SOME PRESENT PROBLEMS IN TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY 



BY WILLIAM HULTZ WALKER 



[William Hultz Walker, Professor of Industrial Chemistry, Massachusetts Insti- 

 tute of Technology, b. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 1869. B.S. Pennsylvania 

 State College, 1890; A.M. Ph.D. Gottingen, 1892. Post-graduate of Univer- 

 sity of Gottingen, 1892; Instructor of Chemistry at Pennsylvania State 

 College, 1893; ibid. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1894; Professor 

 of Industrial Chemistry, ibid, since 1900. Member of American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science; Society of Chemical Industry; American Chem- 

 ical Society; Society of Arts and Science; American Electrochemical Society; 

 Bunsen Gesellschaft fur Angevandte Physicalische Chemie. Author of numer- 

 ous scientific papers.] 



TECHNICAL chemistry may be regarded as the performance of 

 a chemical reaction or series of reactions on a scale sufficiently 

 large and by a method sufficiently economical to enable the pro- 

 duct to be sold at a profit. The problems which confront the in- 

 vestigators in this field of endeavor may, therefore, be divided 

 into two classes, according as they pertain to the chemical reac- 

 tion involved or to the process to be employed in carrying on this 

 reaction. The first division is pure chemistry, even though the 

 results of the solution be utilitarian; the second is chemical engin- 

 eering. Although in the Programme of this Congress, the utilitarian 

 side of chemistry is widely separated from the subject of general 

 chemistry, there is in reality no dividing-line between the two. It 

 would be difficult to find an investigator in the field of pure sci- 

 ence who does not hope, and indeed believe, that the results of his 

 labor will at some time prove of value to humanity; may ulti- 

 mately be utilitarian. On the other hand, few, if any, chemical man- 

 ufacturers would admit that in solving their chemical problems 

 they do not utilize the most scientific methods at their command. 

 The research assistant is in the last analysis utilitarian; while the 

 successful chemical engineer is preeminently scientific. 



Probably in no country have the problems confronting the 

 chemical industries been so successfully met as in Germany; yet 

 Germany does not excel in chemical engineers. Engineering enter- 

 prises, mechanical, civil, and electrical, as well as chemical, are car- 

 ried on as successfully in England and America as they are in Ger- 

 many, and still the latter leads the world in her chemical manufac- 

 turers. The explanation for this lies in the fact that Germany pays 

 the greatest attention to the first class of problems, as above divided, 

 and recognizes that pure chemistry is inseparably connected with 

 her industries; that the application of new facts and principles 

 follow rapidly when once these facts and principles are known. 

 Most of her problems in technical chemistry are first considered as 



