propylene pipeline dream nears reality
TRANSCRIPT
news of the week same problems as normal PTFE, but that reinforcing materials can easily be compounded with the new materials to improve creep resistance.
According to Smart, the ΕΤΗ work raises an interesting question. 'Will it be possible to make low-molecular-weight PTFE materials with this operating window for melt-processibility by directly polymerizing tetrafluoroethylene, instead of mixing PTFE polymers of different molecular weights?" he asks.
Smith tells C&EN that ΕΤΗ Zurich has filed for broad patent protection on the raw melt-processible PTFE material, the methods for its manufacture and processing, and its applications in end products.
Michael Freemantle
NRC Operations Are Focus Of Study The consensus reports of National Research Council (NRC) committees often are cited as the "gold standard" for analyses of issues requiring expertise in science, engineering, and health. But sponsors have had problems with the cost and the timeliness of some of those reports.
These are two of the main findings of a new study of NRC, the think tank arm of the National Academies in Washington, D.C. The study was carried out by an independent review panel in much the same way that NRC conducts its own studies of issues in science and engineering. In fact, the study was commissioned by NRC's governing body, and the 15-member study panel assembled following normal NRC procedures.
The cost and timeliness problems can be attributed in part to the fact that fully 30% of NRC studies are coordinated by staffers who are doing the work for the first time, the task force says. NRC, like many consulting firms, experiences significant staff turnover, explains NRC Executive Officer William Colglazier. He says that staff officers— the people who shepherd studies through the NRC's volunteer committee process—often are new to the study process. In many cases, they are recent Ph.D.s hired to work on one-time projects who do not stay with NRC once a given study is completed.
The task force study, Colglazier continues, shows that greater attention must be paid to training and mentoring these inexperienced staffers. However, he and
others point out that staff officers face special challenges in working with volunteer review-panel chairs, who have little incentive to meet deadlines.
Other management changes underway at NRC as a result of the task force report, Colglazier says, include reducing the research council's management structure— collapsing NRC's current 12 commissions into six divisions—and developing an annual operating plan that includes goals that can be evaluated by the NRC governing board. The first such plan is due in February 2001.
The management restructuring will be good for chemistry, says task force member W. Carl Iineberger, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In line with a recommendation for better handling of multidisciplinary issues, chemistry will be moved from the purview of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Applications to a new division that brings together disciplines ranging from environmental studies to agriculture to natural disasters to oceanography. The new structure, he
Wulf (below) and
Colglazier
says, will highlight "that chemistry fits into almost every report of the NRC."
Without lapsing into micromanagement, the task force has laid out a comprehensive framework to address NRC's deficiencies, Lineberger says.
It has been more than 20 years since NRC thoroughly reviewed its operations, National Academy of Engineering President William A Wulf says. The report, he adds, comes at a critical time when demand for NRC studies is increasing along with the range of customers.
"It will be our fault if we don't make [NRC] work better," Colglazier says.
William Schulz
Propylene Pipeline Dream Nears Reality One of the long-held dreams of chemical companies in northwestern Europe—an integrated propylene pipeline grid—may finally be coming true. Such
Planned propylene pipeline will serve northwestern Europe
the Netherlands
North Sea yt Amsterdam^
Rotterdaao^y
France
Luxembourg
Ruhr Valley
Cologne
Germany
an integrated grid would help cut feedstock transportation costs, boosting the competitiveness of the European chemical industry against areas such as the
U.S. Gulf Coast. ——--— Last week, 13 petro
chemical firms agreed to establish a company, European Pipeline Development Co. (EPDC), charged with turning the dream into reality. A final decision is expected by mid-2001 on implementing what the companies are calling the "U-line," running from the Dutch coast through Belgium to its terminus in the Ruhr Valley area of Germany.
The 13 companies— Bayer, Borealis, BP, Celanese, Condea, DEA, Degussa-Huls, DSM, Er-dolchemie, Elenac, In-fraserv, Rutgers VfT, and
50 miles H
12 SEPTEMBER 4, 2000 C&EN
Veba Oil—are all either producers or users of propylene.
The partners say they will need at least three months to develop EPDC and write a business plan, and then everything must be approved by their shareholders. Only then can construction begin on the grid, which will run from Rotterdam to Antwerp, on to Cologne, and from there to a number of end points within the heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley, northeast of Cologne.
Rotterdam and Antwerp are among the major ports of Northwest Europe and the sites of massive chemical development, in part because of their ability to offer companies a competitive advantage from close access to low-cost feedstocks. Inland sites, by comparison, are at a disadvantage. The pipeline grid, however, will open up the inland areas to coastal prices, giving them a competitive advantage similar to the one Dow Chemical has gained from its ethylene pipeline that runs from Rostock, on the Baltic, to Dow's Bohlen site near Leipzig, Germany (C&EN, Aug. 28, page 13).
None of the parties is under any illusion that putting together the final package will be easy. There are 13 different companies, three different countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany), and four different governments (the three national governments and the European Union) involved. "All these have to get on board," points out a representative of one of the partner firms.
Patricia Short
Ban On Foreign Scientists' Visits To Weapon Labs Lifted
Once again, foreign scientists from "sensitive" countries may be able to work with U.S. scientists at Department of Energy nuclear weapons laboratories.
Last week, the heads of DOE, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency certified to Congress that DOE now has policies in place needed to safeguard research at Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos National Laboratories.
The certification responds to fears of foreign espionage raised last year in Congress and allegations that a Chinese-born, American nuclear scientist working at Los Alamos had illegally downloaded secret data on the nation's
nuclear weapons program with the intent of passing it to a foreign country (see page 29).
Last fall, Congress passed a law blocking lab visits by scientists who are citizens of China, Russia, India, and other sensitive countries until 45 days after certification is made. Nearly 2,000 scientists from sensitive countries visit the labs annually (C&EN, Dec. 6, 1999, page 27).
Although foreign scientists already employed at the lab were exempt and a very small number of scientists obtained waivers, the moratorium has had a profound effect on scientific exchanges, says James Danneskiold, a Los Alamos spokesman. "We will be very happy to see this end," he notes.
Because of the moratorium, Danneskiold says, collaboration between the labs and U.S. universities in some scientific areas has "vanished" because of the large number of foreign scientists, many from sensitive countries, studying at U.S. schools. For example,
one university computer science graduate program that had close ties to Los Alamos had no students who were U.S. citizens.
The ban also ended collaboration with key scientists who are world leaders in areas critical to the labs. And it has also led to U.S. scientists leaving Los Alamos, Danneskiold says.
Since May, 14 of 34 core computer scientists in Los Alamos' advanced computing lab have left, he says, citing the need for unfettered exchanges with university scientists.
"This has been a real blow," Danneskiold says. "Computer science is where we have our strongest needs and do our most active recruiting."
Rebuilding may be difficult because the restrictions have damaged personal relationships upon which scientific exchanges are often based.
"In some cultures, if scientists trust you, you can get a lot done," Danneskiold says. "If they don't, forget about it."
Jeff'Johnson
SEPTEMBER 4,2000 C&EN 13
Benzene has been sandwiched between two identical planar trimetallic molecules in such a way that each of the six metal atoms coordinates to a different C-C bond of the benzene [J. Am. Chem. Soc, 122, 8335 (2000)]. The interaction represents a new bonding mode for benzene, according to assistant professor of chemistry François P. Gabbaï and visiting scholar Mitsukimi Tsunoda at Texas A&M University. Tsunoda prepared the "supramolecule" by dissolving in boiling benzene a known Lewis acid—trimeric (tetrafluoro-o-phenylene)mercury (shown in both red and blue, above left). The crystals that formed upon cooling were found by X-ray crystallography to consist of extended stacks of organomer-cury molecules, with each molecular pair sandwiching a single benzene molecule, as shown here in two views. The side view (right) shows a portion of a stack, with carbon depicted in gray; fluorine, greenish-yellow; and mercury, purple. Hydrogen atoms are not shown. In the view from above (left), the organo-mercury molecules are seen to be arranged in a staggered conformation, making hexacoordination to mercury possible. Because of the stacked structure, each mercury atom coordinates to a C-C bond of two different benzene molecules. Gabbaï's group is investigating whether this new bonding motif could be used to orient a trio of alkyne molecules for cyclization.
Ron Dagani
Benzene Coordinates To Six Mercury Atoms