formaldehyde - Sciencemadness Dot Org

FORMALDEHYDE PRODUCTION 9
In 1910, O. Blank 7 patented the use of a silver catalyst in Germany. A.
year later Le Blanc and Plaschke 22 reported that formaldehyde yields obtained
with silver catalysts were higher than those with copper. Thomas 33
reported laboratory-scale results on the preparation of formaldehyde by
oxidizing methanol in the presence of copper, silver, and gold catalysts.
For the silver catalyst these results approach those reported by Homer in
194A 1 "*. In 1913, the silver catalyst was introduced in IT. S. operations
with the patent of Kusneaow 21 .
Commercial production of formaldehyde in the United States started
around 190L At that time, Buffalo was a center for the refining and marketing
of products from the destructive distillation of wood. Many small
stills in New York and Pennsylvania shipped their first distillate to Buffalo
for refining. This business was started in 1880 by E. B. Stevens, who was
associated with George X. Pierce, later founder of the Pierce-Axrow Motor
Corporation. The plant organized by Pierce and Stevens was first named
the Buffalo Alcholiae Works, later the Manhattan Spirits Co., then the
Wood Products Distilling Co. (In 19077 it was sold to the U. S. Industrial
Alcohol Co.) The company had purchased in 1901 apparatus for the manufacture
of formaldehyde from the Van Heyden Company in Germany;
the equipment was operated until 1903, when this part of the plant and
business was sold to the Heyden Chemical Co. and transferred to Garfield,
X, J. During about the same period, Harrison Brothers in Philadelphia
bought a German formaldehyde process and operated it in connection with
their paint works. Both the Heyden Company and the Perth Amboy
Chemical Works (a subsidiary of The Hoessler and Hasslacher Chemical
Co+, now the Electrochemicals Department of E. L du Pont de Nemours
& Co., Inc.) began manufacture of formaldehyde in 1904.
In the latter part of the first decade of the twentieth century, the discovery
and manufacture of phenol-formaldehyde resins by Dr. L. H.
Baekeland increased the demand for formaldehyde. When the war began
in 1914, the demand for all chemical products increased, and formaldehyde
was no exception. Since that time formaldehyde production has continued
to expand.
With the development of larger-scale manufacturing equipment, improvements
were made in the method for vaporizing alcohol and in the
scrubbing systems. Apparatus of aluminum, stoneware, and other more
durable materials replaced the glassware previously employed. Improvements
also became necessary in the control of heat from the exothermic
reaction. Gauze of the type employed by Blank 7 was found to disintegrate
or fuse together so firmly that no more vapors could be drawn through it.
Since this was particularly troublesome with high air-methanol ratios, low
ratios were employed in order to keep the catalyst active over an extensive
period, the excess methanol being subsequently distilled from the formalde-