THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1, 1920. 



The Rubber Trade in Great Britain 



/)'_v Our Rt-^iilar Correspondi'iil 



IN REi'LY to inquiries from America regarding the use of the 

 Ptachey cold cure process commercially I now refer to the 

 formation of the Peachey Process Co., Limited. The company, 

 which has the nominal capital of £250,000, acquires the patent 

 rights, which cover all important countries of the world, from 

 a syndicate consisting of \V. T. Bartholomew, of London; A. 

 H. Shaw, of Blackpool, and J. Higginbotham, of Manchester, 

 who some months ago obtained an option from the patentee to 

 take it up in a specified time. There are eight directors, in- 

 clusive of the three above-named, the chairman being Sir John 

 P. Hewett, G. C. S. L, K. B. E., C. L E. For £20,000 in cash 

 the syndicate sells to the company 27,000 shares of £1 cumula- 

 tive participating preference shares, credited as fully paid ; 43,- 

 000 shares of one-pound ordinary shares credited as fully paid ; 

 and 100.000 shares of fully paid one-shilling deferred shares. It 

 is stated that the new company is not at present making any 

 public issue of shares and the first work to be undertaken is to 

 enter into negotiations with rubber manufacturers as well as 

 manufacturers of linoleum, leather substitutes, imitation leather 

 goods, upholstery, wall coverings, etc., with respect to their 

 adoption of the new process. 



A prominent feature of the company's initial procedure is 

 the acquisition of a suitable building where a demonstration 

 plant will be operated and an experimental laboratory fitted up. 

 Here the patentee, whose exclusive services have been engaged 

 by the company, will carry on the research work which will 

 naturally for some time be necessitated. Sir Arthur Colefa.x, 

 K. C, on whom the mantle of Lord Moulton seems to have 

 fallen in regard to patent work, has expressed the opinion that 

 the patent is valid. The temporary address of the company 

 is given as at W. J. Bartholomew's offices. 40 Gerrard street, 

 London, W. 1, and no doubt any communications from across 

 the water will receive attention and be passed on to the perma- 

 nent offices which, it has been stated, will be in the Manchester 

 district. 



SOLVENT RECOVERY 



The illustrated description of the Lewis solvent recovery 

 system in the June number of The Indi.\ Rubber World has 

 no doubt interested many readers, as the subject is one which 

 is attracting a good deal of attention at the present time. The 

 percentage recovery of solvent is not stated, though a refer- 

 ence is made to maximum recovery. Of course in the develop- 

 ment of the impregnated canvas business for cord tires a re- 

 covery plant is essential for safety in working, whether it really 

 pays to recover the naphtha or not, but the case is different 

 in, say, a small prooling works. The various systems of re- 

 covery now on the market fall into two classes : the first, where 

 the solvent vapors are condensed by compression, and the sec- 

 ond, where they are absorljed in creosote or other heavy oil and 

 recovered by distillation. 



The main novelty about the Lewis system, which is one of 

 compression, is that the work takes place in an atmosphere 

 which will not support combustion, and therefore all risks of 

 fire or explosion are eliminated. This inert atmosphere con- 

 sists of flue gas from the boilers, which is stated to consist al- 

 most entirely of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. I am afraid that 

 the average flue gas contains mors oxygen, carbon monoxide 

 and unburned hydrocarbons than the above statement would 

 lead the uninformed to imagine, but this is not an important 

 matter as regards naphtha recovery, as the nitrogen will always 

 be sufficiently in excess to prevent the formation of an ex- 

 plosive atmosphere. It is not often that any serious accident 

 occurs with naphtha vapors in England, but the sad affair at 

 the Dunlop works in Birmingham last May has brought home 

 to manufacturers the necessity for constant care and supervision. 



PROPRIETARY CHEMICALS IN AMERICA 



The position which the Rubber Division of the American 

 Chemical Society has taken with regard to the use of trade 

 names for accelerators and compounding ingredients is one 

 which is of considerable import to both sellers and buyers, and 

 it may be taken for granted that divergent views will be ex- 

 pressed as to its tenahleness. In selling an article it is, of 

 course, a great pull to be able to say that it cannot be obtaitied 

 elsewhere, and presumably this is the reason why a special 

 name is adopted for a similar article sold by competitors. 

 Merely to use a short name for a long one when the correct 

 composition of the substance is at the same time disclosed will 

 not appeal to the astute seller who seeks to dispose of an ordi- 

 nary article at a special price. There always have been special- 

 ties on sale to the rubber trade, but the business in these has 

 been by no means of late as in former days because now that 

 chemists are so common in the industry the simple nature of 

 many presumed complicated chemical mixtures or compounds 

 has been easily brought to light. The advent of the organic ac- 

 celerators with their very long names has, it appears, caused 

 a revival of the proprietary article nomenclature and if, as 

 it has been stated, thiocarbanilide has been offered for sale 

 under six different names and presumably by each seller as a 

 specialty distinct from what could be obtained elsewhere, it 

 certainly seems a course of procedure against the best interests 

 of the rubber industry. At the same time it is not easy to see 

 how any drastic action can be taken. 



The invitation to manufacturers and jobbers of proprietary 

 articles to make statements to the Rubber Division on the sub- 

 ject seems unlikely to meet with a ready response, unless it 

 is an expression of opinion that no alteration in existing pro- 

 cedure is desirable. With regard to the invitation to rubber 

 cliemists to submit results of their analyses to the secretary of 

 the Division, it may be objected that many of such analyses have 

 been made professionally and that the figures were not intended 

 for the information of all and sundry, though this would not 

 apply to information given by works chemists. The analysis 

 of some proprietary articles sold to the rubber trade is a matter 

 (if extreme difficulty, perhaps designedly so. 

 SELENIUM AND RUBBER 



The American Chemical Society has been discussing the pos- 

 sibility of increasing the consumption of selenium and tellurium, 

 two erstwhile rare elements whose chemical characteristics 

 closely follow those of sulphur. According to Victor Lenher the 

 United States in existing plants can produce over 300,000 

 pounds of selenium and about 12.S,000 pounds of tellurium an- 

 nually, figures far beyond the annual consumption, hence the 

 desirability of new markets. One is reminded in this conneclioii 

 (if other more or less rare elements, uranium for instance, 

 when it was proposed to open a mine which would produce ten 

 times the amount used in the whole world. .\t the moment it 

 docs not seem as if the rubber trade would remedy the over- 

 production of selenium, although interesting experiment.-^ have 

 been recorded which seem to indicate the similarity of the action 

 of this element to that of sulphur. It is pointed out in the 

 .American Chemical Society discussion that much remains to 

 be done, especially along the lines of the use of the chlorides or 

 bromides of selenium and tellurium as accelerators. So far, 

 tellurium does not seem to have received serious attention in 

 the rubber industry, -^t first sight the harassed rubber manu- 

 facturer, seeing selenium quoted at al)oul 12 shillings per pound 

 and tellurium at about 90 shillings per pound, may not wax 

 enthusiastic at the suggestion that he should help in absorbing 

 the surplus production, but in these days of research associations 

 it would be premature to assume that the matter is at an end. 



