Word: hydrocarbons
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Powder That Pours. Standard's "cat cracker" improves on previous catalytic cracking. It functions with a minimum of moving parts (only pumps and blowers), manpower (eight men)-and without pause. In the past various catalysts*-usually porous, claylike materials-have been used to help break up the complex hydrocarbon compounds and recombine them into more usable form. Catalytic cracking, with various catalysts and conditions of use, can be controlled to a far greater degree than the older thermal cracking, in which reactions are produced by high temperatures and pressure. But coke (carbon) is by the nature of the reaction...
...only can but should, agreed Harold Ickes, his Bureau of Mines and the Senate Appropriations Committee last week. They plan to build an $85,000 pilot plant at Pittsburgh to imitate the German hydrogenation techniques whereby carbon (from coal) is combined with hydrogen to form the group of light hydrocarbon compounds called gasoline...
...production annually of some 50,000 tons of synthetic rubber made from petroleum or coal; Russia, also a veteran in the field, is presumed to do about the same, with a rubber substitute made from grain and potatoes. Substitutes can be made from almost any vegetable material with a hydrocarbon content, from petroleum and grass to molasses and dandelions...
Natural rubber can be thought of as a long hydrocarbon chain, composed essentially of a cramped-up chain of molecules of methyl butadiene or isoprene. When the rubber is stretched this chain unfolds; when the rubber contracts, it doubles up again. So the problem of synthesizing rubbers is 1) to find basic chain-units similar to methyl butadiene, 2) to build these up into larger, stringy, stretchy molecules. Best way of classifying synthetic rubbers is by their basic materials...
...head. These out-of-rhythm explosions can ruin a motor, perhaps break its crankshaft. High octane materials-octane, lead, alkylates-prevent these premature explosions by slowing down the rate of explosion. Though all gasoline explosions are a matter of split seconds, some are "slow," others "fast." Each kind of hydrocarbon in gasoline ignites at a slightly different temperature and compression. Igniting slowly and in order, they give the piston a firm, continued push instead of a brief, wrenching, power-wasting punch. So high octane gas can give more power to airplane engines-if they are designed to harness...