Science: Out of the Retorts

The American Chemical Society, meeting in Columbus, Ohio, last week heard that:

> The growing U.S. war demand for chlorine—e.g., for making synthetic rubber; ethylene glycol, which cools the Army's high-speed airplane engines; ammonium picrate, the Navy's chief source of explosives—can be met by a new process which 1) requires no electric power, 2) simultaneously produces another badly needed chemical, salt cake. By electrolysis of chlorides (mostly sodium chloride, common salt) the U.S. now makes about 2,200 tons of liquid chlorine a day. But demand is far outstripping supply: engineers last week estimated that a ton of chlorine goes into making a...