Science: Chemists (Cont'd)

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The American Chemical Society's midsummer matinees -- an "institute" attended by chemists of many nations (TIME, July 18) continued at State College, Pa. From discussions of X-rays and gas warfare the delegates passed to consideration of:

Nitric Acid. Chemists Guy B. Taylor and T. A. Chilton of E. I. duPont de Nemours & Co. urged U. S. manufacturers to speed their adoption of the European method of making nitric acid— from ammonia, one pound of which will replace five pounds of Chilean nitrate.

Catalysis. Professor Hugh Stott Taylor of Princeton University proposed that U. S. industry endow a university to discover all there is to know about catalytic agents, the "marrying parsons" of chemistry, which cause other substances to interact without themselves reacting.

More Oil. Scientists have been agreed that nature long since ceased making petroleum by subjecting large deposits of organic matter to centuries of subterranean pressure. But Dr. Hans Tropsch of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (Mülheim-an-der-Ruhr, Germany) gave hope that nature is still building oil stores, by another process. Germans have perfected processes of manufacturing synthetic fuel oils by heating carbon (bituminous coal, lignite) in a stream of steam or natural gas, in the presence of certain catalytics including iron. Germany's fuel-oil supply now seems assured as long as her coal lasts. Dr. Tropsch pointed out that natural gases collected from the crater of Mont Pelée were found to be mixed in proportions approximating those used in the laboratory for synthetic petroleum. With iron and the other catalytics abundant everywhere, nature, too, must be making "artificial" oil.

Water. Because it is everywhere, its properties are taken for granted and, from them, much of the structure of theoretical chemistry has been built up. But water is actually most mysterious, should be studied, said Dean James Kennell of New York University. He reminded his audience that in a world where the active constituent of the atmosphere was hydrogen instead of oxygen, fires would be extinguished, not by throwing on water, but by some hydrocarbon such as gasoline.