, is simply a piece of iron pipe heated by an electric current which passes through a coil of resistance wire surrounding sur-rounding the pipe but separated from it by asbestos. What actually takes place in the distillation process is no doubt a breaking down of the larger and more complex molecules of the oil used, into the gasoline molecule or the benzol molecule as the case may be. This process is technically known as "cracking" "crack-ing" the oil. The foreign patents which Doctor Rittman is taking out will, of course, be his own personal property. The entire rights of the American patents wi'.' be vested in the public, however, and he will receive no compensation except his salary. |