SYNTHETIC DETERGENTS were Hitting soap markets hard by 1951; a growing surplus of tallow and greases faced U. S. Tenderers. Members o f the Pacific Coast Tallow Renderers Associa­tion, looking for ways to expand their domestic markets, decided that new chemical processes based on tallow were the best long-range bet. How­ever, none of the firms involved felt able either to do the necessary research or to pay someone else to do it. They settled on cooperative research.

About 25 companies formed Tallow Research Inc., a nonprofit organization financed by its members in proportion to their individual production volume. Tallow Research in early 1952 retained Stanford Research Institute to work on the problem. By late 1953 SRI had worked out a process using dilute acids at moderate pressure to oxidize tallow to dibasic acids, usable in synthetic lubricants and plasticizers. Nopco Chemical has since taken an option on the process; several other firms are interested in a second process devel­oped by SRI, and the research program is still going on. Also, the research effort showed the facts at hand to b e economical additions to poultry and cattle feed.

By acting cooperatively, Tallow Re­search members have been able to finance some $20,000 worth of research a year. In return, they can s e e con­crete possibilities for easing the indus­try-wide squeeze on their markets.

There are other kinds of cooperative industrial research. But the total still accounts for less than 1% of the $5.5 billion that U. S. industry expects to spend on technical research and de­velopment this year. Cooperative spending for the same purpose should ran about $24 million, 40% mere than in 1953, the base year of a National Science Foundation survey (CSdSN, July 23, page 3550) . Roughly 7 0 %

4 9 9 0 C&EN OCT. !5 , 1956

Lets Get

Cooperative research supports Ben Franklin' belief that hanging

together is better than hanging separately

of the cooperative research dollar goes into applied research and development, 30% into basic research.

Competition vs. Cooperation

Competition is probably the biggest argument against cooperative research. This is especially true for companies reasonably free financially to choose between doing a research job them­selves or doing it cooperatively with several others, more often than not their competitors. Proposed cooperative projects have foundered, for instance, because the larger contributors balked at paying, say, twice as much as the smaller ones to get the same informa­tion. One counter argument here is that nonpatentable know-how is useless unless you can exploit it, and large firms might be better able to do so.

Patents are easier to handle equi­tably. Southern Research Institute mentions a case in which patentable knowledge turned up, and the cooper­ating firms formed a separate company to hold and license the patents. Par­ticipating firms shared ownership in the patent-holding company in propor­tion to their stake in the project. This approach to patents seems a common one and has the advantage that specific arrangements can be made in advance.

Competitive problems like these sug­gest that cooperative research might work best on problems common to an industry—pollution, standards, and the like. Trade associations usually handle such problems and, as it turns out, trade associations are behind the bulk of cooperative research. They may do it themselves, support it, or coordinate it, and often do all three to some extent.

Trade associations that run their own laboratories have the advantage of a permanent research staff, familiar with the industry's day-to-day problems. Some such laboratories play a really

major role in the sponsoring industry. For instance, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, which set up its research station in 1895, does almost all the research and development on production and harvesting of sugar cane in Hawaii. HSPA's 3953 budget was nearly $1.7 million, making it per­haps the biggest research spender among trade associations.

The National Canners Association, which also does its own research, es­tablished its first laboratory i n 1913 in Washington, D. C. A laboratory in Seattle followed in 1919, and a third in San Francisco in 1926. N C A works mostly on industry-wide problems—ra­diation sterilization, waste disposal,

water usage, and many others. It also trouble shoots for individual members on occasion. Trouble shooting is done confidentially. But generally useful knowledge that results is passed along to the members.

More recently, 1939 to be precise, 11 pulp makers in Wisconsin and Michigan formed the Sulphite Pulp Manufacturers* Research League, Inc., to study spent sulfite liquor utilization and disposal. Member mills use the utilization and disposal methods de­veloped by SPMRL, but the research approach has modified with time. To­day about half the total budget ($160,-000 annually) goes into long-range fundamental work on the components of spent sulfite liquor. The aim is to use, not just dispose of, lignins, car­bohydrates, and other fractions of the liquor. Because of its expanded aims, SPMRL is inviting new members to join the original 11.

Besides using its own laboratories at Appleton, Wis., SPMRL sponsors re­search at universities and other labo­ratories and sometimes uses personnel and facilities of member firms. One of its major projects was growing torula yeast, using the wood sugars which make up about 20% of the solids in spent sulfite liquor. Charmin Paper Mills and Rhinelander Paper are now using the basic process commercially

fractionation Research uses i ts own four-foot distillation column (right), a 5.5-foot simulator unit owned b y Braun, and stockholder-owned columns up to 13 feet in diameter (opposite) Battelle studies mechanism of water-gas reaction for American Gas Association

OCT. 15, 1956 C&EN 4 9 9 1

Together for Research

and two other member firms are con­sidering doing so.

Can W e Use Results? An important prerequisite of a co­

operative research project is that the participating firms be able to exploit the anticipated results. For example, the pulping industry faced a critical sulfur shortage at one time, and SPMRL was thinking about a research project on sulfur recovery. Thorough discussion among member mills, how­ever, disclosed that each had process differences which made a generalized approach to the problem impossible. The sulfur recovery project was more or less dropped.

Some trade associations operate lab­oratories at universities—for instance the Tanners' Council Research Labora­tory at the University of Cincinnati. This laboratory spends most of its time on generally important, basic problems, mostly chemical, and more or less spearheads research in the tanning in­dustry. When specific projects have called for facilities or personnel the laboratory didn't have, cooperative projects have been organized by mem­bers of the Tanners* Council and farmed out to other research organiza­tions. The laboratory also coordinates exchange of technical information throughout the industry.

The National Printing Ink Research Institute laboratory, located in the chemistry building at Lehigh Uni­versity, Bethlehem, Pa., operates as a division of the Lehigh Institute of Re­search. NPIRI does no work for indi­vidual members, restricting itself t o fundamental problems of general inter­est, such as rheology, dispersions, test methods, and instrumentation. Some staff members teach at the university, some are graduate students, and some are full time laboratory people.

Universities offer certain advantages, both to those who operate laboratories on the premises or those who hire out their cooperative research. You get relatively low-cost research because graduate students and postdoctoral fellows do a lot of it. Also, universities are particularly well suited to long-range, fundamental problems where the professor's high degree of speciali­zation and theoretical knowledge are helpful and where he need not neces­sarily be familiar with the industry's day-to-day problems. Altruistically, research sponsored at universities helps industry generally by supporting tech­

nical education. Not so altruistically, students w h o work on an industry's problems might get interested enough to make their careers in that industry.

Two Old-TTmers Among organizations that do not

operate their own laboratories, the two whose work has had perhaps the most far-reaching effects are the American Petroleum Institute and the American Society for Testing Materials. API is unusual in that for almost 30 years it has supported only basic research, all of it on the composition and physical constants of petroleum and its fractions. It's difficult, in fact, to find many tech­nical papers on petroleum chemistry that do not refer to one or another API Project, and the fundamental informa­tion thus compiled has been, and is, of inestimable value to the petroleum in­dustry.

Just one example. Certain results from one project, a study of liquid-gas relationships at high temperatures anc pressures, came to light at about the time that high-temperature, high-pres­sure cracking processes were giving the industry considerable trouble. These results led directly to the problem's solution.

For more than 50 years, ASTM has been at work on standards and testing methods for engineering materials. During that time it has issued more than 2O00 widely used specifications and tests. ASTM supports a modest amount of research itself, but its major

function is to coordinate research in private, college, and government lab­oratories through its more than 9 0 0 technical committees, some of which have been active for more than half a century.

MCA Supports Data Sheets Another form of cooperative effort

is data collection. Manufachiring Chemists' Association is sponsoring work at Carnegie Institute of Tech­nology on a series of data sheets on physical and diermodynamic proper­ties of commercially important chemi­cals.

Results, published as "Selected Values and Properties of Chemical Compounds," are made available free to colleges and universities.

These data are not based on experi­mental studies, but on such published literature as Chemical Abstracts. Many of the data are calculated, using basic experimentally determined values and applying proved mathematical tech­niques.

The (Hired) Team Approach Cooperative research organizations

that don't want to commit themselves to a long-range program involving per­manent staff, buildings, and equipment can turn today to a relatively n e w de­velopment, the independent research institute (for more on these see page 5 0 0 2 ) . Here they can hire team re­search, a combination of technical tal-

National Canners Association's laboratories in Washington operate this pilot plant. Operator at left operates the can-sealing machine; at center the cans are marked for identification; and at left the cans are removed from a n exhaust box

4 9 9 2 C&EN OCT. Ιδ. Ϊ 9 5 6

ents whose full-time employment by one or several firms might be hard to justify for a short-term project. Actu­ally, many have found the independent research institute good for the long range too. The American Refractories Institute, for instance, has supported a fellowship at Mellon Institute since 1917; the Alloy Casting Institute has supported work at Battelle Memorial Institute since 1&37.

Cooperative research takes many forms. One of tfcie most unusual exists in the Federation, of Paint and Varnish Production Clubs, an association of some 24 clubs whose members are tech­nical and production personnel in the decorative and protective coatings in­dustry. Each club usually has one or more research projects going, the mem­bers doing most of the work themselves, often using their employers' facilities. The Federation also supports research and educational work at universities and grants funds to individual clubs when needed. Money for these proj­ects comes primarily from the Paint In­dustries* Show, ïield in conjunction with the Federation's annual meeting. Research contracts with the Federation prohibit patents on the results, which are made available to the industry. Results of one project—a nine-year study of film formation, properties, and deterioration—will be published soon in book form.

The Latest Thing

Research problems sometimes cut across industry boundaries and are thus not amenable to the trade association approach. From such situations have come the so-called industrial-research cooperatives. These, the National Science Foundation says, have been formed more often recently than trade associations have established new re­search programs.

One such cooperative is Fractiona­tion Research, Inc-, a nonprofit corpo­ration formed by some 50 oil, chemi­cal, and construction firms to study tray efficiency, capacity, pressure drop, and similar characteristics of all kinds of vapor-liquid contacting devices. FBI's membership suggests that big companies as well as small ones find cooperative research useful. It is made up mostly of relatively small firms but also includes some pretty big ones, such as Dow, Mfmsanto, M. W. Kel­logg, and Phillips Petroleum. The big companies are present, among other reasons, because fractionation is an art a difficult and expensive one to study,

Hydrocarbons have their purity evaluated from accurate measurements of freez­ing points under an API program at the Petroleum Research Laboratory at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Chemists adjust freezing point apparatus

and even they might find the cost hard to justify except on a cooperative basis.

FRFs present research budget runs about $165,000 a year, raised originally from the cooperating stockholders on the basis of their throughput or value of assets, depending on the nature of the operation. FRI has four full-time engineers and hires craftsmen, ana­lytical personnel, and the like, as needed, from C. F. Braun & Co., Al-hambra, Calif., where most of the work is done.

Participating firms have access to all FRI research results and royalty-free licenses to any patents it owns or con-tiols. No member is obliged to dis­close any of its own know-how to FRI. Although FRI is four years old, offi­cially, those aspects of its research which could be expected to benefit the

stockholders directly got rolling less than two years ago. Results measur­able in dollars have already turned up, however.

Cooperative industrial research, then, can be extremely useful but its success depends heavily on certain require­ments. David C. Minton, Jr., of Battelle Memorial Institute puts them this way:

• Common problems of commercial importance to all members, the solu­tion of which would be too expensive for any one company.

• T h e will to cooperate both tech­nically and financially.

• The establishment of a formal or informal organization within the group to ensure that the work will be effective and of maximum use to the members.

OCT. 15. 1956 C&EN 4 9 9 3