Document e7Kk9Zy8223wOkep326EByrjM

The Chemical World This Week GE COMES UP WITH ITS OWN PCB'S SUBSTITUTE Electrical equipment companies are capacitors with a fail-safe system. bidding to become their own biggest This system disconnects capacitor suppliers of substitutes for polychlo terminals from the power source in rinated biphenyls (PCB's). These the event of buildup of internal substitutes are being developed to pressure in a fire. replace environmentally troubled GE's introduction of Dielektrol PCB's in dielectric insulating fluids follows a similar switch to a non-PCB in capacitors, the largest remaining capacitor fluid by Westinghouse last use area for these fluids. fall (C&EN, Nov. 15,1976, page 25). Last week General Electric intro The basic chemical in Westinghouse's duced a line of non-PCB fluids, new capacitor fluid is isopropylbi- tradenamed Dielektrol, for small phenyl. Still another fluid has been component and larger power capaci adopted by Sprague Electric. tors. The company has developed a These new fluids from electrical phthalate ester-based formulation equipment companies may displace that it says not only virtually elimi a large part of what has been a nates environmental risk but out chemical company market. Monsanto performs the old PCB's except in fire itself has dropped out of the PCB resistance. substitute race after evaluating a Technician fills GE power capacitors with GE will convert its capacitor pro number of compounds. newly developed Dielektrol fluid duction completely to Dielektrol Dow Chemical is doubling capacity fluids by June 30. Currently the at Midland, Mich., by midyear to capacitors is being offered by Exxon company has Dielektrol production produce its own PCB's substitute Chemical. Exxon's candidate is di- capacity of about 10 million tons per based on alkylated chlorodiphenyl isononyl phthalate (fllNP), similar in year at Hudson Falls, N.Y. This is oxide. Dow's fluid currently is used in properties and price to dioctyl about double what GE will need for capacitors by McGraw-Edison. phthalate but with a slightly higher its own use. The company will sell Yet another PCB's substitute for flash point. Dielektrol at prices about competitive with PCB's and also will offer to li cense other.companies to produce it. Railroads tell slurry advocates to pipe down Dielektrol is based on dioctyl phthalate, a commercial organic It may be possible to mine 300 million claim they will be able to more than chemical used up to now as a plasti tons per year of coal from western do the job in the foreseeable future. i cizer. GE purposely picked a com mines by 1985. But it may not be Pipeline advocates believe that the mercial chemical freely available with possible to haul it away. Railroads railroads are being given carte a considerable research literature. In believe that their current and pro blanche to develop a coal hauling its own and contract laboratories' jected investments in new track, monopoly and point to some prob tests to date on acute toxicity, GE rolling stock, and maintenance will lems that already have developed finds no significant hazard. The permit them to haul all the coal pro with unit train deliveries of coal to the company also finds that the new fluid duced and then some. But slurry city of San Antonio, Tex. does not persist or accumulate in the pipeline advocates dispute this and At a symposium on the coal di environment. For example, GE says say that even if it were possible it lemma sponsored by the American that in tests by Bionomics, Wareham, would be undesirable. Therein is the Chemical Society's Division of In Mass., on bioaccumulation of car nub of a growing controversy over dustrial & Engineering Chemistry bon-14-tagged Dielektrol in fish tis who will haul the coal from the West and held in Colorado Springs last sue, accumulation of fluid was 500 to eastern markets. week, W. Pat Jennings, president of times lower than that of PCB's. At present, railroads have a strong Slurry Transport Association and Longer-term tests on chronic tox position in the coal hauling business former Congressman from Virginia, icity are still going on. Preliminary because they can deny slurry pipe claims that after negotiating a long results are favorable. lines the right of eminent domain for term agreement with San Antonio, It was the accumulation of PCB's passage of the lines beneath railroad the railroad in question fhen esca effluents in the food chain that got tracks. Pipeline companies consider lated its prices without notice. The PCB's into trouble in the early 1970's. this unfair and have appealed to the city appealed to ICC, whichwiped out At that time, U.S. use of these fluids Interstate Commerce Commission for the price increase as unreasonable. .was cut in half to about 40 million lb waivers. If the appeal is granted, the This shows, says Jennings, that per year restricted to electrical slurry pipeline people say that they without competition railroads will equipment insulation. The sole cur immediately will begin planning find price raises too irresistible. rent U.S. producer is Monsanto, long-distance pipelines between the The alternative is to build and op which plans to get out of this business West Coast and the Mississippi erate slurry pipelines. Jennings says by the end of October 1977. River. that there is more than enough busi GE has dealt with a combustible The railroads do not believe that ness for both railroads and pipelines, property in its new fluid by fitting all there is a need for a pipeline. They that .the pipelines are cheaper to 4 C&EN Feb. 7,1977 DSW 587230 STLCOPCB4092566