Category Archives: Chemical Industry

Thorium and Methanol

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As we track down the back side of the petroleum curve, we will see a transition from the alkane/alcohol fueled Otto engine to a greater reliance on electric conveyance. Here is some wishful thinking-  Ethanol as a direct petroleum replacement will collapse under the weight of scrutiny as better cost data becomes available. Eventually, ethanol will be prized foremost as an oxygenate additive replacement for MTBE. 

Methanol and Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbons from coal and biomass will provide high energy density fuels for the carbon-neutral future as petroleum scarcity drives other technologies into play. The Fischer-Tropsch liquified fuels technology from 20th century pariah states (Nazi Germany and South Africa) will assume a greater role in the post-petroleum age.

Fermentation of starch-derived glucose to ethanol and CO2 is too wasteful in the end to be attactive.  Fermentation of cellulosic material to acetate is more mass efficient. Esterification and reduction of ethyl acetate affords ethanol. One company, ZeaChem, (former coworkers, actually) is already working to bring this technology on stream. It remains to be seen how it will go over. I wish them well.

Electric power for the future will come from many sources. Distant, centralized power plants will channel energy across the grid to home-charged automobiles. Electrons travel fast and quietly over the lonely wire. They do not require fleets of ponderous 18-wheelers to move them around in limited quantities.

I see a future heavily reliant on electrons supplied from nuclear plants. Uranium-235 infrastructure will continue to supply fuel to nuclear plants for a long time. But the low abundance of U-235 (o.7 %) and the ever present proliferation potential of Pu-239 from this fuel cycle raises questions as to the wisdom of building U-235 nuke plants in the third or fourth tier states.

A more obscure nuclear fuel that is more abundant than uranium will see a phase-in as demand on the present nuclear fuel infrastructure exceeds supply.  That fuel is Th-232. Thorium-232 is  generally more abundant that uranium and has the additional benefit that it’s major isotope, Th-232 , is the nuclide of interest. Th-232 is not a fissile nuclide, but is a “fertile” isotope instead. Th-232 absorbs a neutron in a reactor seeded with U-235 or Pu-239 to provide an initial neutron flux to become Th-233, which beta decays to Pa-233 which further beta decays to U-233.  It is U-233 which is the fissile nuclide.  U-233 then participates in the fission chain reaction that generates the heat.

You can’t make a nuclear weapon out of Th-232, though in principle you could make one from U-233. The downside of a U-233 bomb is the high specific activity of this isotope.  U-233 is intensely radioactive and poses extra problems in handling.

The economics of thorium energy is advantageous in many ways to that provided by uranium/plutonium infrastructure. Thorium is abundant in monazite formations- reportedly up to 16 % thorium oxide.  The present problem with the thorium cycle is handling the intensely radioactive U-233 that remains in the spent fuel elements. Separate processing infrastructure will have to be put in place to supply reactors that burn thorium before this fuel can go forward.

An HTGR  Brayton cycle reactor with a helium turbine could provide up to 50 % thermodynamic efficiency.  Combine this reactor design with the potential cost savings of the more abundant Th-232, and you have a technology that is well set to provide power to keep the lights, cable TV, and the internet going into the post-petroleum age.

Check out the blog dedicated to Energy from Thorium. I’m writing about thorium because I think it is an important fuel and it needs to find its way to mainstream thinking.  

Kunstlers Most Excellent Rant

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If you don’t read Jim Kunstlers blog, Cluster***k Nation, you’re really missing out on some juicy stuff. Thanks to the all-seeing eye of Uncle Al for this particular post.  Kunstler writes with a manic urgency rather like Hunter S. Thompson (and … Uncle Al).  I’m not calibrated for the negative spin on the mortgage disaster that he makes.  Perhaps others can comment.

Feral Chemists. Gaussling’s 4th Epistle to the Bohemians.

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Like the house cat that returns to the wild state when it leaves the house, chemists can go feral when they get out into the world.  The process begins the morning after graduation from college.  No exams to study for, no lab writeups to hand in. Being enrolled in coursework has a kind of edifying effect; a kind of regimentation that keeps one true to the discipline.

Human behaviour resembles a gas in some ways- we expand to occupy the space available to us. If bench space is available, we’ll find something to put on it. If condensers are in abundance, we’ll find a way to hook them up to something. If other distractions are available, our consciousness will expand into that space.

Some chemists quit learning after graduation.  They lose their gusto for the subject.  They acquired their bag of tricks in grad school and are quite content to stick with those tools for the duration of their careers. They become an intellectual couch potato- a 9 to 5 technocrat. Some companies are unaware of the value of professional interaction and refresher coursework.  Other companies just do not care.

A wise chemist once told me that the worst thing you could do in your career was to be a chemist in a company where chemistry was not the main activity. He was an IBM chemist and he spoke from bitter experience.

One of the most valuable assets of a scientist is curiosity and keeping it well honed is crucial.  Industry can bleed you of all of your professional enthusiasm if you let it.  Or, it can tempt you to go to the dark side- the business end.  Industry can exhaust you with endless administrative requirements and supervisory duties.  Insane deadlines and fickle management can bind you to seemingly impossible projects like a modern Sisyphus.  You’ll wear leg irons bearing the letters SAP, and speak in tongues- TSCA, MSDS, ROI, and CYA.

Through the years, unopened journals stack up on the floor. You can’t remember what an ACS meeting was like.  The paper in your college textbooks begins to yellow, and you become aware of your prostate. 

But the feral chemist has to resist. You have to rage against the stupifying isolation and indifference. It is important to periodically experience that rush of adrenaline that you get when some new concept opens before your eyes.  Open a journal and don’t set it down until you learn something new!

Uranium Business Returning to Critical Mass

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There is a saying that opportunity doesn’t beat the door down, it only knocks quietly. So it seems to be with uranium.  The American uranium extraction business took a big hit when the Three Mile Island accident happened in the late 1970’s. Nuclear power growth was tabled and only recently has it shown signs of recovery. 

With few exceptions, the rebound of the North American nuclear fuel business is largely invisible, apparent only if you go digging for signs.  One exception is happening in north central Colorado, near the town of Nunn.  A Canadian company, Powertech Uranium Corp., has acquired mineral rights to a sizeable parcel of land northeast of Ft Collins along the eastern side of I-25. It is called the Centennial Project and circumscribes an ore body estimated to hold 5.1 to 9.6 million pounds of U3O8, according to a technical report posted in the public domain at the Powertech website. The extent of U3O8 recovery would depend on the percent cutoff level of acceptable ore. The ore body is a discontinuous series of subsurface deposits with the top of the uranium mineralization at ca 82 feet below the surface. 

According to the report by Gorski and Voss, the average grade of the ore is 0.094 % and the average thickness of the vein is 8.8 ft (Table 1, latest estimate). Powertech has mentioned the possibility of in-situ extraction with bicarbonate leach as the means of removal of the mineral value rather than underground mining.

Naturally, the locals have not warmed up to the news that there might be a uranium mining operation in the area. A local group, Coloradoans Agains Resource Destruction (CARD), has put up a website (NunnGlow) and are vigorously lobbying against the development. In particular, the matter of leaching has brought a large negative sentiment to the forefront and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) has intervened with the NRC to allow a more lengthy public comment period in the permitting process. Locals are rightfully concerned about their aquifer and are entitled to some straight talk about the matter.

While I am generally in favor of uranium mining, I have to agree with NunnGlow in regard to contamination of the aquifer by this in-situ leaching process. Powertech needs to offer some compelling evidence that the aquifer won’t be harmed by their leaching operations.

On Getting Screwed. Gausslings 3rd Epistle to the Bohemians.

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At some point in you career, you’re going to get screwed. Either by an organization, a person, a cabal, or some dark force. It’s going to happen so you should give some thought as to how you’ll behave.  But what do I mean by “getting screwed”?

Getting screwed means that you’re career has taken some kind of a hit as the result of an aggressive or destructive act. Your reputation has been besmurched or soiled in a way to cause harm, or some damage has come to your credibility as the result of the posturing of another player.  Screwings as a result of your own stupid behaviour are self-imposed and are not addressed here.

To use the naval metaphor, a hit can happen above or below the waterline.  A hit above the waterline may be survivable, but one below the waterline means that you’re gonna sink. No matter what, you’re going to take some hits. The goal is to minimize the hits below the waterline.

When I was teaching, my rule of thumb was that about 10 % of the class will hate your guts no matter what, about 10 % will love you no matter what, and the 80 % in the middle were undecided. Turns out this may be generally true in polite society.  Call it the 10:80:10 Rule.  (Minimally, it is a comfortable illusion that I cling to… )

Nobody is universally loved; not Lassie, the Virgin Mary, or even Col. Sanders. In fact, the goal really shouldn’t be to find universal love and adoration. The goal should be to earn as much respect as you can.  It is possible for people to dislike you, but simultaneously respect you. That is probably as much as you can expect. Pay special attention to people who dislike you. You may learn something important about youself.

Whoever said “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” was a true seer and this should always be considered, distasteful as it may be.

Office politics are ubiquitous and you should learn to master it.  Put two people in a room and you have politics. There will always be competing interests and ego. Always. Pretending to be apolitical is just another form of politics- the politics of victimhood.  Your political stance should always include- BE HONEST, GENEROUS, and FAIR. This is a type of politics- don’t be shy in using it.

Always be honest. It is too hard to remember all of the intertwining lies and subterfuge.  Always seek the best for the company and your colleagues. Be fair and generous with credit for contributions to a project.  The politics of earnestness is hard to beat. Remember, you cannot fall off the floor.

If your career is being sabotaged, address it in a straighforward and open manner. To respond in kind is to abandon all hope of fair treatment later. It is always better to be guilty of being honest.

If you find yourself working with insufferable SOB’s who participate in fatal office politics, still, try to be fair and upbeat. It is better to have lost a position and be given the chance to move on than to sink to petty and crude behaviour.

Chemical Fear Factor

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The chemical business environment is changing in some ways that, I fear, add even more disadvantage to small chemical manufacturers. The regulatory sphere is closing in on our chemical manufacturing industry like shrink wrap around a gutted salmon.  Whereas it was once straightforward to bring a new chemical product to the B2B market, now we have TSCA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) placing complex obstacles in the road. 

TSCA compliance for non-listed compounds requires that process details be disclosed for screening and hazard modeling by EPA workers.  Unless the EPA finds some compelling environmental or worker exposure issue that requires further consideration, a new compound is allowed.  

Operating unsafely is a poor business model. Civil litigation and insurance pressures are usually enough to motivate a plant operator to conduct safe practices. Regardless, if you’re in the business of breaking trail in developing new chemical entities, waiting for allowance by EPA necessitates starting the development timeline up to a full quarter in advance.  TSCA filing also starts an audit trail that, for the unwary, can lead to a filing cabinet full of discoverable documents that can return to haunt you.  TSCA is powerful code and it is one of the larger hammers that the government wields.

Before the chemical regulatory epoch began in earnest, chemical processing merely delt with the forces of the market and of nature.  Corrosives, flammable liquids, runaway reactions, foreign competition, etc. That was dangerous enough and required the full attention of many experts. 

Today, in addition to chemical hazards we have administrative hazards that require specially trained staff and, naturally, lawyers. Law office charges to document compliance may cost as much per hour as a whole shift of operators for a medium scale process line. 

The federal government is beginning to impose itself more strongly in the operations of chemical plants. Part of this is in response to international terrorism.  Like children sitting in a darkened room telling ghost stories, federal regulators have stirred themselves into a twitter. Apparently, they have developed fault trees that line out the universe of consequences from attack scenario’s on our chemical industrial infrastructure.  Code has been written and passed by the congress, signed by the president, and embraced by the suffocating bosom of the Department of Homeland Security. Woe is he who runs afoul of these people. Their para-military authority and zeal is what makes me uncomfortable.

If only we could be so analytical and systematic about invading and destabilizing prickly iron-age cultures on the other side of the world.

Of course, one cannot entirely fault the government for trying to apply the Precautionary Principle.  It seems so sensible.  But the eternal question is, what are the thresholds for action?  Where safe meets sorry is also where the rubber meets the road.  How much more industry are we going to chase to Asia?

On the non-security side, Europe has adopted REACH. I’m trying not to be a Chicken Little, but before the US adopts this approach to environmental regulation, we should study the suite of unintended consequences that will surely arise from this regulatory framework.  The EU is breaking trail for us and we should pay attention.

New Chemistry Links

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Some new blogs have appeared on my radar. One is the Spinneret.  It is not so much a blog, perhaps, as a news magazine and resource nexus. You can leave comments attached to the post just like a blog, but the writer is reporting chemistry related news.

ChemSpy.com collects news feeds from popular chemistry sources. The subtitle says “The internet navigator for the chemical industry”. Check out the library of tutorials.

Over at Depth First, the writer offers a great tip on finding structures from CASRN’s for free.  Cruise around the site. There is a lot of interesting work happening in the Chemical Informatics field.

Reactive Reports labels itself as a Chemistry WebMagazine, and that certainly seems to be what it is.  It takes a fairly large amount of effort to produce such a thing. Looks like they have enough visitors to attract a sponsor. 

Ranium. The only thing missing is U.

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On this magical day 50 years ago, Th’ Gaussling was born into the world.  Yes, I am a 9/11 baby and today is L-Day. Remember your Roman numerals?  Once a perfectly respectable though bland day of the year, 9/11 has become the new Pearl Harbor Day. Everybody remembers where the hell they were 9/11/01.  I turned 44 that day. 

To celebrate this day, we decided to do an unusual thing. We went uranium prospecting.  I borrowed a Geiger Counter and we headed up to the mountains near Idaho Springs.  A few weeks back in a chance encounter with a retired hard rock miner, I learned of an old mine that was allegedly dug with the hope of finding uranium. Looking like a thousand other abandoned mines, this mine has been silent for many years. [Sidebar: This fellow didn’t look like Gabby Hayes, though his chums certainly do. Hardrock mining is a tough business.]

Our miner seemed credible. When asked, he did know about pitchblende and other uranium-bearing ore deposits in the area. He said that there used to be a “big operation over that ridge over there” (pointing east). The miner was very cautious about giving too many details. Most people asked him about gold, so his curiosity about me was piqued when I starting drilling into the particulars of uranium.  Mining is a very secretive business. Gold fever is real but other metals will cause this enchantment as well.

So, we pulled along side the narrow dirt road this morning with sample bags and a GM counter.  This model is a survey meter with a thin metal (aluminum) window protecting the GM tube.  So, we could not pick up alpha’s at all and probably very few beta’s- just gamma’s for the most part.  Given the penetrating ability of gamma radiation, with it’s low ionization aptitude, a large fraction of the gamma’s sail through the tube undetected.

At our home along the Front Range of Colorado, the meter will pick up maybe 8-15 counts of background radiation per minute on average. Cosmic rays, solar radiation, and radiation sources from the rock and soil make up the background rate.

Scrambling over the mine tailings, we found sporadic upticks in the count as the detector approached the pile. Overall the detectable radiation was qualitatively 3-5 times the background rate found at home. The counter (which is calibrated) rarely indicated higher than 0.1 MR/hr.  While the mine tunnel was open, I declined to enter, prefering to work on the tailings pile.

While there is clearly radioactive material in the mine tailings, the sum total of the radioactive species seemed quite low.  Of course, I do not know what the situation is with the alpha emitters.  No individual rock was even remotely hot.  The GM tube near the ground was picking up the sum of all the emissions in the area.

It would seem that the miner was partially right about the mine. They might have been digging for uranium, but it would appear that they did not find much of it, given the lack of development and the apparent lack of significant radioactivity in the tailings. 

Whereupon Gaussling launches a business unit.

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This was a big day for Th’ Gaussling. The new business unit I have been developing sent it’s first in-house chemical product out the door. Okay, it was a modest 25 grams of specialty product. But for the first time the cash has started to flow the other direction. We are reworking our catalog operation for faster and better service while taking advantage of bulk production by another division for better economy. Watch out, Aldrich!  \;-)

Doing chemical synthesis is easy compared to inventing a custom business architecture; especially one that has to be compatible with other systems, yet bringing improvements forward. It is like doing a reaction that requires 12 molecules (dodeca-molecular?) to collide simultaneously- We call it “getting buy-in”.  To start a new business unit in a company, you have to get buy-in from accounting, IT, analytical services, quality control, upper management, shipping and receiving, production, R&D, etc.  Lots of skeptical folks need to be assured that you’re not going to complicate their lives, threaten their careers, or create accounting hazards.

Business architecture amounts to the work flow mechanisms necessary for order fulfillment.  If an order comes in, how do you go about filling it and getting product to the customer while ensuring profitability, regulatory compliance, safety, and a comprehensive web of accounting relationships? Every product has to be a discrete entity that has branched audit trails- costing, analytical, raw material lot #’s, and business intelligence.  Every product must have an up to date MSDS, specifications, certificate of analysis, and a manufacturing procedure that does not require a PhD to make it. Well, that last one is a more nebulous goal.

I now have a more visceral appreciation for all the work that has gone on behind the scenes at the major chemical catalog companies. A lot of work goes into every single product entry. Every product has a trail of raw material specs, finished goods specs, and specific analytical test methods. Record keeping must be up to the task. It takes a lot of different skill sets besides savvy with chemicals to operate a chemical company.