SECTION E TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY 



(Hall 16, September 23, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. H. W. WILEY, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR CHARLES E. MUNROE, George Washington University. 

 PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. WALKER, Massachusetts Institute of 



Technology. 

 SECRETARY: DR. MARCUS BENJAMIN, U. S. National Museum. 



THE RELATIONS OF TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY TO OTHER 



SCIENCES 



BY CHARLES EDWARD MUNROE 



[Charles Edward Munroe, Head Professor of Chemistry, George Washington 

 University, since 1892. b. May 24, 1849, Cambridge, Massachusetts. S.B. 

 summa cum laude. Harvard, 1871; Post-graduate, Harvard, 1872-74; Ph.D. 

 Columbian University; Commander of the Order of Medjidje of Turkey; Assist- 

 ant in Chemistry, Harvard, 1871-74; Professor of Chemistry, U. S. Naval 

 Academy, 1874-86; ibid. U. S. Torpedo Station and WarCollege, 1886-92; Dean 

 of Corcoran Scientific School, 1892-98; Dean of Faculty of Graduate Studies. 

 ibid, since 1893; Expert Special Agent of U. S. Census in charge of Chemical 

 Industries, 1900; Inventor of Smokeless Powder. President of American Chem- 

 ical Society, 1898; President of Washington Chemical Society, 1895; Vice-Pres- 

 ident of American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1888; Member 

 of London Chemical Society; German Chemical Society; Vice-President of Wash- 

 ington Academy of Sciences, 1902; Member of American Philosophical Society, 

 etc. Author of Catechism of Explosives; Lectures on Explosives; Chemicals and 

 Allied Products.] 



As the term technical chemistry is usually used, it refers to 

 the commercial production of substances through a change in the 

 chemical composition of the matter employed in their manufac- 

 ture. All manufacturing operations are either chemical or physical 

 ones or both chemical and physical. The manufacture is a chem- 

 ical one when the substance or substances acted upon undergo a 

 change in composition. The manufacture is a physical one when 

 the substance acted upon undergoes a change in form, state, state 

 of aggregation, appearance, or properties without any change in its 

 composition. Many manufacturers, probably the majority, include 

 both chemical and physical processes in their operations. In most 

 manufactures the chemical processes are the basic ones producing 

 the material, which is afterward shaped and assembled by physical 

 means in the form in which it is to be used. 



The variety of substances embraced in chemical technology is seen 

 in such a work as Wagner's Chemical Technology, but no statistics 

 indicating its magnitude are to be found, except in the reports of 



