The same cellulose base which is used for the manufacture of plastics and artificial silk finds a new use in the making of artificial sponges. Wood pulp is steeped in strong caustic soda and then treated with carbon disulphide. The resulting mass is the familiar viscose. In the making of artificial sponges this vis cose is mixed with a pore-forming material (fat, sugar, paraffin, or sodium sulphate decahydrate). The blocks of treated viscose are then placed in moulds within a chamber into which steam or hot air is admitted. This coagulates the viscose and melts the pore f orming material, leaving innumerable pores in the block. The finished material is lighter and absorbs more water than the natural sponge.
Under the stringent stimulus of the menace of economic or naval blockade, some countries have pressed forward research for the extraction of motor fuel from coal. While a certain amount of success has been achieved the resultant fuel is neither low in pro duction cost nor high in octane rating. It is not suitable, there fore, for high speed motors.
Within recent years research has developed processes for com bining the nitrogen in the air with hydrogen from water to pro duce ammonia, thus furnishing an inexhaustible supply of ferti lizer to make the farmer independent of the rapidly diminishing Chilean deposits of sodium nitrate.
Camphor, which was formerly obtained (often at prohibitive prices) from Formosa, is now secured through a process by which turpentine from the common pine tree is converted into camphor. Synthetic rubber combining all the elastic qualities of natural rubber and avoiding some of its disadvantages, such as deteriora tion due to exposure to sunlight and oil, is now produced from the common basic materials, coal, limestone, and salt. Although this synthetic rubber-like material was designed primarily for uses that natural rubber could not meet, it is comforting to several nations to know that, in the event of a major emergency, it can be produced from domestic raw materials, even though the produc tion cost is somewhat higher than the average cost of natural rub ber.
Reference has already been made to the new plastic materials adapted to the manufacture of toilet-ware. Similar advances have been made in the improvement in table-ware made of glass and china. The chemist has produced new durable colours for ceramics, and a new glaze-like substance of plastic resin awaits industrial application.
One of the most far-reaching achievements of the industrial chemist was the creation of artificial fibres. The general process is much the same. The raw material is dissolved in a strong alkali, forming a paste. This paste is squeezed through fine holes, and the threads thus created are hardened in an appropriate bath. The
raw material determines the nature of the finished product—cellu lose is the basis for rayon, casein for artificial wool. Although the manufacture of synthetic wool has made no great progress, rayon has advanced by leaps and bounds and become a vast industry. Its early sleazy appearance has undergone a metamorphosis. Refine ments in rayon fibre enable the manufacturer to provide a rich assortment of fibres. In fact, the dress and decorative fields have been so adequately supplied that research is now advancing the uses of rayon into more remote applications. Rayon cords are being used in the manufacture of automobile tires as substitutes for cotton. The rayon fabric has been found to have a lower heat co-efficient, an important feature when the effect of heat upon rubber is considered.
Research has culminated in the achievement of the first syn thetic textile fibre made from inorganic substances—Nylon. Using coal, air, and water as basic materials, research chemists have de veloped an entirely new material of large molecular structure, in which orientation of the molecules in line ensures a considerable degree of elasticity. Since the water resistance of this new fibre is equal to that of silk, the combination of elasticity and water proofing furnishes durability, and makes the substance unique. Its first commercial application has been its substitution for ani mal bristles in brushes. Its absolute sterility and waterproof qual ity makes it particularly suited for toothbrushes. As production is flexible, the fibre may be made with any diameter, rivalling in variety any of the brushes now in commercial use. The discovery of this new fibre is too recent to have permitted exploitation, but it will soon be used in the manufacture of hosiery. Some 500 additional uses are foreseen.
Although it is not practicable to separate modern physics from chemistry and engineering, industrial research in such fields as energy, heat, motion, electricity, light, and sound is undertaken by men who are primarily physicists. Much industrial research of a purely physical nature has been undertaken in quelling dangerous or annoying vibrations in every branch of transportation using the internal combustion engine. A great deal of physical research is being directed toward the solution of problems in hydraulics, the strength of materials, physical metallurgy, mechanical and elec trical engineering which will result in the improvement of mate rials and processes without any spectacular effect. Applied physics is used in the detection of ores and oil underground, and many physical laws are applied to new ways of sinking oil wells and in probing the ocean's depths.