CURRENT TOPICS.

New Aluminum Process Claimed.--( Industrial and Engineering Chemistry News Edition, Vol. 16, No. 21.) HERBERT LEOI'OLD of Tokyo, Japan, reports that following three years of experimentation, the Dai Nippon Sugar Refining Co. has decided to undertake the manufacture of aluminum by a process credited to Kato and Funaki of Tokyo University. According to available details, the new plant will use a phosphorus-bearing alumina which has been discovered in Manchuria. The ore is treated with sulfuric acid and the alumina, aluminum sulfate. The latter is treated with gaseous ammonia at 12oo deg. C., the products being ammonium sulfate and aluminum oxide. Reduction of the alumina is by the usual electrolytic method. It is planned to treat I5,OOO tons of ore annually, producing there- from 51oo tons metallic aluminum, 25,80o tons of ammonium sulfate, and 2o,o0o tons of fertilizer containing 20 per cent. phosphoric acid and 16 per cent. ammonium sulfate. The plant is under construc- tion at Hachinohe, where there is a favorable supply of power. No information is available regarding the cost of this process in com- parison with the well known practice of producing aluminum from bauxite. The new concern believes itself in a favorable position, particularly since it is anticipated that the task of obtaining ade- quate supplies of bauxite promises to become more and more difficult.

R. H. O.

Potato Starch.--Equipped with newly designed time saving machinery for the manufacture of starch for New England Textile mills, two potato starch plants are nearing completion at Houlton, Maine. The two mills, using surplus potato crops, are reported to mark a notable advance in the process of American starch manu- facturing and point to a wider use of agricultural products in indus- trial fields. The two plants are being constructed by the New England Starch Company and the Aroostook Potato Products, Inc., the latter being a subsidiary of Morningstar, Nicol, Inc. The New England Starch Company will use approximately 2,000 barrels of potatoes a day and have a maximum production capacity of 2o tons of finished starch a day. In this mill the "t ime cycle" of manufacturing will be reduced from the usual 72 hours to six hours. At the Aroostook Potato Products plant a new type of American

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starch will be manufactured which will compete with the finest of imported starches. In addition to utilizing surplus local crops, the plant also will manufacture from imported raw materials.

R. H. O.

Government Explores Public Phosphate Lands in Florida.- Public lands in Florida were first withdrawn from entry by President Taf t in 191o as a conservation measure, because of their possible phosphate content. The area reserved was subsequently modified by further withdrawals and restorations so that on January I, 1934, it contained 66,796 acres, but only a small part of this area had been definitely classified as phosphate land. In 1934 and 1935, under two successive grants from the Public Works Administration, the Geological Survey examined 83 tracts of these lands in Polk County, comprising in all about 3,3oo acres, and 6 tracts in Citrus and Marion Counties, comprising 24o acres. The lands in Polk County were all in the so-called land-pebble field, and the others in the hard-rock field. The object of the investigation was to obtain data on which to base a decision whether the phosphate rock present in any given tract is sufficient in quantity or of suitable quality to justify the Government in retaining the mineral rights in that tract. In phosphate mining in the Florida field attention at the present time is concentrated on material that contains 7o per cent. or more of tricalcium phosphate (Ca3(PO4)2), called in the trade "B.P .L ." (bone phosphate of lime), but that contains less than 3 per cent. of iron and alumina (abbreviated to I and A). High-grade rock of this kind has been much in demand for the manufacture of superphosphates by the acidulation process. However, operations of the Tennessee Valley Authority and others have shown that by the use of the electric furnace material a much lower grade can be successfully utilized, and it is thought that by this and other possible methods material even as low as 4 ° per cent. in B.P.L. content may eventually be used. The results are grouped according to the grade of the phosphate pebble recovered. The results listed are all for the pebble field in Polk County. None of the wells drilled in the hard-rock field yielded material of grade as high as 4o per cent. B.P.L., but as the distribution of phosphate in the hard-rock field is known to be very irregular the results obtained would probably justify in most of the tested areas retention of mineral rights by the Government.

R. H. O.