sea water a lubricant for undersea use
TRANSCRIPT
EEC Unslowed by Fall Of Belgian Government The internal political problems of Belgium and Italy should have no immediate effect on the workings of the European Economic Community, of which both are members. At least that's the consensus among people who are close to the EEC scene. Belgium's coalition government collapsed Feb. 10, less than three weeks after Italy's coalition government fell. Caretaker governments are handling day-to-day business in both nations.
While Belgium and Italy resolve their internal difficulties, it's business as usual for the EEC. The foreign ministers of the six member countries meet in Brussels next week. It will be the first regular meeting at which all six countries will sit down together since France precipitated the Common Market crisis last June.
The agenda includes a discussion of the Kennedy round of trade negotiations and details of agricultural financing within the community. The foreign ministers will also discuss the
membership of the single commission that will result when the executives of the EEC, the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community merge, probably later this year.
Belgian prime minister Pierre Har-mel's eight-month-old Social Christian-Socialist coalition cabinet toppled ostensibly over a medical-care battle. It's obvious, though, that the medical dispute alone would not have brought down the government. Other crucial factors include internal political disputes and a worsening of the country's internal financial situation. (The government ran up a deficit of $360 million last year which had to be borrowed on the capital market.)
Belgium's economy on the whole is booming. The country's gross national product continues to rise steadily. In 1960 GNP amounted to $11.4 billion. The GNP estimate for 1965 is $16.5 billion, while the 1966 projection is $17.0 billion. Moreover, Belgium's exports in the first 10 months of 1965 were $5.19 billion, topping imports by $100 million.
Sea Water a Lubricant For Undersea Use Sulfur compounds in sea water can serve as a preferential lubricant for bearing components made of molybdenum or its alloys, say research chemists at the Aeronautical Materials Laboratory of the Naval Air Engineering Center in Philadelphia. The lubricating effect that results is equal to that achieved with high-quality greases.
The finding could prove highly significant to the economics of future undersea exploitation. In such operations as mining and drilling, use of sea water for bearing lubrication could eliminate the need for expensive housings. Open conveyor belt and hopper systems, for example, could be used to bring mined material to the water's surface.
The current findings evolved from earlier work on solid-film lubricants at the naval laboratory by Neal D. Re-buck and Martin J. Devine. Sulfur compounds, Mr. Devine postulates, react by a temporary exchange of sulfur with molybdenum metal to form molybdenum disulfide as the lubricating agent. Heat generated by high load conditions present in deep sea operations would tend to accelerate the exchange reaction.
For sliding wear comparison tests, Mr. Rebuck and Mr. Devine used a synthetic sea water that contained 0.8% by weight of sodium sulfate (the primary sulfur compound in actual sea water, 0.4 to 0.8% by weight). In the tests, molybdenum was the bearing material and bronze, titanium, and various ASTM alloys the other surface.
In all cases, wear scar diameter with sea water was less than 5 mm., compared to more than 10 mm. with a distilled-water control. Specifically, for pure molybdenum contacting bronze, wear scar diameter was 0.59 mm. With TZM—an engineering alloy of molybdenum containing 0.5% titanium and 0.08% zirconium— against bronze, it was 0.71 mm.
Undersea bearing assemblies, Mr. Devine says, would probably use molybdenum inserts or coated parts as one of the contacting surfaces. Searching for the least expensive combinations of metals, the chemists are screening those other than bronze-nickel, titanium, and beryllium alloys, for example—that resist salt water corrosion.
Soviets Honor Mark, Ochoa, Courant
Mark Ochoa Courant
Three U.S. scientists, a chemist, a biochemist, and a mathematician, have been named foreign members of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. The honorary membership was given Dr. Herman F. Mark, Dr. Severo Ochoa, and Dr. Richard Courant during the Soviet academy's annual meeting. Chemist Mark is the dean of faculty and professor of organic chemistry at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Earlier this year, he retired as director of the school's Polymer Research Institute. Dr. Ochoa, a biochemist, is professor and chairman of the department of biochemistry at New York University college of medicine. He and Dr. Arthur Kornberg shared the 1959 Nobel prize in medicine and physiology for their discoveries of the mechanism in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acids. Mathematician Courant is professor emeritus of mathematics at New York University (NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Science is named for him). None of the three is a native American. Dr. Mark, 70, was born in Austria and educated in a number of schools in Europe. Dr. Ochoa, at 60 the youngest of the three, was born in Spain and educated there, in the U.S., and in the U.K. Dr. Courant, 78, was born and educated in Germany.
FEB . 21 , 196 6 C & E N 27
Chemical Merger Total Dropped in 1965 There were fewer mergers in the chemical industry last year than in 1964. The total of 89 acquisitions (vs. 103 in 1964) placed chemicals second among the Federal Trade Commission's industry categories in number of full acquisitions made. Electrical machinery was first with 117 such transactions.
The two were followed by nonelectrical machinery (87) , food and kindred products (86) , fabricated metal products (63) , and transportation equipment (59) . Companies in these six industry groups accounted for a total of 501 acquisitions out of a record 1008 in 1965, according to FTC.
In 1964, acquisitions in the manufacturing-mining sector numbered 854. In the mid-1950's FTC showed the number of firms acquired in this sector at about 600 per year. And in the early 1950's, the number was about 250 a year.
According to FTC, the number of mergers in most product categories increased in 1965, compared with 1964. In some categories, the increase was
Goodyear Gets License To Oil-Extended Rubber General Tire & Rubber and Goodyear have reached an out-of-court settlement of their five-year-old lawsuit involving the patent rights on oil-extended rubber. Under the terms of the agreement, Goodyear gets a nonexclusive license to use General's patent (U.S. 2,964,083), which covers tire treads made with oil-extended, high-Mooney rubber. The license applies to all of Goody ear's domestic, foreign, and affiliated plants. In return, General dropped its infringement suit against Goodyear.
Goodyear was sued by General in a round of lawsuits that also eventually involved Firestone, U.S. Rubber, and McCreary Tire and Rubber (C&EN, April 17, 1961, page 25) . Suits are still pending, so further details of the General-Goodyear settlement have not been divulged. But when General was issued the patent, it offered to license the product to other tire makers for a royalty of 3 / 8 cent per pound of rubber. Two companies, Cooper Tire & Rubber and Carlisle Corp., acquired such licenses.
about 100% (lumber products; furniture and fixtures; paper and allied products; rubber and plastics; stone, clay, and glass; miscellaneous and ordnance). However, the number of mergers decreased in primary metals, leather products, and tobacco, as well as in chemicals.
FTC also notes a sharply rising rate in the acquisitions of large (assets of $10 million or more) manufacturing and mining concerns. Last year, 91 larger mergers were recorded. In 1955, the number was 68, and in 1948 it was four. The acquired assets of these large firms have also increased. Average assets totaled $42.2 million per company last year, $31.7 million in 1955, and $16.2 million in 1948.
The number of mergers by companies with assets of $100 million or more has grown from 109 in 1955 to 207 in 1964, and to 270 last year. These firms accounted for 27% of the total number of mergers in 1965, against 24% in 1964 and 16% in 1955. By contrast, firms with assets of less than $100 million accounted for fewer mergers in 1965 than in 1955.
General was awarded the patent in December 1960 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The court overruled a rejection, by the Board of Appeals of the U.S. Patent Office, of General's bid for a patent. The application was filed in 1950.
General also has a British patent on the product. And in 1963, it entered into an agreement with all five of Japan's tire makers as a party to a Japanese patent.
The oil-extension process is vital to tire manufacturers. High-Mooney rubber makes a long-wearing tire tread, but is too viscous to be processed into treads. Extending it with large amounts of hydrocarbon oil makes it easier to process as well as less costly. The principle of using oil extenders for rubber was known for some time. But in seeking its patent, General claimed that its product was new in that it contains more oil and higher-viscosity rubber than usual.
General has a lot riding on the outcome of its infringement suits. The 3 / 8 cent per pound that General has been asking total royalties of more than $50 million in the U.S.
U.S. Borax Develops Detergent Tablet U.S. Borax & Chemical has developed a laundry detergent tablet that may put the company into direct competition with Procter & Gamble and Lever Bros., the giants of the industry. Consumer tests are now under way, USB says, and marketing tests are planned for some time this year.
So far, USB has disclosed only that the tablet contains both detergent and bleach. A 1964 patent assigned to the company (U.S. 3,154,494) describes a laundry tablet made with an inner core of dry, solid bleach surrounded by a coating that may contain detergent, water conditioners, optical brighteners, bacteriostats, bac-teriocides, and a perfume. (The inventors are Richard C. Speak and Paul H. McConnell.) The tablet releases bleach into the laundry solution one to five minutes after the detergent mixture dissolves, depending on how compact the coating is.
Delaying the addition of bleach in a typical laundry operation offers some advantages. Some solid bleaches interfere with the cleaning action of certain detergents. More important, they can reduce the effectiveness of optical brighteners, bacteriostats, and bacteriocides. Delaying the bleach gives these additives a chance to act on the fabric without interference.
Another advantage of the core concept is that the bleach will maintain its strength on standing; it might deteriorate if mixed with other components. Although the USB patent mentions several solid bleaches, it describes the preferred one as a "solid sodium-borax hypochlorite bleach." The core might also contain a pigment and a binder.
USB's major consumer products are 20-Mule Team Borax (now 75 years old) and its "activated" grandchild, Borateem (borax with 0.4% dodecyl-benzenesulfonate and 0.2% trichloro-carbanilide). Both are for use with a detergent. Thus, USB to date could not be considered to be competing directly with the detergent makers.
The detergent-bleach tablet would move the company into an arena already packed with contenders, including all the powdered detergents. In the tablet rivalry, still a very small part of the business, USB would be pitted against Lever Bros.'s Vim and P&G's Salvo. Neither product lists a bleach among its ingredients.
28 C&EN FEB. 21, 1966