DuPont Belle

Toxic Releases at DuPont Belle, West Virginia, January 22-23, 2010 277... 

TOXIC RELEASES AT DUPONT BELLE, WEST VIRGINIA, JANUARY 22-23, 2010... 

There are three main generic learning points from the traumatic 33-hour episode at DuPont Belle in January 2010. 

A number of American research institutions and the people who shaped them have already featured in this book the creation of the Materials Research Laboratories Robert Mehl s influence on the Naval Research Laboratory and on Carnegie Institute of Technology Hollomon s influence on the GE laboratory Seitz s influence on the University of Illinois (and numerous other places) Carothers and Flory at the Dupont laboratory the triumvirate who invented the transistor and the atmosphere at Bell Laboratories that made this feat possible Stookey, glass-ceramics and the Corning Glass laboratory. I would like now to round off this list with an account of a most impressive laboratory that came to grief, and the man who shaped it. 

Many academic and industrial scientists serve as advisors to various federal agency programs in materials science. For example, the evaluation board for the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory (MSEL) at NIST contains representatives from Bell Laboratories, DuPont, General Electric, Allied Signal, and numerous universities. The private sector would like to improve the interactions at the strategic policy level, but some bureaucratic handicaps must be overcome. 

AT T Bell Laboratories, 85, 373 Ar Products and Chemicals, Inc., 321 Alied Signal Inc., 28 Beckman Institute, 189 California Institute of Technology, 189 Carnegie Mellon University, 4 Cornell University, 259 DuPont Science and Engineering Laboratories, 161 Eastman Kodak Company, 55 Harvard University, 479 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 37,131, 397... 

And the Verbindungsmanner sent your office reports on prices and tariffs — very well, that was economic." Belle showed him a letter written by Ilgner to the General Aniline and Film Corporation. "This, it appears, is also in your hand Inform us immediately and with the utmost precision of each step taken by our chemical competitors, especially DuPont. "... 

Dr. Meng was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, under the supervision of Professor Fred Wudl in 2002. Before joining DuPont Company, he pursued internship training at Lucent Technologies, Bell Laboratories under Professor Zhenan Bao (now at Stanford University) in the field of organic electronics. 

The duPont Co in 1940 put in operation a unique plant at Belle, West Virginia, in which glycol was manufd by hydrogenation of methyl-glycolate, the raw materials (or which included its own high pressure synthesis products formaldehyde and methanol... 

CA 45, 2885(195lXHydrogenati°n of nitrocompds with Raney Ni treated with chloroplatinic acid and with alkali) p)J.A.Grand R.Miller, USP 2555333(1951) CA 45, 7337(1951XUse of Cu chromite as combustion catalyst in solid compressed fuel, such as mixt of NGu 75 GuN 25%) r)Anon, ChemEngrg 1951, June, p 183 (Catalytic process for waste disposal developed by D.V.Moses and put into operation at DuPont s Belle Plant, West Virginia, consists of vapor -phase catalytic destruction of organic wastes by oxidation to C02 H20. It was claimed that the method is more convenient than bio-oxidation... 

We wish to thank our collaborators at DuPont and Bell Labs, many of whom participated in some of the work described here. 

This incident occmred on January 23, 2010, about 2 00 a.m. at a DuPont facility in Belle, WV. The hose failttre occrrned as the operator was observing 1 ton phosgene cylinders in the phosgene shed. He anticipated he would need to switch supply cylinders soon. DuPont and the CSB estimated that about 2 poimds of phosgene escaped to the atmosphere from the hose failrtre [5]. 

For additional information, please see the Chentical Safety Board s report, Investigation Report E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co., Inc. - Belle, West Virginia - Phosgene Release January 23,2010 - Report No. 2010-6-I-WV. There are at least 24 pages of details and supporting information. 

Demonstration of a 360 t/d Babcock Wilcox entrained-flow gasifier unit at Belle, West Virginia, by Babcock Wilcox and DuPont... 

DuPont acid dissolves problems Zircad)me-lined tube meets Belle Plant production Challenge, Outlook, Teledyne Wah Chang, 14 3,1. 

In the United States, a subsidiary of the DuPont Company, Lazote, Inc., made synthetic methanol at Belle, West Virginia. The Belle operation was part of the ammonia plant at the site. The methanol production was actually a step in the ammonia process for removing carbon monoxide, which was an impurity in the ammonia synthesis gas. Commercial Solvents was the first to employ the high-pressure synthesis process, developed by BASF, in the United States. The plant, located in Peoria, lUinois, began operation a few months after the Lazote plant at Belle. The Commercial Solvents plant used an off-gas from a fermentation operation. The off-gas contained carbon dioxide and hydrogen from the production of butanol from corn. This first of a kind plant in the United States was rated at about 4000 t per year. 

While Bell Labs was not a producer of polymers, AT T was one of the largest users in the world. The basic approach was to know more than anyone about the materials that were used for telecommunications. The British company ICI synthesized crystalline polyethylene, but Bell Labs discovered how to properly process this material and what microscopic parameters were important, such as the molecular weight distribution. DuPont synthesized nylon, but Bell Labs discovered how to make it useful as a stable material for long-term use. Cellulose polymers were an old technology, but Bell Labs discovered new ways to process it that achieved remarkable new properties and uses. Baker was the genius behind the philosophy and much of the early work. He wanted to know the actual truth about materials and reached out to the very best scientists. Peter Debye was a regular visitor to Bell Labs during the Baker era. 

AT T Bell Laboratories, 2,25 Christian Doppler Laboratorium fur Katalytische Polymerisation Institut fur Chemische Technologie Organischer Stoffe Technische Universitat Graz, 370 Cornell University, 111 Defence Science and Technology Organisation, 466 DuPont Electronics, 282,494 Fujitsu Laboratories, Ltd., 194 Geo-Centers, Inc., 210,507 Hampton University, 535 Hewlett Packard Laboratories, 235 Hitachi Chemical Company, Ltd., 380 Hoechst Celanese Corporation, 252 IBM Almaden Research Center, 64,101,165,220,403,417 IBM System Technology Division Development Laboratory, 165 IBM Technology Products Division, 333,482,517... 

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