Jan., 1918] The Relation of War to Chemistry i\) 



experimented for years with inventions for the electrolytic 

 production of these materials from common salt. Our present 

 high development in this branch of chemical industry is in no 

 small degree due to these individual efforts, many of which 

 during the past twenty years have been eminently successful. 

 High prices and poor deliveries in the last two years have 

 forced matters to a head in this direction. Where formerly we 

 had a few large chemical plants manufacturing caustic soda and 

 chlorine for bleach by electro-chemical means, we now have 

 distributed throughout the country a great number of concerns 

 who have added to their equipment a plant for the production 

 of these products. The operation of these units under widely 

 diverse conditions will greatly enrich our chemical engineering 

 experience. A number of cell types are obtainable which operate 

 economical^. Some of these are well advertised in the current 

 literature, but some though equally successful, such as the 

 Allen-Moore, Gibbs, and Nelson Cells, are not so well known. 

 The cell portion of such a plant is only a fraction, however, of 

 the equipment required and it is important that the rest of the 

 plant should be properly designed. The simpler and more 

 durable, therefore, the design of apparatus, the more satis- 

 factory the entire equipment will be. There has been placed 

 in operation in some eight plants recently a total of nearly 2,000 

 cells of one type alone, with a daily capacity of 200,000 pounds 

 of chlorine gas. Some plants constructed this year cost as much 

 as a half million dollars. These will be valuable for defense, for 

 we use much chlorine in making guncotton or nitro cellulose 

 for mines and smokeless powder. 



This use of alternative inventions is valuable in encouraging 

 new invention and much industrial chemical investigation, and 

 alleviates to some extent the ill effects of unwarranted increase 

 in selling prices. 



Progress in Chemical Engineering may be illustrated perhaps 

 best by the progress in acid making equipment. High pressure 

 manufacturing of chemicals and difficulty of obtaining supplies 

 has brought rapid improvements and development of chemical 

 engineering materials by compelling large scale experimentation 

 of new products and substitutes. To resist corrosion by acid 

 and other chemicals, pottery or so-called chemical stoneware, 

 glass and natural stone apparatus have been used heretofore. 



