High Pressure Era

Thirty years ago young students of chemistry rode their bicycles to lectures on the new chemistry of organic synthesis, learning how to make dyestuffs, medicines, perfumes out of coal tar products. Twenty years ago young students of chemistry were specializing in electrochemistry, the breaking up of compounds by means of an electrical current. Ten years ago colloids --the suspension of particles of matter in other matter (wood, paper, clothing, glass, cement, enamels, candles, celluloid, cheese, paints)--began to be regarded as a field-in-itself for young students of chemistry to enter.

Last week another new field-in-itself was recognized, at the presentation of the Society of Chemical Industry's Grasselli Medal to Dr. Per K. Froelich, since 1929 research chemist for Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. Young students of chemistry became thoroughly conscious of high. pressure synthesis, the field in which Dr. Froelich has worked for six years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The use of high pressure in industrial chemistry was begun many years before the war by Dr. Fritz Haber, a professor at the Polytechnic School in Karlsruhe, Germany. He worked in his small laboratory for years with nitrogen and hydrogen trying to make them into ammonia (NH3). He realized that the more closely he brought his nitrogen and hydrogen molecules together, the more chance there would be for them to unite. He used high temperatures to increase the velocity of his molecules and a catalyst to aid the reaction. He obtained ammonia, but it obstinately persisted in turning itself hack again into nitrogen and hydrogen--a chemical equilibrium.

Then Henri Le Chatelier, French chemist, announced: When an external force is exerted upon chemicals in equilibrium, the chemicals will adjust themselves to counteract the external force. Dr. Haber pondered that idea, applied it to his ammonia process. Hydrogen and nitrogen, he knew, shrink to half their volume when combined to form ammonia. He found that the application of pressure made that shrinkage permanent, made the hydrogen and nitrogen "stay put." Synthetic ammonia processes today use pressures varying from 200 to 1,000 atmospheres (one atmosphere equals 14.6974 Ib. to the square inch).

Since Haber, scientists have successfully produced many a product besides ammonia by the pressure-plus-catalyst method. Grasselli Medalist Frolich's fame derives from his development of satisfactory catalysts for new processes and products. He found that metallic oxides are good catalysts in the synthesis of higher alcohols from water gas. Says Dr. Froelich: "There is no chemical reason why dyestuffs should not be produced out of the abundant supply of natural water gas. . . . We should be able to produce synthetic fats and proteins from water gas ... and a synthetic material much closer to silk than rayon."

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