Second World War period

A very important trend during the post-Second World War period has been the increasing size of plants, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the petrochemicals sector, where capacities of 100000 tonnes per annum are commonplace. Large integrated chemical complexes have evolved, due to this increase in scale, and the need to locate petrochemical plants adjacent to refineries, so as to minimize transportation of vast quantities of chemicals. 

During the first 25 years about 150 papers were presented. About one-third of the papers focused on a purely scientific subject while one-third presented an industrial subject. The rest were on analysis and control and on education and administration. The speakers also discussed science policy, for instance the establishment of an industrial laboratory in Norway as early as 1893, an institution that was not realized until the post-Second World War period. Another frequent topic was the discussion of the establishment of a technical college in Norway and where it should be located. Finally in 1900, Stortinget (the Norwegian Parliament) decided to locate the college in Trondheim. The Norwegian Technical College opened in 1911. ... 

Yttrium and lanthanum are both obtained from lanthanide minerals and the method of extraction depends on the particular mineral involved. Digestions with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, or caustic soda are all used to extract the mixture of metal salts. Prior to the Second World War the separation of these mixtures was effected by fractional crystallizations, sometimes numbered in their thousands. However, during the period 1940-45 the main interest in separating these elements was in order to purify and characterize them more fully. The realization that they are also major constituents of the products of nuclear fission effected a dramatic sharpening of interest in the USA. As a result, ion-exchange techniques were developed and, together with selective complexation and solvent extraction, these have now completely supplanted the older methods of separation (p. 1228). In cases where the free metals are required, reduction of the trifluorides with metallic calcium can be used. 

After the Second World War a gas-to-liquids facility that employed an iron-based high-temperature Fischer-Tropsch (Fe-HTFT) process was constructed at Brownsville, Texas. The technology was developed by Hydrocarbon Research, Inc.,20 and the commercial facility was operated by the Carthage Hydrocol Company. The Hydrocol plant was in commercial operation during the period 1951-1957, and it was shut down mainly for economic reasons (the oil price was around US 2 per barrel at that time). 

Using the molecular orbital method, Coulson showed how certain electrons in benzene, namely, the p electrons, can move over the whole molecule instead of being restricted to the region between two particular atoms. 93 Coulson, collaborating later with Longuet-Higgins and the French theoreticians Pascaline and Raymond Daudel and Alberte and Bernard Pullman, was to become a major presence in quantum chemistry. But on the whole, Coulson said, he was inclined to characterize the period from 1933 until the end of the Second World War as the "Mulliken Era. "94... 

A comparison of table 6.7 with the comparable figures in tables 1.1, 3.2 and 5.3 shows that in the post-war period defence took up a higher proportion of GDP down to 1968/9 than had been the case in the ten years before the First World War or in the years 1920/1 to 1936/7 inclusive. Moreover, whereas the rise in defence expenditure in the late 1930s had been at a time of high unemployment, the competition between civil and military use of labour and capital was much greater in conditions of full employment after the Second World War. In these circumstances economic analysis suggests that defence expenditure contributed to Britain s slower economic growth compared with countries that devoted less of GDP to defence. A study of fourteen advanced... 

The most commonly used opiate substitute is methadone which has been available since the Second World War. It is a potent analgesic with a long half life, and thus once substituted for diamorphine can be reduced over a variable period of time. It is available in ampoules (for injection), tablets, linctus (2 mg in 5 ml), and mixture (1 mg in 1 ml). The use of ampoules and tablets is to be discouraged and many centres now are using the methadone mixture. This can be prescribed by any medical practitioner and requires no central licence. The use of ampoules and tablets has led to abuse, and these preparations have more of a black market value than the mixture. The amount of mixture used will depend on the amount of street heroin consumed and its potency, but it is usual to start at a safe dosage of between 30 and 50 mg daily for opiate dependents consuming half to one gramme... 

Then began, and continued for more than twenty years, a long series of analytical and structural researches on carbohydrates by P. Fleury, J. E. Courtois, and their coworkers. It may be recalled that sodium periodate was not then readily available and, especially during the sad years of the Second World War, had to be prepared in the laboratory. 

During the period between the first and second world wars a plastics business was developed based upon rennet casein from cow s milk, from soya beans or other pulses the reaction with formaldehyde gave a rigid plastic material which could be produced in light colours, mottle and pearlescent effects, and was capable of being machined and polished to a high gloss. 

As a crop plant, the Jerusalem artichoke has languished behind most traditional crop species. Its production worldwide is not considered sufficient to be monitored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its annual production statistics of agricultural crops. Lack of production in the past is in part due to the fact that uses for the crop could be readily fulfilled by other species. As indicated, however, periodic surges in production have been common. For example, during, and for a period after, the Second World War production of Jerusalem artichoke increased in Europe,... 

The nature of the London-centered cycle of international trade from cotton to opium further cultivated a group of British financial allies in the United States. Some of these allies are comprador trading families whose activities span the entire period from the inception of the opium traffic through to the Second World War. 

During the period since the first publication of this book in 1930 death has taken many of the pioneers of modem chemistry. Marie Curie became a victim of radium-the element of her own discovery. Frederick G. Banting returned from the first World War with the idea that he would try to conquer diabetes, and he did. He then lost his life in an airplane accident while in the service of Great Britain during the second World War. Death also took the great Joseph J. Thomson, discoverer of the electron, and his brilliant student, Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the proton. Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, two of the leading architects of the new nuclear age, are also no longer with us. 

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