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URL 04737 ever, involve anaerobic conditions. In that case, H^S removal and conversion to sulfur proceed in the same way as in the aerobic process, but the spent cata lytic solution is circulated to a regenera tor, where it is oxidized with air. nuggad hn The Stretford process carries out the sulfur recovery by flota tion. `There is no end to the problems," complains Pritchard's Leland, who of fers the process but doesn't minimize the difficulties. He notes that the sulfur plugs instrument lines and requires complex handling equipment Moreover, chemical costs can be high. "We have a The Lo-Cat process with a new catalyst--may do the trick where dans is not practicable test solution that is running at $70/ton of recovered sulfur," says Leland, "but we tell our customers that chemicals may cost them $200-250/ton." Reagent cost is one area where Har dison feels he has a strong selling point He says that the organic portion of ear lier Lo-Cat catalysts tended to degrade by oxidation but that the new version, AR1 310, has solved the stability prob lem. He says that chemical costs amount to (60/ton of sulfur. Further, Hardison notes that iron is not toxic, while the sodium metavana date used in the Stretford process is toxic at levels over 25 parts per million. Pritchard's Leland, however, maintains that disposal is not a problem. Hardison concedes that his reagent is "mildly corrosive" and that equipment cannot be fabricated from carbon steel. Even so, he claims that capital costs for Lo-Cat are competitive with a straight Claus unit and cheaper than Claus when amine-treating is involved. Har dison puts the cost of a unit to treat 5 million cu ft/day of Jow-HjS, low-pres sure gas at f3M,000-1400,000. Higher pressures and heavier concentrations cost more. A 15-tons/day unit costs $2-3 million; a small unit for odor control can be as low as $100,000. But the initial cost is among the least of the concerns of plant operators. `The biggest problem is keeping a plant on stream," says A. J. Flynn, a senior staff chemical engineer for Shell Exploration and Development ,fWe want to operate a plant day in and day out for 365 days a year." Shell has a Stretford unit at its Martinez, Calif., refinery. It has investi gated the Lo-Cat process and is now working to develop its own version of an iron catalyst Says Flynn: "We are still looking for the answer." A battler to restore the good name of vinyl It was not under the most pleasant cir conference on the hazards of plastics. cumstances that Roy T. Gotiesman SPI formed VI a month later. Eight started his new job as executive direc months after that, Gottesman was ap tor of the Vinyl Institute (VI), the 10- pointed Vi's chief administrative officer. month-old group established by the So Many of Gottesman's colleagues say ciety of the Plastics Industry (SPI) to that if anyone can turn around plastics' clear up the smudgy safety reputations tarnished image, he can. "Roy is an in of polyvinyl chloride and vinyl chloride tellectual and honest person," says Ray monomer. On June 8, just two days af mond H. Marks, senior vice-president of ter Gotiesman moved into his New Tenneco and Gottesman's former boss. York offices, 23 people died in an air "Whatever he said, that's the way it plane crash in Cincinnati. Newspapers was." Gotiesman, he notes, "has a reported an eyewitness's account of strong technical background and a com white smoke billowing from the plane bination of interests in community af and turning deep gray to black. The fairs and the public sector." eyewitness, a chemist, said he was Those interests extend well beyond "pretty sure it was PVC burning. Folks the sphere of plastics. Gottesman,, 55, got a noseful of PVC--and could not has been politically active in Glen Rock, breathe." N. J., where he lives with his wife When Gottesman reads that quote aloud, Gottseman complains of a "deliberate attempt" to undermine Pvc he seems to breathe fire himself. "Such comments are ludicrous," he fumes, "but once they're print ed, it's impossible to get them retracted." Gottesman does con cede that "plastics have been implicated in a number of fires." But he insists that the press has labeled the materials as culprits far more often than has been warrant ed. And he sees one of Vi's primary responsibil ities as setting the re cord straight about the safety of plastics in gen eral, and of PVC and VCM in particular. Adversaria*. Gottesman may be taking on some formidable opponents. He refers only to a "de liberate attempt by cer tain interests to under mine PVC," but SPI itself is more specific. It claims that iron and steel pro ducers are making "spu rious attacks against the safety of PVC." The final straw came last October, when Allied Tube and Conduit (Har vey, 111.), a metal-pipe fabricator, sponsored a 22 Owncrt Weefc/Auguat 3, 1963 Sandi, a teacher, ever since his two chil dren were in elementary school. He was elected to the school board in 1963 and served as president from 1967 to 1969. In 1973 he was elected a borough coun cilman for the division of public safety. Last year he was named to the state's Hazardous Waste Siting Commission. While his avocation may be public service, Gottesman's education and ca reer background is clearly chemical. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1947 with a BS in chemistry and a Phi Beta Kappa key, and in 1951 he re ceived a PhD from Rutgers in organic chemistry. Two days later he joined Heyden Chemical in Piscataway, N. J., as a research chemist. The job was the beginning of a 31year career with Heyden--though the company itself went through several permutations. Heyden became Heyden Newport Chemical; then in 1963 it was acquired by Tennessee Gas and Trans mission, which in turn became Tenneco. During his stay with Tenneco Chemical, the oil company's subsidiary, Gottesman progressed from research manager to director of chemical development to founder and head of the firm's Environ mental and Regulatory Affairs Dept. In 1980 he was promoted to vice-president, responsible for administering contribu tions to political action committees. But late last year an unexpected mon key wrench was thrown into Gottes man's path at Tenneco. The parent com pany sold its specialty chemicals business to its employees and absorbed As head of the Vinyl Institute, Roy T. Gottesman taking on the critics of PVC and VCM --i---------------------------- :-----------------industrial chemicals into other existing divisions. On Apr. 1, Gottesman elected to take early retirement and set off to become a consultant. It was his "shor test career," he concedes, and two months later he joined VI. Bart A. DiUddo, president of B. F. Goodrich Chemical and Vi's chairman, says that Gottesman's extensive chemi cal experience and his affinity for public affairs suit him well for his VI post And, indeed, Gottesman will soon have a chance to exercise both aspects of his background. He plans to become active in drafting state PVC rules. Set to battle. He already is braced for a fight during the upcoming peer review of a controversial study prepared for New York State by Arthur D. Little, the Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm. The study recommends that standard ized tests be used to assess the combus tion toxicity of building and furnishing materials. Gottesman contends that the state of the art in testing leaves too much to chance for a regulatory use. The tests "are good for research," but beyond that, he says, their value is "questionable." For now, Gottesman's time will be spent fighting battles in the media and in state legislatures. But his long-term goals are loftier. He wants to smooth the way for PVC makers to create new products and applications. "VI members want to introduce new products in a friendly environment," he says. `Ulti mately, I would like to see VI move from being reactive to proactive." D URL 04738 34 Chemical Week/Auqual 3, 1983 are now M&T. Dimethyl disulfide. Dimethylsulfoxide. Tertiary dodecylmercaptan. Tertiary polysulfides. And thiogfycofic acid. All backed by technical service from M&T Chemicals Inc. All produced in volume by our parent company, Societe Nationale Elf Aquitaine. Send for literature. M&T Chemicals lnc.,P.O. A APT" Box 1104, Rahway, NJ. IVlOfl* 07065. (201) 499-2331. CH0VHCALS NC Circle 24 on Reader Service Card m -- re ar Is. al *g ly iy or er, Is >n lk ce K >rk m. *rd Toxic fumes and fire safety E4itDr*n-Ch#i......................... ...... John B. Campbell Managing Ediior.....-............ Executive Editor.................... ..........Donald P. Burke Senior Editors....................... ... Claudia H. Deutsch Paul L. Edwards Homer Starr Assistant Managing Editors.. .........Sandra Edwards E.S. Ely Art Director............................ Assistant Art Director........... ......... Patrick T. Walsh Associate Editors Energy/Feedstocks........ International....................... ............ Albert H. Ktsfcn Technology............. ........... News Editor........................... ......Joseph F. Dunphy Assistant News Editor.......... .......... ImeIda R. Bruce Department Editors Finance/ Economics.......... Management .................... Markets.............................. Production.......................... ....... Richard J. Zanett Research........................... Staff Editors Companies......................... Environment...................... People................................ ...Deborah W. Hairstor Specialties......................... ... Mkiam D. Btuestom Assistant Editor............ ........ ....Sadie A. Hofmeiste Editorial Production Manager............. Kathryn Miffts Makeup Editors....................................... Marcie M*e Linda L Nign Editorial Production Asmtant.......... Patricia Laonart McGraw-Hill Economics................. Joseph N. Spian It seems that the recently formed In* dustry Coalition for Fire Safety has al ready had some success in steering state legislators away from overly sim ple-minded approaches to the hazard of toxic fumes (p. 19). That's good. But we also see a potential danger in one as pect of the coalition's program. The group, begun by Du Pont, con sists of some major synthetics produc ers and related industry organizations. It was set up to combat a trend among lawmakers to focus on combustion tox icity in considering fire-safety statutes and codes. It is an unfortunate fact of life that many synthetics give off toxic fumes when they burn. And most lawmakers can easily cite some horror stories-- cases where people were harmed, or lire fighters hindered, by poisonous gases produced by burning plastics or synthetic fabrics. The coalition is right, though, in in sisting that combustion toxicity is only one of many factors to be considered in designing a fire-safe environment Com bustion toxicity is a life-threatening problem only when the material in ques tion is overheated to the point of smol dering or burning, when people are ex posed to the fumes, and when there is no means of rapid egress. Smoke detec tors, sprinklers, stricter adherence to building codes, and public education-- all can help keep toxic fumes from be ing a life-threatening problem. Sometimes--in airplane cabins, for example--combustion toxicity should be a determining factor in materials selec tion. More often, it should be part of the tradeoff process that is integral to every intelligent design. However, we do not believe that the coalition should oppose constructive at tempts to develop and use indexes of combustion toxicity. The coalition may be correct in suggesting that available tests are not yet good enough to sup port such an index. But we are in favor of any honest attempt to help users of .. synthetic materials make good deci sions. And we are against any attempt to suppress meaningful information about the properties of materials on the grounds that it may be misused. FTC did it again--badly McGRAW-HILL WORLD NEWS Atlanta: Inge Kummant; Chicago: Jeffrey Ryser Oaltas: Lorraine Smith: Detroit: David Whiteside, James Schwartz: Houston: Eric Johnson; Knoxville: Two weeks ago we ran a story telling how the Federal Trade Commission had ruled against Du Pont and Ethyl in a James Branscome; San Francisco: Margaret Drop sel, Jenness Keane: Washington: Robert Fared, Reginald Rhein, Vicky Cahan, Richard Hoppe, Bar bara Star, Jeffrey TrewhitL case involving lead-based antiknock ad ditives for gasoline (CW, Apr. IS, p. 15). We have editorialized on this case twice Bonn: Robart Ingersoll, Skke McQueen: Brussels: James Smith; London: James Trotter Pans: Kenneth Dreyfacfc, Joyce Heard: Sao Paulo: Fran* Taylor Tokyo: Rober Neff, Shota Ushio. before--in 1979 when an FTC bureau recommended the complaint, and in 1981 when an administrative law judge ruled SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS Cambridge: Herbert Lass; Denver Frank Pitman against the two companies and two competitors, Nalco Chemical and PPG New Orleans: Thecphile MuBen; Philadelphia: Lisi Lazomo Abercauph; Pittsburgh: Anne Watzman; St Louis: Theodors Schafers. Madrid: Jules Stewart Mexico Qty: Robart Haris Milan: Lois Bolton; Montreal: WIBiam Schatoss Sydney- Brian Gomez; Stockholm: Robert Skofe: 2u nch: Laira PrlVSki. Industries. Then and now, we think the FTC case has little merit and could set a bad precedent At no time were any of the companies charged with price-fixing. The charge has always been that the companies use BUSINESS Director of Busmeaa anq Services... AMn J. Babkos Director of Production............. .......Verna M. Retflat Asst Production Manager........................... Dale Krol a variety of marketing devices to arrive at identical, noncompetitive prices. Hie commission limited its recent finding to BHlinga/Statistica Manager........... .Aatnd Chahmiriai Diractor of New Projects.......... Raymond F. Fremei Services Associate........................... Sylvia M. Larkii Du Pont and Ethyl because PPG is drop ping out of the business and because Buyer's Guide Manager................... Mildred Rimonc Nalco was considered too small to be a Director Director of of RCeirscuelaartciohn.............................................................P...a..u..lBWe.rtEhartChe*price leader. Marketing Associate..... .....................Deborah Smikk FTC objects to long lead times on Admin. Asst to Publishar.................. Doreen A. Fell price announcements, saying that they Publisher......................................... Howard M. Mags give competitors a chance to match the new price before it takes effect The agency doesn't like uniform delivered prices. And it objects to "most favored nation'' contracts that guarantee a cus tomer a price that is no higher than one charged to any other customer. The agency may have a point on uni form delivered prices. But as we have said before, advance warning on price changes helps customers make better decisions on purchases and inventories. And the most-favored-nation principle is in the spirit of in the Robinson-Patman Act Its purpose is to keep a supplier from discriminating between buyers who are competing with one another. Those are worthy ideas, not to be lightly shed. FTC notes that the lead antiknock business is a highly concen trated industry--by definition, an oli gopoly--and so it is. It is also an indus try that is rapidly going out of business, as the demand for lead anti knocks continues to dwindle. We faO to see how changes in business practices that FTC insists on could have desirable effects sufficient to outweigh the losses in efficiency and equity that they will cause. Apr! 27. 1983/Chemie*l WMk 3 URL 04739 ifter ren- ues re* .derthe high ther itive and the de- reo in 1978 lust petiend* ( seDion that t to ancide end"be3onalso sion erty i. ntaprolstiWe ethty," mg- t I Fortune 500 drives 1982 home The chemical industry's tough 1982, portrayed in detail in this issue (p. 45), showed up last week in another set of statistics as well--the annual list pub lished by Fortune of the 500 largest industrial corporations. For five out of six key financial ra? tios, the median for the chemical com panies included in the Fortune 500 was lower last year than it was in 1981 {table). The exception was total return to investors, which includes both dividends and stock appreciation; the median for chemicals and many other industries was negative in 1981. Three chemical companies--Celanese, Mobay Chemical and B. F. Good rich--made the list of 58 money-losers in 1982. Of the profitable companies, Sun Chemical showed one of the larg est decreases in profits--92.5%. DuPont moved from Ho. 12 to No. 8 on the sales ranking, reflecting the full impact of its 1981 absorption of Conoco. Allied jumped six notches, to 49. Monsanto and W. R. Grace each rose by three notches, to 47 and 50, respectively. But two other majors slipped three notches, Dow Chemical to 227 and Union Carbide to 83. term interests of our industry [because] it's an incentive for companies to invest in new products and innovations." At EPA, officials are trying to sort out ramifications. Indications were that EPA lawyers felt they could make deci sions on a few registrations--those in volving data submitted by the corporate applicant. It seemed likely that EPA would request modifications and clarifi cations to meet a Friday court deadline. EPA has to select a legal strategy quickly, and one course could be to re quest a stay of the judge's order. That would allow the old system to be re sumed until all appeals are exhausted. Appeal EPA could also go to the high court if Wangelin rejects a stay re quest Appellate court review is by passed when a lower court judge rules a law unconstitutional. Rosanne Mayer, U. S. Justice Dept attorney, is quoted as saying that the government probably will appeal the Wangelin decision. Rulings upholding FIFRA provisions have been handed down by the third U. S. circuit court of appeals (Mobay t*. Gorruch) and the U. S. district court in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court has declined to consider those decisions. Monsanto's victory upsets Represen tative George E. Brown, Jr. (D., Calif.), who chairs the House Agriculture sub committee that oversees FIFRA. "Pres sure has been building for over two years now," he says, "for the EPA and the Congress to speed up the process of releasing pesticide data to the public. Some real progress has been made in recent months, and it's a shame that this progress may now be lost for months or years while the legal system sorts through the implications of the Monsanto decision." A hot debate over synthetics Three months after its formation, the Industry Coalition for Fire Safety is en joying some success in dissuading state legislators from restricting the use of synthetic materials because of their combustibility or combustion toxicity (CW, Jan. 6, p. 6). So far, the group has convinced Connecticut legislators not to adopt a measure to ban, as a building materia), anything emitting smoke more dense or more toxic than smoke given off by untreated wood. Now the coalition--organized largely by Du Pont and including nine lug syn thetics makers and four industry groups--is lobbying on legislative pro posals in Massachusetts, New York, California, Florida and Texas. Some of these focus on combustion toxicity as overriding in deciding what materials to allow in high-rise construction. "Such proposals will not make build ings safer," argues Richard Bennett of Du Pont, who is coalition chairman. "They will only distract the public from the real solutions to the problem-- smoke detectors, automatic fire sprin klers, stricter compliance with existing building codes, and public education." The coalition supports mandatory instal lation of smoke detectors and fire sup pressant devices in Florida, where the legislature is weighing such a proposal for hotels. Behind Texas legislation. Producers of plastics and synthetic fibers are some times finding themselves lined up against the Foundation for Fire Safety, a group backed by steel-pipe maker Al lied Tube and Conduit (Rosslyn, Va.). The foundation has been the force be hind proposed Texas legislation to ban April 27, 1963/Chemica/ Week 19 URL 04740 URL 04141 any combustible as an electrical conduit, leaving steel as virtually the only us able material. The coalition has testified against the measure. The proposed Texas law is extreme in its proscribing ail synthetics. But the coalition also opposes legislation intro duced in Massachusetts calling for a system to rate the combustion toxicity of various materials. Coalition executive director Ray Dur&zo says the group ob jects to state indexing of materials' combustion toxicity because it fears state tests may not be as sound scientif ically as those done by industry or the federal government. Durazo adds that the coalition considers available test methods insufficiently accurate. "Given the state of the art of combustion toxic ity today, it cannot be used." Reprodudbte. Not everyone agrees. Dr. Yves Alarie, University of Pittsburgh professor of respiratory physiology and toxicology, insists that methodologies have improved greatly over the last de cade. "We can measure it [combustion toxicity] and measure it well," he says. And test results are "more reproducible than the results for flamespread." Advocating indexing, Alarie says builders and those who recycle synthet ics need to understand the combustion toxidty of available materials. Some synthetics, such as fluoropolymers, have a "kind of toxicity we've never seen with wool and cotton. If the de signer is unaware of that toxicity, how can the designer make that decision?" In arguing for a systemic approach, Durazo is quick to point out that, while highly toxic when burned, fluoropo- lymers are "probably the safest materi al you can use in wire and cable insula tion'' because of their high heat resistance. "The real question is this," Durazo says. "Once you test for prod ucts of combustion, what do you do with those results?" Compromising on gas rates in Oklahoma With the ammonia market depressed, any new increases in production costs could be enough reason for a producer to throw in the towel and shutter more capacity in the already battered indus try. This month producers in Oklahoma are focusing on just such a threat--a decision by the Oklahoma Corporate Commission (OCC) on an $88.5 million rate increase request made by Oklaho ma Natural Gas (ONG), the pipeline that supplies the 10 ammonia facilities with Quaker to boil off chemicals Quaker Oats plans to sell its chemicals unit but has yet to disclose a buyer. Quaker says chemical earnings slumped 31.5% in the first half of its fiscal year, which began June 1982. The $2.6 billion company says it is the world's largest maker of furan chemicals. Furfuryl alcohol, made from corn cobs and rice hulls, makes up 75% of the group's products. MoM teals a deaL Mobil Chemical has purchased the Baggies product line from Colgate-Palmolive for an undis closed price. The line includes plasticsandwich and food-storage bags and will be added to Mobil's line of plastic products, which includes Hefty trash nearly all of their natural gas supply. For ammonia producers, the commis sion's decision was a mixed blessing: OCC issued interim rulings that afford some short-term relief for ammonia makers but foreshadow future hikes. Nevertheless, Oklahoma's fertilizer manufacturers association, in the words of George W. Haney, sees it as "a step in the right direction." Haney, a plant manager for Farmland Industries at Enid, Okla., echoes the feelings of the 10 Oklahoma plant operators, who have been fighting all this year againBt the proposed increase. The increase, the group claimed, might be enough to put several or all of them out of business. The coat of natural gas iB especially crucial for ammonia makers because it makes up as much as 85% of the cost of each ton of fertilizer. The 10 Oklahoma producers turn out as much as 2.5 mil lion tons of anhydrous ammonia annual ly, paying an average of $3.27/Mcf for their natural gas. A mfatad dacMoru The interim decision, in essence, placates both sides. Natural gas producers were granted permission to push through a $32.3 million emer gency rate hike. The gas companies can collect the money under bond but can not use it until OCC's final rate deci sion-expected in August or September. Ammonia producers, meanwhile, won some breathing space--and a precedent The innovative rate-allocation scheme for the first time shifts the burden of payment to residential users. Under the scheme approved by the commission, ONG's customers--residen tial, commercial and industrial--will pay $1.42/Mcf more than they are now pay- bags. Mobil has made Baggies for Col gate for 20 years. Diamond (olnt venture. Diamond Shamrock has agreed with Japan's chemical and drug company, Showa Denko, to launch an international joint venture in animal-health products and agriculture chemicals. Diamond says operations will be headquartered in the U. S., probably in Cleveland. Plastics sale. Northern Petrochemical, of Omaha, Neb., has sold its National Poly Products Div. to Triad Invest ment Group (Barrington, 111.) for about $15-20 million. National Poly makes plastic tubing, liners and shrink-wrap film. Northern is a sub sidiary of Internorth. mg--but on a weighted scale. Industrial customers, including fertilizer manufac turers, will pay the higher rate on the first 100 Mcf of natural gas they use per month--not much of an increase for plants that produce up to 2,000 tons/ day of ammonia. Residential consumers will pay the extra $1.42/Mcf on the first 3 Mcf they use per month. Thus, the vast numbers of ONG residential con sumers will carry the bulk of the load from now on. OCC also took the interim step of issu ing a 90-day ruling that may well serve to reduce the average cost of gas in the state. OCC has limited natural gas pro duction of unallocated wells to just 25% of each well's potential fiow. Prior to the ruling, the legal maximum produc tion from such wells was 50%. OCC ex pects the ruling to reduce production from the 15,000 wells in the state by between 25% and 50%. A hearing will be held on May 24 to discuss natural gas supply and demand questions. An OCC representative said the 90-day test pro gram could reduce the overall cost of gas to such companies as ONG, since it will reduce the company's take-or-pay liabilities. That would free the company from the need to borrow money to ser vice those liabilities and would allow it to pass along the cost of the gas they were forced to buy but couldn't sell. O Correction. We incorrectly reported that Air Products and Chemicals will raise hydrogen prices to $1.52/100 cu ft for the largest-volume users (CW, Apr. SO, p. S8). The correct price will be $1.32/100 cu ft 20 Chemical Waefc/Aprif 27, 1963