CHAPTER IX 

 SOFTWOOD DISTILLATION 



GENERAL 



THE distillation of softwoods in this country is an outgrowth of the 

 hardwood distillation industry as developed in its earlier days in New 

 York and Pennsylvania. 1 Owing to the radically different kind of woods 

 available in the South, consisting largely of pines of a highly resinous 

 nature, a different process than that evolved for the dense hardwoods of 

 the North was found necessary. 



The distillation of softwoods has not developed to the extent that has 

 been the case with the northern hardwoods. Two distinct methods of 

 distillation have been evolved, namely, destructive or dry distillation 

 and steam distillation with its later development called the extraction or 

 solvent process. The industry is still in its infancy, however, since no 

 standard method of production has been generally adopted as has been 

 the case with the hardwood distillation industry, and each plant follows a 

 method which is usually quite different from that of the others. 



There are great possibilities in this industry, however, for the utiliza- 

 tion of wood products which otherwise are wasted. At a meeting of 

 the American Society of Chemical Engineers in Baltimore in 1916, Mr. 

 Arthur D. Little expressed a very apt viewpoint of the industry: 



When the real work of wood waste utilization has once begun and attention of 

 chemical engineers and financial men has been drawn more generally to the huge 

 potential values now ignorantly thrown away, we may expect the rapid development 

 of these by-product industries and an initiation of many new ones to the great enrich- 

 ment of the South and in somewhat less degree that of the Northwest. 



The crude beginnings of softwood distillation were not in common use 

 in the South until about 1885, but it was not until about 1905 that any 

 marked improvements had been made in solving even some of the ele- 

 mentary problems in the industry. At the present time there is a vast 



1 See Chapter on Hardwood Distillation. For details regarding Process of Dry Distilla- 

 tion, also consult same chapter. 



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