Business Administration: Theory, Practice and Application. [Vol. 1] Business Economics

by Unknown

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 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 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 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, C₆H₃OHOCH₃CHO, which tells many things to the chemist, but not much to the layman, and the artificial febrifuges like antipyrin, whose formula is C₁₁H₁₂N₂O. 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 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