British Cyanides

This process, or some modification, has repeatedly been worked since i860, when Gelis took out his patent (Englis-h Patent, 1,816 of i860). See also the following patents —English Patents, 1,148/78, 1,359 79, 1,261/81, 5,830/94. The British Cyanide Co. have worked the process at Oldbury since 1894. 

By means of this reaction, Wood, Smith, Gidden, Salamon, and Albri (English Patent, 13,658, 1901) introduced a successful process of recover practically all the cyanogen (98 per cent.) of coal gas, which is now worked by British Cyanides Co. Ltd., and by several gas works. It yields practically the wfc of the sulphocyanides now made. 

For the early history of Beetle see lecture given by Kenneth M. Chance, managing director of British Cyanides, at the Science Museum, London, on the occasion of the 1933 plastics exhibition. The Plastics Exhibition, 1933. Twelfth lecture. Plastics Urea-formaldehyde types and their uses, British Plastics and Moulded Products Trader, 5 (1934), 313-318. This journal was founded in 1929, as the official organ of the British Plastic Moulding Trade Association (from 1933, the British Plastics Federation). 

In the United States, Beetle was made by the Synthetic Plastics Co., in which British Cyanides was originally a shareholder, but which by 1933 was mainly owned and controlled by American Cyanamid. 

W. Blakey, The history of aminoplastics The sixth Chance Memorial Lecture of the Society of Chemical Industry, Chemistry and Industry, (25 July 1964), 1349-1357, on p. 1352. Blakey received a D.Phil. in organic chemistry from Kings College, Cambridge, in 1928, and shortly after joined British Cyanides to undertake research into aminoplastic moulding compounds. Blakey was appointed chairman of British Industrial Plastics in 1962, one year after the firm was merged with Turner Newall Ltd. This lecture is an extremely useful source of information on aminoplastic developments. See also C.P. Vale and W.G.K. iy oi Aminoplastics (London Iliffe Books, 1964), which includes a historical introduction, and a portrait of Hanns John who in 1918 patented the first industrial use of urea-formaldehyde resins. 

History Hans John made UF without a catalyst and patented the process in 1920. The first commercial successful UF occurred in 1928 under British Cyanide Co. I.G. Farben took out more patents 1925-28. 

BBC (2002). Cyanide plotters face terror charges. British Broadcasting Corporation, 21 February 2002 (http //news.bbc.Uk/l/hi/world/europe/ 1833646.stm). 

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