[Assistant Professor of Analytical and Organic Chemistry, Armour
Institute of Technology.]
Chemistry has always been a utilitarian science, a science whose
direct applications to our every-day interests has been on every side
recognized. Even in the days of alchemy, that fantastic forerunner of
our present science, her devotees were concerned with the changing of
the base metals into the noble ones, of lead into silver, and of
copper into gold, and also with the search for the philosopher’s
stone, that mysterious something which would give perpetual youth.
From these workers arose in the course of the years, the facts and the
theories which were incorporated into the science of chemistry. But it
is not entirely to the alchemists that chemistry owes its development.
By far the greater number of facts, if not of theories, came down to
us through the traditional knowledge of the chemical industries.
Numerous animal and vegetable products, such as sugar, starch, the
oils, gums and resins, had been familiar commodities as long back as
history records. And the ancients were informed in such typically
chemical industries as that of dyeing with vegetable dyes, pigment
manufacture, varnish making, soap making, paper making and the
fermentation industries. In fact the science of chemistry as we have
it today owes much more to these unknown workers in the industries who
transmitted their chemical facts from father to son, than it does to
the creations of the imaginations of those picturesque, if not so
truthful, alchemists.
It is entirely impossible to divorce the science of chemistry from 342
its industrial applications. The science owes much to the industries.
The industries owe even more to the science. And if that relationship
has been very close in the past, it is much closer now than it ever
was; and it is getting closer all the while. The utilitarianism of our
age makes it absolutely necessary that the two shall be so united that
the utmost of good shall result from the union.
The application of science in general, and of chemistry in particular,
to the industries has this one general result. It takes that industry
out of the “rule of thumb” class, and places it firmly on a sound
basis. It is no longer conducted in a haphazard manner, but according
to intelligent design, based on the most accurate scientific
information. Of course the fierceness of business competition has
ordered this change, more than any other factor. The pure science of
chemistry would have developed without industrial applications,
because there are investigators who are seeking the truth regardless
of any of its immediate applications. But in the industries, it is a
matter of dollars and cents. The most efficient is the winner. And the
most efficient is the one who utilizes in his business all the
scientific information that can be brought to bear on the subject, and
who is always looking for new facts that can be applied.
Chemistry, then, is applied to the industries in two distinct ways,
the first in discovery, in finding a new substance which can be used,
or a new process by which some useful or necessary substance can be
made; the second in improvement, in making a certain product better,
or cheaper, in utilizing wastes, or in starting from cheaper raw
materials.
There are but two kinds of industries: (a) Those which are based on
processes which change the form of matter, such as the manufacture of
furniture for example, and (b) those which are based on processes
which change the composition of matter, such as the manufacture of
Portland cement from clay and limestone. Now group “b” comprises 343
by far the greatest number of industries, and since the science of
chemistry concerns itself with just those changes in the composition
of matter, it is evident that most of our industries are chemical in
their nature. We have but recently come to realize this. A list of
such industries and operations which are essentially chemical would be
found to include almost every industry that we can think of. I need
only make mention of the subject of fuels, gas and coke, of cement,
mortars, brick and other building materials; of petroleum and its
products; of asphalt; of the products of the destructive distillation
of wood; of cellulose and of paper; of pigments, resins, varnishes; of
rubber; of soap, fats and the fatty oils; of gums; of sugar and of
starch; of the textile industries and of the dyes; of leather and
glue; of explosives; of the heavy chemical industries, the manufacture
of acids, alkalies and salts; of the manufacture of glass and the
ceramic industries; of the fermentation industries; of the manufacture
and standardization of medicines; of the subject of soils and
artificial fertilization; of the subject of foods, and of nutrition;
of the subject of water, sewage and sanitation; of photography; of all
the electro-chemical industries and processes; of the production of
steel, of copper, of lead and of all the other metals. I need only
mention this formidable array of subjects and industries to convince
the most sceptical one that chemistry does in fact, concern us,
directly or indirectly, in all of our activities.
As I have said previously, chemistry influences industry in two
distinct ways: First, in the discovery of new substances and new
processes; secondly, in the perfection of known substances and known
processes. In either of these fields the chemist is proud of his
record. The conquests are so numerous that he is at a loss as to how
or where to begin if he would tell of them. The whole field of
industrial chemistry is one succession of chemical achievements,
mammoth industries that had their humble birth in the chemist’s test 344
tube, his beaker, or his retort; the wealth of by-products saved to
the world from what was a few years ago sheer waste; and above all
increased efficiency in the manufacture of all products. The chemist
does not claim more than his due when he points out that his activity
covers the whole field of our daily experiences, and that his activity
has always been for the lessening of waste, for greater efficiency, in
a word, for the development of civilization. To illustrate the points
which have already been brought out, the story of the soda industry,
the beginning of the modern chemical industries, can be used. The
beginning is far back in another century, so intimately is the
development of the soda industry bound up with the advance of
civilization.
The value of what we now call the alkalies as detergent substances,
was known from the earliest times. The first alkali recorded in
history is burned lime, and was called “caustic” on account of its
characteristic property. Caustic lime is but slightly soluble in
water, hence its use is greatly limited. History fails to tell who it
was who first solved the problem of making a more soluble alkali, but
some one, early in the Middle Ages, discovered that by the action of
caustic lime on the so-called potashes, the ashes which remained on
burning wood, a very soluble caustic was formed. And to this, the long
since forgotten chemist gave the name “caustic potash.” The chemistry
of the discovery is as follows: All plants take potassium, a very
light metal, in some form or other from the soil, to form the
so-called mineral, or bony structure, in other words the skeleton, of
the plant. When these plants are burned the potassium in the form of a
salt, chiefly potassium carbonate, is formed in the ash. These
potassium salts can be extracted by water, and recovered on the
evaporation of the water. These potassium salts, the so-called
“potashes,” were extensively used in the industries of the time, for
example, in making soap, in making glass, in dyeing and in a score of 345
other minor ways. But even as our forests cannot now meet the demand
for timber, so they could not then meet the demand for the “potashes,”
for it requires a large amount of wood to give a comparatively small
amount of potashes, the percentage of potassium salts in wood being
very small indeed. Simultaneously with all this, in northern Spain, on
the seacoast, a number of towns were engaged in burning sea weeds. It
was found that the ashes of sea weeds while not the same as potashes,
nevertheless could be substituted for them. This is historically
recorded as the “barilla” industry. Barilla consisted of 5 per cent of
carbonate of sodium, a metal very similar to potassium. Sodium does
for sea plants just what potassium does for land plants. Barilla was
merely a substitute for potashes, and a very poor substitute at that.
But it was destined to offer the key that solved the whole problem.
The chemists of that time showed the chemical similarity between the
active ingredient of potashes, carbonate of potassium, and the active
ingredient of barilla, carbonate of sodium. The demand for these
alkalies made by the industries was incessant and ever-increasing. The
chemists realized that the direct natural sources of the two, namely,
the wood of the forest and the weeds of the sea, were and always would
be, inadequate to meet the enormously growing demands of the
industries. They saw that some other source would have to be
discovered, or the bodies would have to be prepared artificially. They
realized that while potashes were better than barilla, nevertheless
potassium salts, the ingredients of potashes, were much less widely
distributed in nature than the sodium salts, the ingredients of
barilla. So they set out with the definite object of preparing sodium
carbonate. In 1791 LeBlanc took out a patent for his now famous
process. He was not the only one who worked on the problem; he
happened to be the successful one.
This was the first of the great triumphs of chemistry in the industrial 346
field. The significant point in this story of soda, is that those
industries which were using the alkalies had reached the limit of
their development, because the supply of the alkalies was so limited.
Remember, also, that those industries were fundamental ones. Some
historian has said that you can measure the civilization of a people
by the amount of soap it uses. And here, we see the soap industry of
Europe, the seat of our present civilization, crippled for want of an
alkali. The position of the chemist, his responsibility to society, is
the significant thing in the story. Here was a crisis in the
development of civilization, as important to us as the crisis of the
battle of Marathon. Because the problem was solved in the retort,
instead of on the battle plain, because the battle was fought by the
quiet hand of the chemist, instead of by the fighting men of Greece,
we do not hear so much of it. But it was a triumph, and the credit
belongs to the chemist. To us, as much depended upon the result of the
battle of the molecules in the retort, as upon the defeat of the great
Darius.
Nor was this battle in the retort a tame one. LeBlanc’s method is an
extremely complicated one. To conduct the process at all requires
chemical knowledge of the most varied kind. And to apply the
improvements that have been worked out in the laboratory, and to carry
into practice the many subsidiary manufactures that have sprung from
this main industry, demands so much technical ability that it has been
said that this manufacture is not merely the foundation of the immense
chemical industries of today, but is also the guiding spirit in them.
LeBlanc, of course, could not foretell the enormous development his
industry was to attain. Nor could he conceive of the ramifications
running from it into countless other activities of our present
civilization. The manufacture of sulphuric acid, one of the most
important products of modern industry, is intimately bound up with
that of soda. And, in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, nitric acid 347
is required, and must be made. Hydrochloric acid is a by-product of
the soda process, and was for a long time permitted to go to waste.
Now it is one of the most valuable products of the LeBlanc soda
process. It is used to make bleaching powder, potassium chlorate, and
otherwise in the industries. Also, the alkaline waste from the soda
process is rich in sulphur. This sulphur is now recovered and put on
the market as such, helping to meet the demand for sulphur that the
Sicilian mines cannot supply.
All those varied industries that were either created or fostered by
the soda industry have made possible the almost fabulously complicated
processes that are now carried out in the manufacture of the aniline
dyes, the artificial odors, like vanillin whose complexity can be
gathered from its formula, C_{6}H_{3}OHOCH_{3}CHO, which tells many
things to the chemist, but not much to the layman, and the artificial
febrifuges like antipyrin, whose formula is C_{11}H_{12}N_{2}O. All
these chemical industries that are the outgrowth of the soda industry,
and that are so dove-tailed with our civilization, have been built up
on the science of chemistry, and worked out by chemists. I have
selected this story of soda to show the commanding position held by
the science of chemistry in directing the course of civilization. It
shows, too, how the entire structure of that civilization is built
around the contributions of the chemist.
As has been already said, it is impossible to separate chemistry from
industry. The farther we go and the more we develop and the more
complex our civilization becomes, the closer become the ties uniting
science and industry. And as everything that deals with the change in
composition of matter is chemistry, it is evident that chemistry is
omnipresent. In the light of what it has accomplished, who shall say
that it is not omnipotent?
The story of soda is a beautiful example of how industry and the need
of civilization can act as a beacon light for the science of 348
chemistry. This illustration will show how the pure science has
created new industries and opened up new activities for civilization.
In 1838 in England, there was born a boy who afterwards was to be
known as Sir Wm. Perkin. He came of a very intelligent family.
Besides, he was gifted with a natural aptitude for chemistry. More
than that, he was put under the direction of Professor Hofmann, one of
the most brilliant of chemists. Perkin would have been called by any
one, an ideal bit of raw material. Hofmann, like many others of those
German chemists, had a faculty of instilling that enthusiasm that is
necessary in the performance of an epoch-making advancement. Perkin
caught that enthusiasm. He rigged up a laboratory in his house and
worked at night and in his vacations on those interesting problems
that Hofmann discussed in his lectures. During one of these vacations,
he was trying to build up, artificially, the substance called quinine,
which was up to that time a purely natural product. His work took an
unexpected turn. Instead of building up quinine, he built what
chemists call now phenyl-sufranine, or mauvëine. This was a new
substance with properties that rendered it an excellent dye. Perkin
established a factory in which the new substance could be prepared on
a large scale; and within a year of its discovery, he had it on the
market. This discovery of Mauve, the first of the artificial dyes,
gave a great impetus to the study of coal tar, from which it was made.
Coal tar, up to that time, was a waste product, made in the process of
heating coal for the manufacture of gas. This coal tar is the raw
material which is used in that enormous chemical industry, the
manufacture of the derivatives of tri-phenyl methane, the so-called
aniline dyes. There is invested in this industry alone, $750,000,000;
and the whole structure, complex as it is, is built on the foundation
of a pure chemical research that was undertaken merely to gratify the
investigative desires of a true scientist, with no thought of its 349
financial results. This achievement of Perkin stands out as one of the
great discoveries of chemistry. And the story of Mauve shows how
science has led the way for industry, just as the story of soda shows
how industry has pointed out the way for science.
Many more stories of the victories of scientific industry could be
told. Much has been done. But the chemist does not live in the glory
of the past. He lives in the possibilities of the future. Every
advancement of the past has opened up many fields of possibilities. If
much has been done, much more remains to be done. And the work of the
future will require the services of the scientist more than did the
work of the past. Those problems whose answers were obvious, have all
been solved. The problems of today are deep ones; they require all the
ingenuity, all the ability that the trained chemist can bring to bear
upon the problems. And they will all tend to increased efficiency.
While chemistry is a fundamental science, while it covers such a
variety of subjects, while the total amount of its established facts
is indeed enormous, nevertheless, it must be said with frankness that
this vastness is made up for the most part by details and more or less
isolated facts and ideas. Chemistry can boast of remarkable
achievements. But the greatest achievements are yet before it. And the
reason is this: Chemistry is not yet a really unified science. The
real fundamentals which will string together all of the isolated facts
and ideas, material of which the chemist has, indeed, reason to feel
proud, are for the most part lacking. That is why the future is so
much larger than the past. And that is why the world can expect from
the chemists much greater achievements in the future than it has seen
accomplished in the past, great as they have been.
In the most fundamental terms, chemistry concerns itself with the
changes which the different kinds of energy produce upon matter. 350
Chemistry concerns itself with two things, energy and matter. And yet
chemistry must admit that it does not know the nature of matter or the
nature of energy. And not knowing, it cannot appreciate.
In this direction lie the achievements of the chemistry of the future.
As the nature of matter and the nature of energy gradually unfold
themselves to the advances of chemical investigation, remarkable
possibilities for future development are disclosed. We are beginning
to see how really wasteful we have been. The frightful wastes which
the movement toward the conservation of our natural resources has
called to our attention, sink into utter insignificance when we
consider what we have lost on account of our ignorance. We are just
beginning to appreciate our wastefulness of chemical energy. A piece
of coal, for example, has in it the possibility of doing ten times as
much work as it is doing now. A piece of radium has stored in it an
almost infinite amount of energy. How to change this internal or
chemical energy into the other forms of energy with which we are
familiar, into heat, or electricity, or ordinary mechanical energy,
that is the problem of the future. The utilization of this vast amount
of potential energy that is stored up in all forms of matter, the
harnessing of it in the service of humanity, this is the problem which
confronts the chemist. It goes down to the very fundamentals of his
science.
But the start has been made. The point of the wedge has already found
entrance. The discovery of radium, and the study of its
decompositions, has opened wide our field of vision. The problem must
yield, as the blows of chemical investigation fall upon the wedge and
drive it home.
Chemistry has always been a utilitarian science. Its results have
always been at the service of humanity. And if we can judge the future
by the past, even discounting for the enthusiasm of the chemist, we
can forsee improved processes which will reduce our present wasteful 351
methods; we can see new processes making for us such things as india
rubber from starch, for which we must now depend upon the bounty of
nature; and we can dimly see the time when we shall be able to utilize
some of that energy which is hidden away in the recesses of matter,
and whose vastness we have just begun to appreciate.
THE CLOSE RELATION OF THE PRODUCER-GAS POWER PLANT TO THE CONSERVATION 352
OF OUR FUEL RESOURCES.