Document N2gBpr9zKqyO4jm26QExkGzop

The Chemical World This Week 8E COMES UP WITH ITS OWN PCB'S SUBSTITUTE Electrical equipment companies are bidding to become their own biggest suppliers of substitutes for polychlo rinated biphenyls (PCB's). These substitutes are being developed to replace environmentally troubled PCB's in dielectric insulating fluids in capacitors, the largest remaining use area for these fluids. Last, week General Electric intro duced a line of non-PCB fluids, tradenamed Dielektrol, for small component and larger power capaci tors. The company haB developed a phthalate ester-based formulation that it says not only virtually elimi nates environmental risk but out performs the old PCB's except in fire resistance. GE will convert its capacitor pro duction completely to Dielektrol fluids by June 30. Currently the company lias Dielektrol production capacity of about 10 million tons per year at Hudson Falls, N.Y. This iB about double what GE will need for its own use. The company will sell Dielektrol at prices about competitive with PCB's and also will offer to li cense other.companies to produce it. Dielektrol is based on dioctyl phthalate, a commercial organic chemical used up to now as a plasti cizer. GE purposely picked a com mercial chemical freely available with a considerable research literature. In its own and contract laboratories' tests to date on acute toxicity, GE finds no significant hazard. The company also finds that the new fluid does not persist or accumulate in the environment. For example, GE says that in tests by Bionomics, Warehom, Mass., on bioaccumulation of car bon-1 4-tagged Dielektrol in fish tis sue, accumulation of fluid was 500 times lower than that of PCB's. Longer-term testa on chronic tox icity are still going on. Preliminary results are favorable. It. was the accumulation of PCB's effluents in the food chain that got PCB's into trouble in the early 1970's. At that time, U.S. use of these fluids was cut in half to about 40 million lb per year restricted to electrical equipment insulation. The sole cur rent U.S. producer is Monsanto, which plans to get out of this business by the end of October 1977. GE has dealt with a combustible property in its new fluid by fitting all capacitors with a fail-safe system. This system disconnects capacitor terminals from the power source in the event of buildup of internal pressure in a fire. GE's introduction of Dielektrol follows a similar switch to a non-PCB capacitor fluid by Westinghouse last fall (C&EN, Nov. 15,1976, page 25). The basic chemical in Westinghouse's new capacitor fluid is isopropvlbiphenyl. Still another fluid has been adopted by Sprague Electric. These new fluids from electrical equipment companies may displace a large part of what has been a chemical company market. Monsanto itself has dropped out of the PCB substitute race after evaluating a number of compounds. Dow Chemical is doubling capacity at Midland, Mich., by midyear to roduce its own PCo's substitute ased on alkylated chlorodiphenyl oxide. Dow's fluid currently is used in capacitors by McGraw-Eaison. Yet another PCB's substitute for Technician title OBpower capockora wkh newly developed Dielektrol Held capacitors is being offered by Exxon Chemical. Exxon's candidate is di- isononyl phthalate (D1NP), similar in properties and price to diocty) phthalate but with a slightly higher flash point. Railroads tell slurry advocates to pipe down It may be possible to mine 300 million tons per year of coal from western mines by 1985. But it may not be possible to haul it away. Railroads believe that their current and pro jected investments in new track, rolling stock, and maintenance will permit them to haul all the coal pro duced and then some. But slurry pipeline advocates dispute this ana say that even if it were possible it would be undesirable. Therein is the nub of a growing controversy over who will haul the coal from the West to eastern markets. At present, railroads have a strong osition in the coal hauling business ecause they can deny slurry pipe lines the right of eminent domain for passage of the lines beneath railroad tracks. Pipeline companies consider this unfair and have appealed to the Interstate Commerce Commission for waivers. If the appeal is granted, the slurry pipeline people say that they immediately will begin planning long-distance pipelines between the West Coast and the Mississippi River. The railroads do not believe that there is a need for a pipeline. They claim they witl be able to more than do the job in the foreseeable future. Pipeline advocates believe that the railroads are being given carte blanche to develop a coal hauling monopoly and point to some prob lems that already have developed with unit train deliveries of coal to the city of San Antonio, Tex. At a symposium on the coal di lemma sponsored by the American Chemical Society's Division of In dustrial & Engineering Chemistry and held in Colorado Springs last week, W. Pat Jennings, president of Slurry Transport Association and former Congressman from Virginia, claims that after negotiating a long term agreement with San Antonio, the railroad in question then esca lated its prices without notice. The city appealed to ICC, which wiped out the price increase as unreasonable. This shows, says Jennings, that without competition railroads will find price raises too irresistible. The alternative is to build and op erate slurry pipelines. Jennings says that there is more than enough busi ness for both railroads and pipelines, that the pipelines are cheaper to 4 CAEN Feb. 7,1977 HONS 000705