Clayton Aniline Company

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. 

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

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. 

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. 

---