MICROBIOLOGY AND INDUSTRY 



for the production of butanol and acetone from potato starch by 

 fermentation with a bacterium he isolated, and which is probably 

 identical with Bac. macerans studied in 1905 by Schardinger. On ac- 

 count of the gradual changes in the rubber market the manufacture 

 of synthetic rubber never got started. But in 19 15, when a great de- 

 mand for acetone developed in England for the manufacture of ex- 

 plosives ('cordite'), Fernbach's pupil, Weizmann, succeeded in adapt- 

 ing Fernbach's procedure to the large-scale production of acetone.* 

 From England this process was exported to Canada where the 'British 

 Acetones Ltd.' built a large factory in Toronto for the new process. In 

 1 9 18 this factory contained no less than 22 functioning fermenters, 

 each one with a capacity of 30,000 gallons. From Canada the process 

 was introduced into the U.S.A.; meanwhile, Fernbach had succeeded 

 in developing his process on a technical scale in France. 



During peace-time the commercial success of this process obviously 

 depends on the possibility of finding a ready market for the butanol 

 which is produced in an amount twice as great as that of the acetone. 

 Butanol had not previously been used in chemical industry; various 

 possibilities for a potential utilisation of this substance have already 

 been suggested, but as yet it is not possible to express a final verdict 

 concerning their feasibility. 



Meanwhile Northrop, Ashe and Morgan had isolated their Bac. 

 acetoethylicum which produces acetone accompanied by ethanol instead 

 of butanol. Furthermore, subsequent investigations showed that this 

 bacterium is not particular as far as its nutrition is concerned; it pro- 

 duces the same substances from pentoses in quite satisfactory yields. 

 This opens up a means for economically disposing of the corn cobs, 

 now representing a waste product which, in the U.S.A., amounts to 

 20 million tons annually. 



Whatever else may develop from these industries, it may suffice to 

 state that estimates show that, at the time of the armistice, 5,000 tons 

 of acetone and twice that amount of butanol had been produced in 

 the U.S.A. alone, and this owing to the activity of a microbe that 

 twenty years ago had probably never been considered worthy of hu- 

 man attention. In this connexion I may point out that the thousands 



* Whether Weizmann used the initial isolate of Fernbach is not quite certain. In 

 one of his later patents he recommends the use of Granulobacter pectinovorum, discovered 

 by Beijerinck and van Delden as a causative agent of flax retting. 



173 



