propylene pipeline dream nears reality

2
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 operat- ing window for melt-processibility by di- rectly polymerizing tetrafluoroethylene, instead of mixing PTFE polymers of dif- ferent molecular weights?" he asks. Smith tells C&EN that ΕΤΗ Zurich has filed for broad patent protection on the raw melt-processible PTFE materi- al, 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 Re- search Council (NRC) committees often are cited as the "gold standard" for analy- ses of issues requiring expertise in sci- ence, engineering, and health. But spon- sors have had problems with the cost and the timeliness of some of those reports. These are two of the mainfindingsof a new study of NRC, the think tank arm of the National Academies in Washing- ton, 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 en- gineering. In fact, the study was com- missioned by NRC's governing body, and the 15-member study panel assem- bled following normal NRC procedures. The cost and timeliness problems can be attributed in part to the fact that fully 30% of NRC studies are coordinat- ed by staffers who are doing the work for the first time, the task force says. NRC, like many consulting firms, expe- riences significant staff turnover, ex- plains 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 proj- ects who do not stay with NRC once a given study is completed. The task force study, Colglazier con- tinues, 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 volun- teer review-panel chairs, who have little in- centive to meet deadlines. Other management changes underway at NRC as a result of the task force report, Colgla- zier says, include reduc- ing the research council's management structure— collapsing NRC's current 12 commissions into six divisions—and develop- ing 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 is- sues, chemistry will be moved from the purview of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Applications to a new division that brings together disci- plines ranging from environmental stud- ies 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 Presi- dent William A Wulf says. The report, he adds, comes at a critical time when de- mand 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 chemi- cal companies in northwestern Eu- rope—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 feed- stock transportation costs, boosting the competitiveness of the European chem- ical industry against areas such as the U.S. Gulf Coast. ——--— Last week, 13 petro- chemical firms agreed to establish a company, Euro- pean Pipeline Development Co. (EPDC), charged with turning the dream into re- ality. 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

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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