TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY. 435 



SOME PRESENT PROBLEMS IX TECHNICAL CHEMISTRY.* 



By Professok W. H. WALKER, 



MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, BOSTON, MASS. 



F 1 1 ECHNIC AL 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 product to 

 be sold at a profit. The problems which confront the investigators in 

 this field of endeavor may, therefore, be divided into two classes ac- 

 cording as they pertain to the chemical reaction 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 utili- 

 tarian; the second is chemical engineering. Although in the program 

 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 science who does not hope, and indeed believe, that 

 the results of his labor will at some time prove of value to humanity; 

 may ultimately be utilitarian. On the other hand, few if any chemical 

 manufacturers 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 suc- 

 cessful 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 enterprises — mechanical, 

 civil and electrical, as well as chemical — are carried on as successfully 

 in England and America as they are in Germany; and still the latter 

 leads the world in her chemical manufactures. 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 chem- 

 istry is inseparably connected with her industries; that the applica- 

 tion of new facts and principles follows rapidly when once these facts 

 and principles are known. Most of the problems in technical chem- 

 istry are first considered problems in pure chemistry and studied in 

 accordance with recognized methods of modern research by men fully 

 trained in pure science. If these men are also chemical engineers, the 



* An address delivered at the International Congress of Arts and Science, 

 St. Louis, September, 1904. 



