Analysis in Industry

The Society held a meeting on 23 May 2002 in the Conference Room of the Science Museum and Imperial College Library entitled "Analysis in Industry". Papers were given by Peter Reed, John Hudson, Dr Ray Anderson and Dr Tony Travis.

Peter Reed's paper was entitled "Artisans to Professional Chemists: Analysis in the Alkali Industry, 1820-1920". The Leblanc process, introduced into Britain in the first two decades of the 19th century, was crude and unsophisticated in both its concept and its operation; there was little recycling of by-products and the operation involved very limited controls for determining the optimum operating conditions to make the process efficient in its use of raw materials for maximum yield of alkali. Professional chemists made little or no contribution until the Alkali Works Act 1863 imposed statutory requirements for pollution control on the manufacturers. The Alkali Inspectors provided peripatetic consulting services alongside enforcement of the law, and the manufacturers flirted with chemical analysis at least to the point of ensuring they remained within the law. Nevertheless, the main operation of the Leblanc process was left in the hands of the "artisan" foreman and his co-workers using their long experience and "know-how" of the process with only limited recourse to chemical analysis techniques such as simple alkalimetric or chlorimetric titrations. These analyses could be undertaken by the "artisan" workers with little or no understanding of the underlying chemistry. The alkali industry proved a double-edged sword for analytical chemists as Russell, Coley and Roberts have pointed out - good opportunities but a threat to their professional standing.

From the 1870s, with steadily increasing competition from the Ammonia-soda process (1874) and the electrolytic process (1897), the Leblanc manufacturers set to work diversifying their product-range based on the chlorine and metallic residues derived as by-products from their process. An extensive repertoire of chemical analyses was available to the alkali industry but discrepancies had arisen between Tyneside and Lancashire manufacturers in expressing the purity of soda. In 1884, Lunge and Hurter published The Alkali Makers Pocket Book to provide uniformity in analytic methods. The development of the Central Laboratory in 1891 under its chief chemist, Ferdinand Hurter, brought together process and product development with analytical chemistry across a wide spectrum of the chemical products under the day-to-day guidance of professional chemists. However, but for this period when in its dying throes, the Leblanc process proved to be no better than a "craft" activity with an uncomfortable relationship with analytical chemistry.

John Hudson's paper was "Analysis on the Rails: Analytical Chemists in the Railway Industry, 1833-1923". Although it might seem surprising that the industry was an employer of chemists, the railway companies were commissioning analyses as early as 1833, three years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The first analyses were mainly of water, fuels or timber preservatives. Over the next 30 years some well-known chemists consulted for the railways, among them Robert Angus Smith and Edward Frankland.

In 1864 the London and North Western opened its own chemistry laboratory at Crewe. Its prime function was to monitor the composition of the raw materials entering the company's newly opened Bessemer steelworks and the composition of the steel produced. The laboratory also analysed samples of water, and before long it was analysing a wide variety of other materials purchased by the company to establish that they were of an acceptable quality.

During the latter part of the 19th century, improved methods were developed for the rapid analysis of oils, fuels, impurities in copper, and the composition of steel and other alloys. At the same time, trains were becoming heavier and were travelling faster, boiler pressures were increasing, and lubricants had to perform under more hostile conditions. Close adherence to specification was becoming ever more vital to prevent materials failing in service. Furthermore, the continuing expansion of the railway industry in terms of the number of passengers and the quantity of freight carried meant that the railways were purchasing materials in ever-increasing quantities, with a consequent greater need for chemical analysis. In 1876 the second company laboratory was established, and thereafter the number steadily increased.

The role of the railway laboratory gradually expanded. The railway chemists advised on the transport of hazardous goods, investigated the validity of claims against the company, and were involved in a wide variety of research projects, from the prevention of weed growing in water troughs to finding the best copper-based alloys to use in the fabrication of boiler tubes and firebox plates in steam locomotives.

By 1923, when the railways in Britain were reorganised, all the large companies possessed their own laboratories and employed their own chemists. The larger laboratories, situated at Swindon, Derby and Crewe, each employed around 12 chemists. It can be argued that one of the criteria for a company to be considered a major player in the railway industry was the possession of a chemical laboratory.

The title of Ray Anderson's paper was "From Saccharometer to Hartong Number: Analysis in the Brewing Industry, 1780-1940". The introduction of a uniquely calibrated hydrometer, the saccharometer, in the 1780s provided brewers with a means of assessing the best ways of using their primary raw material, malted barley. The analytical determination of the yield of 'extract' from malt was to remain of great commercial importance in the burgeoning brewing industry of the 19th century. The growing output of breweries; the switch away from crude dark heavy beers to more delicate and more difficult to produce styles; the advent of all year round brewing with the introduction of artificial refrigeration from the 1870s; all encouraged the application of science in brewing. By the 1880s various levels of sophistication in analysis could be identified in UK breweries. At a minimum, measurement of specific gravities was required for Excise purposes and thorough visual inspection of raw materials, casks, etc., was considered essential. A step up from this was the provision of a bench or table in the brewers' room to accommodate a microscope for checking yeast purity and perhaps an assortment of glassware for simple testing of water and malt. In some breweries analysis by brewers who had received training in chemical/microbiological techniques as part of their pupilage or apprenticeship extended far beyond this to more extensive testing of water, malt, hops, wort, sugars and beer in relatively well equipped laboratories. Specialist analytical chemists had been engaged by only a handful of the largest breweries by the 1880s, with the Burton brewers leading the way with the employment of particularly talented men who carried out research as well as routine duties. Four of the Burton chemists were to be elected Fellows of the Royal Society. But Burton was unusual; most brewers relied upon consulting chemists for expert analytical services, particularly when they were outside the normal run and in times of difficulty. The arsenic poisoning episode of 1900 when contaminated beer caused many deaths was the most spectacular and tragic example. Consulting chemists retained a central role in brewing analysis well into the 20th century, even as the number of companies employing specialist analysts increased. Analysts drawn into the brewing industry in the 19th century had predominantly received their scientific education in London or Germany, but with the establishment of specialist brewing schools in Birmingham and Edinburgh at the start of the 20th century; recruitment from these sources became common. The average head chemist by the 1920s ranked someway below the head brewer in the hierarchy of the brewery with a salary intermediate between that of the 2nd or 3rd brewer. He had a status equivalent to that of the head bookkeeper.

Outside the UK, brewers sought to meet their analytical requirements in a variety of ways. In Germany specialist brewing testing and experimental stations attached to higher education establishments in major cities provided analytical services and few breweries employed specialist analysts even in the 20th century. The USA followed the English model, although German immigrants largely ran the industry there; consulting chemists operated in Chicago, New York and elsewhere and leading brewers also employed chemists. Consulting chemists were also to be found Denmark; however two companies, Carlsberg and Tuborg, dominated and established sophisticated laboratories.

By the 1930s the emphasis on raw materials, which had until then been the dominant feature of brewing analysis internationally, began to be diluted with the rise in sales of bottled beer requiring more attention to be paid to aspects of beer flavour, shelf-life and appearance (clarity, foam and sparkle). Analysis thus became increasingly a tool in seeking competitive advantage in the marketplace, complementing its long-standing role as a guide to production integrity and efficiency.

Tony Travis spoke on "Analysts in the Dye and Allied Industries: Calco Chemical Company and American Cyanamid, 1930-1960". The Calco Chemical Company, of Bound Brook, New Jersey, opened in 1915, was a leading U.S. manufacturer of synthetic dyestuffs. In order to ensure the smooth integration of relatively complex aromatic products and processes, Calco created a formal Research Department in 1927. Two years later, the firm was acquired by the American Cyanamid Company. Studies into textile coloration and standardisation of dyes were notable features of Bound Brook research, with contributions from a dedicated physics research group. There was a mix of instrumental methods, physics of colour, and physical and organic chemistry. Novel, and expensive, instruments were purchased, including the Hardy recording spectrophotometer, introduced in 1935 by General Electric.

Instrumental analysis enabled a better understanding of, and improvements in, dye application, and facilitated pioneering studies on quantitative measurement of colour, most notably by Edwin Ira Stearns. Standardisation of dyes and pigments moved from instrumental colorimetry to spectrophotometry after Stearns demonstrated the overwhelming superiority of the latter. Bound Brook was noted for analysis in the ultraviolet region.

R. Bowling Barnes at the American Cyanamid Stamford research centre (opened in 1937) made notable advances in infrared analysis. Significantly, the first factory of Perkin-Elmer, founded by Richard S. Perkin and Charles W. Elmer in 1938 to manufacture advanced optical systems, was almost adjacent to the Stamford centre, and there was considerable cooperation. No doubt, the practical application of spectrophotometry was advanced more than in any academic laboratory by American Cyanamid scientists Stearns and Barnes.

In 1956, the first volume of the second edition of the dyer's and colorist's bible, the Colour Index, appeared. American Cyanamid's reputation in dye development and instrumental color measurement was reflected in the composition of the U.S. editorial committee, which included five Bound Brook scientists out of a total of 13 members. Moreover, publications in The Review of Scientific Instruments, Journal of Applied Physics, and Analytical Chemistry, as well as review articles and chapters in books on the newer instrumental techniques of analytical chemistry, attested to the cutting-edge studies carried out at both Bound Brook and Stamford. To this day, Stearns's The Practice of Absorption Spectrophotometry (Wiley) remains recommended reading for students.

John Hudson