Godfrey L. Cabot's new research laboratories in Cambridge, Mass., cover 26,000 square feet of floor space—about 300 square feet per worker. Nine separate laboratories are included

Λ C&EN PICTORIAL PRESENTATION

Cabot Builds for the Next 7 0 Years JK.ESEARCH, evaluation, and control of products; solution of customers' problems; and development of new products, processes, and applications—these are the goals of Godfrey L. Cabot's new research laboratories in Cambridge, Mass. The labs, which will serve as technical headquarters for Cabot and its subsidiaries, are loGated at 38 Memorial Drive, known as "Research Row" because of the great concentration of scientific institutions and laboratories located there.

Nine laboratories are included in the new building: com­pounding, physical testing, pigments application, ceramics, organic, analytical, electron microscope, physical research, and pilot plant. The labs are located according to the nature of their operations—pilot plant operations are on the ground floor, while the electron microscope and other equipment sensitive to vibrations are on the fourth floor.

In the compounding lab, Cabot carbon blacks are prepared. These include all the grades required by the rubber industry from fine particle size oil furnace and gas channel blacks to the coarse particle size gas furnace and thermal blacks. The ceramics lab conducts ball-milling, pan-mixing, slip-casting, dry-pressing, glaze-spraying, and firing just as they're done in the ceramist's plant. One of the projects now under way is a study of wollastonite, a calcium metasilicate which pro­vides a brilliant white mineral pigment for use in paints and ceramics.

The organic lab is equipped for research in high polymers. One of the principal markets for Cabot plasticizers, carbon blacks, and other pigments is in products made from rubber, plastics, and other high polymers. Plasticizer development is also carried on in the organic lab. In the analytical lab, the electrometric titrimeter, polarograph, microbalance, and spectrophotometer are used to analyze Cabot products.

This newest building continues the expansion of Cabot

research facilities, which date from 1882 w h e n the com­pany started manufacture of carbon black. The organiza­tion now has quality control laboratories at individual plants, as well as central laboratories in Parnpa, Tex., and Cambridge. Both labs study customer technical service and the behavior of Cabot products in various applications. Cambridge does most of the company's fundamental research.

Electrical properties of carbon black-loaded rubber and plastics stocks are evaluated in the physical testing laboratory. Resistiv­ity of the stocks depends primarily on the gradLe of black used

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In Cabot's physical research laboratory, products and processes for the future are studied. Basic data collected here will go to the development laboratories for practical application studies

In the compounding laboratory, a wide range of equipment is used for compounding of Cabot carbon blacks, clay, alumina and silica pigments and plasticizers in plastics and rubber stocks

Ball mills, roll mills, and high and low speed mixing equipment are used in the pigments application laboratory to prepare dis­persions for the study of protective and decorative coatings. Flow meters, viscometers, and the nig'rometer are used to estab­

lish properties of an ink or lacquer and to determine perform­ance characteristics. A chemist (above, left) uses a spray-gun, at right one makes ink draw-downs, and one in the background is operating one of the roll mills

The surface area of fine powders, such as carbon black and other pigments, is deter­mined by the adsorption of nitrogen

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The electron microscope (above) and other optical instruments in Cabot labs magnify samples from 10 to 20,000 times

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A Banbury mixer (above) , laboratory roll mills, and curing presses are used for pre­paring samples in the compounding lab

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Stokes' New Test Lab Open to Industry·.·

A t y p e CH Lectrodryer sends required quantities of DRY air to each test room in F. J. Stokes* new laboratory . Precise humidity and temperature control enables experimentation to proceed rapidly , regardless of outside weather conditions.

Closed to

Complete facilities for testing and developing materials, equipment and processes are open to customers of the F. J. Stokes Machine Co., Philadelphia.

Recognizing that many projects demand precise humidity control, the Stokes Laboratory is equipped to eliminate unwanted moisture. The exact experimental atmosphere is metered to each test room by a Lectrodryer*. Humidity is pre­set, like the temperature, according to the need.

Perhaps controlled humidity is all you need to speed your production, keep delicate chemical reactions on the beam or to prevent mois­ture damvage in s torage areas . T h e r e are Lectrodryers removing unwanted moisture from air, gases and organic liquids to dewpoints below -110° F.

Write for help in adding DRYness to your processes: Pittsburgh Lectrodryer Corporation, 305 32nd Street, Pittsburgh 30, Pennsylvania.

w l T H ACT.VATED AUU.MNAS

In England: Birlec, Limited, Tyburn Road, Erdington, Birmingham. in France: Stein et Roubaix, 24 Rue Erlanger, Paris XVI. In Belgium: S. A . Beige Stein et Roubaix, 320 Rue du Moulin, Bressoux-Liege.

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LECTRODRYER * REGISTERED TRADEMARK U.S. PAT. OFF.

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MOISTURESSS

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UNWANTEDZZZZZZZZZZZZ

THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK

Phenol Plant Officially Opens Its Doors Robert H. Winters, Canadian Minister of Resources and De­velopment, pushes a button to sound the plant -whistle, offi­cially opening B. A. Shawinigan's Mon­treal phenol plant. At left is V. G. Bartram, company president

MEWS BRIEFS Ethone, Inc., N e w Haven, Conn., manu­

facturer and supplier o f chemicals for the metal finishing industry has increased the facilities at its plant. The added area amounts to 6600 square feet.

Carwin Chemical Co. , North Haven, Conn., was the scene of an explosion Miay 20 in which six persons were injured. The explosion ripped apart a 150-foot long, two story building of the textile chemical company.

Imperial Chemical Industries of Can­ada, Ltd., has appointed H. K. Ferguson, New York, to be design and engineering construction management of the Terylene synthetic fiber plant at Millhaven, Ont. It is expected that a substantial part of the construction work will b e let to Canadian firms, and wherever possible, Canadian personnel and materials will be. employed.

National Better Business Bureau, Inc., after investigating advertising claims for molybdenum disulfide (M0S2) motor oil additives, states that it has been unable to secure convincing evidence that the addi­tive promotes greater oil efficiency or en­tails greater gasoline mileage when used as a motor oil additive. N B B B has learned that at least four tests are now in progress, two of them being made on behalf of additive advertisers. These tests, when completed, may clarify the effectiveness of M0S2 as a motor oil additive, NBBB says.

The Air Force has advised NBBB that it has several applications for molybdenum disulfide dispersed in an oil or grease but has not authorized use o f this chemical as an additive in jet engine or reciprocating engine lubricating oils. The National '.Bu­reau of Standards stated it has tested \4oS 2 for use under static conditions.

Rich-Roth Laboratories, Hartford, Conn., has sold its Ultra-Viscoson, an in-

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strument which automatically records and controls viscosity, ( C&EN, April 20, page 1690) , t o Bendix Aviation Corp. The in­strument will be produced by Bendix's Cincinnati division.

Foster D. Snell, Inc., has affiliated with Truesdail Laboratories, Inc., 4101 N. Figuero St., Los Angeles, Calif, in order to expedite the services rendered to manufac­turers of floor waxes and floor finishes on the Pacific coast. It was stated that the affiliation of the two laboratories will be limited t o consulting work at this time.

Al l testing will b e done under the super­vision and auspices of Snell and reports wi l l be issued under the joint name of Foster D . Snell, Inc.—-Truesdail Labora­tories, Inc.

Mutual Chemical Co . of America, Inc., has leased an entire floor in an office build­ing under construction at 9 9 Park Ave., N e w York City. Mutual Chemical, whose headquarters are now at 270 Madison Ave., has plants in Baltimore, Md., and Jersey City, N. J.

Portland Gras & Coke C o . stated in a recent Federal Power Commission hearing, that the most economic method of supply­ing natural gas to the Pacific Northwest area is b y the pipeline proposed by West-coast Transmission Co. This would bring reserves now available in northern Alberta and British Columbia to the market areas. Portland proposes to purchase about 3 8 % of the pipeline's total sales to gas com­panies. Pacific Northwest Pipeline Corp. is seeking to pipe southern gas from the San Juan basin of N e w Mexico into the same area.

BioRad Laboratories, Berkeley, Calif., is offering a consulting service for deter­mination of molecular weights. The lab­oratory will utilize ultracentrifuge tech­niques t o determine molecular weights and molecular weight distributions.

Pittsburgh Corning Corp. has moved its offices to One Gateway Center, Pitts­burgh 2 2 , Pa.

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Plax Corp.. West Hartford, Conn., i s offering its annealed polystyrene and methacrylate products through a group of nationwide distributors with offices in At­lanta, Ga., Detroit, Mich., Buffalo, East Rochester, and N e w York, Ν. Υ., Lenni Mills, Pa., Norwood and Watertown, Mass.* San Francisco, Calif., and East Ruther­ford, N. J.

Aldrich Chemical Co. , 161 West W i s ­consin Ave., Milwaukee, is the U. S. sales-agent for heterocyclic compounds manu­factured by Fluka A.G., St. Gallen, Swit­zerland.

Texas Co. has selected the M. W. Kel­logg Co. to erect four major units at its: Amarillo, Tex., refinery. The units are for crude distillation, delayed coking, Ortho-flow Fluid catalytic cracking, and catalytic polymerization.

Alaska Yakataga Distr ict Mapped fo r O i l Possibilities

Four topographic quadrangles of t h e Yakataga district, Alaska, have just been issued and made available for public in­spection by the Geological Survey. T h e maps include that part of the district in which seepages of high-gravity, paraffin-base oil have long been known to exist. The released map is preliminary, pending completion of office and laboratory study of rock specimens and fossil collections. An earlier interpretation of the western part of the Cape Yakataga-Icy Bay coastal belt as a longitudinally faulted, asymmetric anticline has been confirmed by the map­ping.

Photostatic copies of the maps are avail­able for public inspection at the following Geologic Survey offices: Washington, and San Francisco; Juneau, Anchorage, and College, Alaska. Additional copies are available at private expense from the San Francisco office, 100 Old Mint building.

FTC Drops Complaint Against Soil Condit ioner

The complaint against Henry A. Dreerr Inc., Philadelphia, Pa., has been dismissed by the Federal Trade Commission after Dreer, Inc., declared bankruptcy. T h e intervenor to the complaint, Supplee-Biddle-Steltz Co., has acquired all the assets of Dreer, Inc., including all the stock of the soil conditioner "Fluffium"" and its trade name. Biddle-Steltz have stated their intention of avoiding any mis­representation in their advertising of the product.

Biddle-Seltz have also stated that they intend to participate in the FTC's pend­ing trade practice conference for the chemical soil conditioner industry. The

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GOVERNMENT