650 MICROBIOLOGY OF SPECIAL INDUSTRIES 



per day were concentrated in special stills, making this plant the largest 

 of its kind in the world. * 



In the Fernbach process corn or other grains are subjected to a 

 carefully controlled fermentation process in which acetone is formed 

 directly. It is not clear whether the acetone is formed from the starch 

 or from the grain proteins probably the latter figure to an important 

 degree. Butyl alcohol is formed with the acetone. It is stated that 

 100 tons of acetone per month were produced during the war in a plant 

 in Toronto and 250 tons per month in the United States by this process. 



Bacillus macerans is used in a process, described in German patent 

 294683 (1914), to produce acetone from wort. Yeast is then grown 

 in the liquid resulting in a yield of both yeast and acetone. 



Mezzadrolif of the Sugar Beet Station at Rovigo, Italy, describes 

 two organisms, B. invertenti lattici, and B. invertenti acetici, which are 

 capable of forming lactic acid, alcohol and acetone directly from cane 

 sugar. Their industrial use for the production of these acids from 

 sugar waste is advocated. 



The Hercules Powder Company and other companies demonstrated 

 that acetone and acetic acid could be produced, at least under war-time 

 conditions, from kelp by a fermentation method, first systematically 

 investigated by L. Lieb and D. R. Hoagland of the University of Cali- 

 fornia. The giant kelp of the Pacific ocean was harvested by a " mow- 

 ing machine "-like device, taken by barges to the plant at San Diego, 

 and shredded into a slimy mass of pulp and juice. This mixture was 

 pumped into enormous tanks in which a vigorous growth of bacteria 

 of several types developed spontaneously. The leaves of the plant 

 and parts of the stems became liquefied. The resulting liquid con- 

 taining acetic acid, ethyl acetate, ethyl propionate, ethyl butyrate, 

 and other compounds formed during fermentation and inorganic salts 

 was neutralized with calcium carbonate forming calcium acetate. This 

 was treated with sodium sulphate to form sodium acetate which on 

 concentration was crystallized and converted into acetone by a special 

 destructive distillation process. Many organic compounds, such as 

 ethyl butyrate, etc., were recovered from the fermented kelp liquor 

 as valuable by-products. The Hercules plant at one time represented 

 a $5,000,000 investment and produced about 24 tons of acetic acid or 

 its equivalent in acetone per day from 1500 tons of kelp. 



* See H. Hibbert, Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, 1919, pp. 397-400. 

 "j" Boll. Assoc. Ind. Zucch. e Alcool, Bologna, 1917. 142-145. 



