Document LKRJg90aejD01a69zRxX5Gp8q

.J.. >--mW..^. %.* 1*11 I -- 1 f>iW llWdlrfMlrilal AU. LEAD INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION, INC. 292 MADISON AVCNUK NEW YORK, N* Y. 10017 ' A i n.i n i.nm ^ - I . n m 11 n , m m n i . iey- . ii mi. ^ i nnui'i m, m . i . . . March 3/ 196V SUBJECT: A.I.H.B. PAPER To Members of the Lead Industries Association, Inc.: Attached la a copy of a paper prepared by the vriter and Hr. David M. Borclna and presented before The Metallur gical Society of the American Institute of Mining, Metal lurgical, and Petroleum Engineers at Its Annual Heating on February SO, 19& In Hev York. Extra copies are available as long as our supply lasts. We hope you will find It Interesting. Very truly yours. RLZ:mk Enc. Executive Vice President ; p i, . ........... sa iii" " . , wp** // LIA2A014 !f __ - - ***>* THE POSITION OF LEAD PI * CHAHGIKO TtEHKOLOGY By O Robert I. Ziigfeld* And David M. Sorcina** To quote one of our fellwv members of A T.M.E. who la In large measure responsible for getting us into this moss of trying to explain the position of lead in a changing technology, "The world la In the midst of a technological explosion, New materials and new methods are appearing so rapidly that moat of us are hard put even to keep up with developments In our own specific fields. How true! And yet the basic materials, like lead, with which we work do not change. All that happens is that we loam to make use of the properties they have always had in different ways to meet different conditions, to put them together with other materials to provide other useful properties in new materials. Just for example, lead has always had the ability to stop certain kinds of radiation, but until we put X-rays and radium to v>rk and until nuclear energy became a reality, we either did not know lead had this property or we had no occasion to use it. Thus the technology of radiation created a whole new field of use fulness for lead. By the same reasoning, but with reverse results, aluminum has always been only about one-fifth as heavy as lead, but until aluminum technology reached the point where It could be produced at reasonable cost and rolled to thin foil, lead enjoyed a big market in foil pack aging, as for cigarettes. Since a pound of aluminum will make five times as much foil of the same thickness as will a pound of lead, lead had to move over. fHt wtw f ; Executive vice president - Lead Industries Association, Inc. 292 Madison Avenue Kew Torfc, N, Y. 10017 ** Secretary, ditto This paper la to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, New York City, Feb. 16-20, 1964. Permission Is hereby given to publish with appropriate acknowledgments, excerpts or summaries not to exceed one-fourth of the en tire text of the paper. Permission to print In more extended fora subsequent to publication hv the Institute must be obtained from the Secretary of the Institute. If and when this paper is published by the Institute, It may embody certain changes mads by agreement between the Publications Cocolttee and the author, so the form in which it appears Is not neceajarlly that In which it may be published later. "pr" MV ' WjWVU|l JMiiW`Ui |) UNI 1 line * ^ 1972.01 LIA2 4015 -2- Tl.c tuition of Lead in a Changing Technology Just one more example. It has Ions been known that lead c o s h o pounds in porcelain enamels provide a flux that rosuits in enamels that can be fired at extremely low temperatures. Because gteel haa a high melting point and can be fired at high temperatures, th; *.eed .or such enamels was limited. However, as the use of alimlnvn expanded and a need for brightly colored enamel finishes on aluminum developed, a need for low firing porcelain enamels for aluminum was created. Thus was also created a new market for the lead oxides and silicates used in porcelain enamels. We cite these examples simply to prove that, aa old as lead la and as long as technologists have put it at the service of mankind, it continues to find its place as technology charges, h'e merely must learn how to fit lta many useful properties into that modem technology. Before discussing in detail ease of lead's modem applications, some review of the overall picture of lead uses will undoubtedly be helpful. The United States consumes over 1,100,000 tons of lead a year today. Of this about 60 per cent is in the form of lead metal or lead alloys, and about 40 per cent in chemical compounds. Table I shows a breakdown by products. ESTIMATED LEAD CCKSUMPTICH BT PRODUCTS - 1963 (In Short Tons) Tetraethyl Lead Litharge Black Cbdda Red Lead White Lead Lead Chromates Load Arsenate Miscellaneous Lead Compounds 190,000 90,000 170,000 25,000 10,500 20,000 2,500 8.000 TOTAL LEAD COMPOUNDS 516,000 Antlmonial Lead Products Cable Sheathing Solder Calking Lead Ammunition Pipe and Extruded Products Rolled Products Type Hetal Bearing Metals Miscellaneous 225,000 56,000 73,000 80,000 50,000 20,000 34,000 26,000 21,500 -62.200 o TOTAL METALLIC LEAD PRODUCTS 649,700 TOTAL 1,165,700 LlA24016 hri'rti i i--miinwf 11 i^i mV ifn -3* The Position of Lead in a Changing Technology Another way is to break lead's usage down by industries. It is not possible to make this breakdown entirely clear out because of the diffi culty and even impossibility of tracing the ultimate disposition of a number of lead products. let in most cases, the Industry in which tha lead is fabricated is clearly indicated. This Is shown in Table II. ESTIMATED LEAD COWSUMPTICW BY CASTRIES - 1963 (In Short Tons) Storage Batteries Oil P.efining and Gasoline Cable Construction Paint and Varnish Ajnrunit ion Brass Manufacturing Printing Ceramics Colors Can Manufacturing Automobiles (other than Batteries) Railroads Insecticides Steel and Wire Foil Collapsible Tubes Rubber and Hose Coatings Unclassified 1.30,000 192,000 53,000 130,000 33,000 50,000 22,000 26,000 19,000 18,000 13,000 16,000 10,000 2,500 4,000 4,000 14,COO 3,500 2,COO 113.700 1,165,700 We don't want to belabor the point made earlier of adaptability to changing technology but the table of lead's current usage by industries is extremely illustrative of the point. Considering that lead has been known and used by man for 30 or 40 centuries, when were its important modern uses developed! The storage battery industry uses mors lead than any other industry, over a third of the total. Lejd storage batteries were unknown until about a century ago when Plante cade the first lead-acid cell. Lead-acid batteries were in comr.ercial use in a small way in the lata 1800'a, but the automobile brought lead-acid storage batteries into their own. When Kettering developed the self starter for automobiles in 1915 the SLI battery (starting, lighting. Ignition) waa uon and today uses over 80 per cent of all the lead going into batteries. Thus less than 50 years ago, lead'a biggest uso was bom and grew with the horseless carriage. The electrochemical properties which lead always possessed became a great boon to tha modem automotive age. *****& WAHlpi > 1 LIA24017 -4- The Position of Lead in a Changing Technology Q Unlike the storage bc'.tery industry in which core 00 per cent of the lead used lo recovered from acrap, refined, and reusod as secondary lead, tho gasoline industry, second largest consumer of lead today, completely dissipates ths lead thst goes into its products. This industry employs lead in the fora of lead alkyls to make antiknock compounds in gasoline. Lead was first used for this purpose about 40 years ago in 1923. Today around 190,000 tons or between 15 end 20 per cent of total lead consump tion goes into gssolins antiknock compounds. About half of all the lead used each year is concentrated In these two applications, neither of which can be termed "old" in relation to the age of lead ,'tself, and both of which re lato to ths automobile which though mature is still the bellwether of nodern Industry, modern technology and modern living. It it interesting to note, however, that the amount of lead used each year in these applications is not dependent on the rate of production of automobiles but rsther on the number of sutonobiles In ope ration and on the distance they are operated. This is because gasoline is used in driving and not in building a car and because about four re placement batteries are needed for every one that goes into new equipment. But we'll hear more about that later! 1 If any of you feel that these uses developed in the last forty or O fifty years are not modem enough to suit you, we have only to turn to the field of nuclear energy or to electronica. There is nothing more nodern than our nuclear navy - submarines, cruisers, carriers - or the first nuclear merchantman, THE SAVAIBUH. While except for IKE SAVANKAH which 'f carries about 530 tors of lead radiation shielding, the amount of lead shielding employed is classified, each of the naval vessels is estimated to have from at least 250 tons to several thousand tons of lead shielding depending on the type and size of ship. And ships are only one manifestation of nuclear energy applications. There are also huge central power stations, portable power plants for renoto locations, isotope shipping containers, irradiation units for treatment of food, industrial and research laboratories. All these and othor nuclear applications use lead in various forms and in varying degree. Lead castings, shot, powder, wool, sheet and plate, glass bricks, and ex trusions are among the forms of lead employed. Electronics are giving lead another modern technological boost. An old lead product, solder, is one to benefit most In making permanent, highly conductive Joints In ths slectrical systems. Lead oxide It another old product that goes Into ths glass of telsvision tubes. But there are some entirely new products involved like lead ilrconate-titanate, a pletoelectrie material that converts electrical to mschanical energy and vice versa without moving parts and st very high frequencies. For exsmpls, this mateiu.1 is ths heart of ultrasonic industrial cleaning equipment and sonar, two of its major applications. Some 500 to 1,000 tons of lead a year of this somewhat exotic material are l o w being used. r juimiM i jujiiiv'i.ipijr <w Ktmrw* mm*** "mm LIA2A018 y/ ---- --n ~ -| |------ -J- The Position of Laid in f Changing Technology Lead telluride la another material that is receiving considerable research and some cocnerclal attention. This is a thermoelectric material that converts heat to olectrlcity and vice versa without moving parts. It has been used in the cathodic protection of pipe lines and in SNAP satel lites, and is being experimented with to generate electricity from waste heat in home heating systems. While this is never likely to become a major uee of lead, it certainly is a good illustration of lead's place in our modern changing technology. Now let's turn to two related areas in another field - control of noise and vibration. Here the applicability of lead has been known in a limited way for a long time, 10 or $0 years at least, but only sporadic applications of lead for these purposes have been made. Kara or leas suddenly this picture has thangcd, largely because people have become atrongly conscious of ths annoyance, coat and actual damage to health, machines and structures caused by uncontrolled noise and vibration. Nearly 50 years ago the New Tork Central Railroad first required the use of lead-asbestos antivibration pads under building column along its Park Avenue right-of-way leading into Grand Central Terminal in New Tork. Since then this practice has been consistently followed because of the satisfaction they gave In preventing train vibration from passing up into the buildings. Also the Pennsylvania Railroad used such pads in Philadelphia, the Canadian National in Montreal, and the Hew Tork Central in several other locations. However, the growing consciousness of the vibration problem, not Just caused by railroads but by subways and street traffic as well and the building boom of recent years have resulted in much wider use of these pads. The U3e of air rights over railroad rights-of-way have added to the trend so that now it is quite cosram prac tice. They have been used under scores of buildings in Hew Tork, Montreal, Boston, New Jersey and elsewhere. Their field performance has been scienti fically investigated and for the first time, engineering data are available to help in designing for maximum effectiveness. These pads hare a1 so been ueed occasionally in the past to reduce trans mission of machinery vibration. Many newspaper printing presses are instal led on such pads and some laundry machinery and rubber mills have been in stalled in this way. More recently, air conditioning cooling towers on the roofs of a couple of large New Tork City office buildings have been mounted on these pads. One of the leading manufacturers of electrical transformers is using them under one line of his transformers. It appears thst ths machinery market has only been scratched and will grow rapidly aa more Is learned about the nature of the vibration to be controlled in each instance and the areas in which the lesd pads are most effective. Next we have the related field of nolee transmission control. Over maty years lead has occasionally been used for this purpose, usually In the form of sheet. A laboratory at the Sorbonne in Paris, music studios in London, doors in the N.B.C. studios at Radio City in New Tork, are examples of sheet lesd linings to prevent the transmission of noise. Now three things are ft, LIA24019 > -6~ Tho Fbsltion of Load in & Chancing Technology spurring wider and more rapid development of lead for such purposes. The public has become noise conscious. It wants quiet. Industry is finding noise costly and damaging to employee health. And lead is finding use not Just by itself but in combination with other materials which make it more useful in application. Considerable research has been done to determine more precisely Just what effect lead has in various types of construction. This Is giving engineers more data with which to work and dealgn intslllgently. A number of experimental Installations have been made and tested with encouraging results. It looks like a market for lead will develop in this field, particularly aa the economic problems involved are resolved. A Canadian manufacturer is selling movable panels containing lead as room dividers for hotels, motels and schools. Leaded vinyls in which generally lead powder Is Incorporated in the plastic binder are finding rather wide use commercially in controlling noise. They are used as cabin liners in most of our newest Jet airliners and in helicopters, in typewriters, in removable partitions, or room dividers, and in a number of Industrial applications such as for wrapping noisy valves in gas pressure reducing stations, We estimate that scoe 500 tons of lead are now being used for such purposes. 0 What about lead chemicals which account for about 40 per cent of current lead consumption? Here technology has really changed the picture. Back in the 1920's white lead as a paint pigment consumed nearly 200,000 tons of lead a year,tut newer pigments, particularly titanium dioxide, came along to reduce this market over the last 40 years to only a few thousand tons. However, in 1923, tetraethyl lead as a gasoline antiknock additive was bom and in 40 years the use of lead to make this and other lead alkyl additives has grown from nothing to nearly 200,000 tons. Despite the decline In white lead, other lead pigments new and old are giving a good account of themselves. Red lead remains the standard pigment for metal protective paints. Lesd chromate with Its brilliant yellow color is growing in use as a traffic marking paint due to its visibility and the respact generally accorded it by motoriats. A whole new group of lead pigments in which each particle has an Inert core like silica and an active lead pigment on the surface has been developed for both house paints and metal protective paints and are getting wide accep tance. Through research, both old and new lead pigments are finding appli cation in water thlnnable baking primers for automobiles and other metal products and In latex house paints. Extensive research is being conducted on new organo-lead chemicals and several are being tested by industry itself for such possible appli cations as antifouling biocides for mar ino paints, pxsstlcides, heat and light stabilizers for polymerized chlorinated hydrocarbons, catalyata for polyurethanes and for esterification generally, and as piroducors of chemical radicals. They include such compounds as totraphenyl lead, hexapheryl di lead, triphenyl lead acetate and diphenyl lead dlacetate. r l|g^jWl.,'.Hi*W LIA24020 -7- The Position of Lead In a Changing Technology Other lead chemicals are also showing premising possibilities in the treatoont of cotton to Improve such properties es rot resistance and fire resistance. The ceramic Industries are making greater and greater use of lead oxides and silicates because of the fine fluxing characteristics of these compounds. Lower firing temperatures required to enamel aluminum for example, and to reduce the cost of enameling steel have placed more of a load on these lead compounds as has the trend to the use of glased brick and other clay products which employ lead fluxas. A moment ago we mentioned the lead alkyls, like tetraethyl and tetramethyl lead, as antiknock additives for gasoline. Their use has grown sen sationally both In the United States and throughout the world. The growth In lead consumption for this application was temporarily retarded in the late 1950's by largo scale construction by the petroleum Industry of crack ing facilities capable of producing higher octane gasoline without additives and by compact cars. Construction of plants to produce lead alkyls abroad, such as In Italy, England and Canada, also had a depressing effect on U.S. production which formerly supplied the foreign market. Today Dost of these deterrents to further growth have been minimiled. The new cracking capacity Is being used to its fullest and no new such capacity appears to be in the offing. The trend now la to larger and more powerful cars both here and abroad. Only one additional new foreign plant, In Mexico, la under construc tion. The threat of automobile engines like the gas turbine which do not require high test gasoline appears to be remote. Of course, the change to Jet aircraft, the fuel for which does not require lead compounds, la another factor that has had an adverse effect. Lead sheathing for both power and ccanunlcatione cable has suffered In the last 30 years from intense competition. The tonnage used for this pur pose has fallen from a peak of 220,000 tons in 1929 In the United States to around 60,000 tons today. Abroad this substitution trend has been nowhere near so pronounced so far but will probably follow the United States trend in soma degree In time. Tet even here the trend seems to have bottomed out, with consumption having reached its low and with the likelihood that the present usage of lead will continue or start to trend slightly upward. In cable today lead continues to be used for the severest conditions where com plete impermeability and reliability are essential such as telephone cable buried directly in the ground or power cable such as that which is paperinsulated in which no chance of moisture can be tolerated. Perhaps it is some small compensation to realize from this that even their developers do not consider substitutes as complete equals of lead sheaths but rsthar ss economic compromises. As previously stated, the lead-acid storage battery is the biggest use of lead and continues to grow, despite the development of nickel-iron, nickel-cadmium, silver-zinc, and other combinations. These newer power storage packages have their special applications, but both,because of economy and reliability seem to be little threat to the lead-acid battery for automobile starting, lighting and ignition, or to lead Industrial bat teries, the big tonnage markets. In 1963 It appears that shipments of automobile batteries will set a new record for the second successive year. LIA2 4021 *rm.**tt -fl- The Position of Lead in a Changing Technology Industrial batteries which use soms 45,000 tons of lead i year of the total of about 425,000 tons in all batteries have also shown substantial increases. In automobiles since the war, improvements have been constantly decreasing the site and Increasing the life of batteries, which meant less lead per bat tery and fewer batteriee, affecting somewhat adversely the total consumption of lead. However, this trend has tapered off as apparently it becomes more and more difficult to improve batteries technologically. In motive-power batteries, technology has greatly increased the power output per unit of weight and site, giving these batteries new advantages in competing with other power like gasoline or propane. The trend in all industries to more mechanical materials handling and to the use of powered personnel carriers in large plants is also helping motive power batteries. A new short haul delivery truck is now on the narket for milk and bread routes and the like which should in time add substantially to the industrial battery market.' An interesting economic development should also help the sale of electrle industrial and street trucks which in the pest have cost more initially than gasoline trucks. At least one battery manufacturer will now supply the batteries without cost and charge for them based on the power used as shown by a meter, thus reducing the original investment substantially. Ths technology of production is contributing to the rejuvenation of an old standby lead product - terns plate. As you know, this is simply sheet steel with a hot dip coating of lead alloyed with up to 20 per cent tin. It is currently used for roofing, automobile and other gasolins tanka, radio and television chassis, non-food cans, and a variety of miscellaneous metal products in which corrosion resistance, deep drawing, solderability, and easy finishing are important. Current lead consumption is only a couple of thousand tons a year in this application but existing productive capacity has been overtaxed to supply the growing demand. As a result, two of the five Important United States producers have doubled their productive capacity Just recently indicating an industry-wide production increase of about a third, and improvements in production methods indicate a greatly expanded future market. The old process of hot dipping individual sheets was slow and costly. However, high speed continuous coating liners hava been perfected and the product is now available in coils of almost any desired length, produced at high speed,and convenient and economical to use in mass production. It la obvious that one could go on almost indefinitely discussing the changing pattern of lead's applications due to modem technology. There are many other applications that could be mentioned. He have scarcely touched upon the technology of production and fabrication which would bring us into the realm of high purity metals, smelting and refining dovelopaents like the Imperial Smelting process, continuous extrusion of lead cable eheath and con tinuous casting of thin sheet lead, powder metallurgy techniques for producing wrought and coated products, high speed lead electroplating and acre. These could well be the subject of another paper or papers in themselves. LIfc2^022 jti.QU. \' -9- The Position of Lead o In a Changing Technology Our purpose here has been to demonstrate that technology is con stantly changing the pattern of use of raw materials, that sometimes these changes constitute threats to long established markets but that constant vigilance and foresightedness can often make wonderful opportunities of these technological developments. In today's technological explosion, it la necessary for any basic industry like ours to make and to recognise these opportunities. They don't Just knock at your door. Research and dissemination of knowledge fora a two-pronged approach that can be effective. Research can fill the gaps In our knowledge and apply it to the changing technical needs of the times. And full Information about a material and lta potentialities mist always be kept before the people who can use it in the development of their own products and markets. This approach we believe is being wisely used by the lead Industries. The research need is being filled by the International Lead Zinc Research Organisation, supported by lead producers thioughout the world ,as well as by research of individual members of the industry. Dissemination of infor mation about lead to other industries is being accomplished through the activities of the Lead Industries Association, Inc., and its counterparts in other countries like Creat Britain, franca. Western Germany, Italy and Australia, and by individual companies. We believe that as a result all industry is taking a new interest In lead and is viewing this old metal with an attitude of "What can we do with lead next?" rather than "Lead did a good Job for us in its day, but ..................... " *S ' . kM iU k , im U ihi fpufr >-