Clayton Aniline

Stretford A process for removing hydrogen sulfide and organic sulfur compounds from coal gas and general refinery streams by air oxidation to elementary sulfur, using a cyclic process involving an aqueous solution of a vanadium catalyst and anthraquinone disulfonic acid. Developed in the late 1950s by the North West Gas Board (later British Gas) and the Clayton Aniline Company, in Stretford, near Manchester. It is the principle process used today, with over 150 plants licensed in Western countries and at least 100 in China. 

In 1915, Robinson joined J.B. W.R. Sharpe Ltd. as an analytical and research chemist. In addition, she was the works chemist responsible for transferring chemical reactions that she had devised to large-scale production. The following year, she was promoted to Chief Chemist. She left in 1920 to become Chief Chemist to Clayton Aniline Co. Ltd., where three patents were issued with her as inventor, two of which were on aldehyde-amino condensation products. She held the post at Clayton Aniline until her retirement. She died on 7 April 1962. 

E. N. Abrahart, The Clayton Aniline Company Limited, 1876-1976, Clayton Aniline Company Limited, Manchester, 1976. 

Taussig, W., Screen Printing, 2nd ed., Manchester, England, Clayton Aniline Co., 1949. 

Before the war, the manufacture of TNT was restricted to two private companies, the Clayton Aniline Company and Nobel s, the latter having a capacity of just ten tons per week. In comparison with other areas of munitions supply (especially shells, whose manufacture was often organized by locally self-appointed committees) the supply of high explosives was in November 1914 put into the hands of a newly-appointed Committee on High Explosives, under the chairmanship of the lawyer. Lord (Hetcher) Moulton, FRS. 

E. N. Abrahart Formerly Chief Chemist, Clayton Aniline Co. 

CIBA surveyed the performance of the entire British dyestuff industry and found most firms to be in a deplorable state. After this screening was complete, CIBA became interested in only two firms that were quite different because of their competitive situations and organisations Read Holliday, of Huddersfield, and Clayton Aniline Co., of Manchester. Holliday was preferred for its Christian direction, its situation as [finished] dyestuffs producer and its own sales organisation in the United StatesHowever, Holliday demanded a higher price than CIBA was prepared to pay. Instead, the struggling Clayton Aniline, owned by a Jew from Alsace (Charles Dreyfus), and which specialised in intermediates, was bought for a modest price. A comparison between Holliday, Clayton and CIBA drawn up in... 

Technischer Bericht iiber die Clayton Aniline (...) 14 December 1910 , p. 5. Uncatalogued manuscript. Historical Archive of CIBA-Geigy, Basel. 

Generally, the chemical industry was able to satisfy its fmancial needs, even in the 1860s. Success in Germany, where companies were allied with banks, that were often in at the start, ensured the much-needed input of fresh capital. Failure in Britain after the 1870s meant that investors there were more wary. This is why Agfa and Bayer were enabled to control Levinstein s firm during 1890-95, and CIBA could acquire Clayton Aniline at a modest price. 

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