1892 - Technology

Technology

A new method for producing viscose rayon patented by English chemists Charles F. (Frederick) Cross, 37, and Edward J. (John) Bevan, 36, is safer than the Chardonnet nitrocellulose process of 1883 and cheaper than the cuprammonium process. Cross and Bevan dissolve cellulose in a mixture of carbon disulfide and sodium xanthate, and they squirt the viscous solution through fine holes to produce spinnable fibers (see Little, 1894; Viscose Co., 1910).

Union Carbide has its beginnings at Spray, North Carolina, where Ontario-born inventor Thomas L. (Leopold) Wilson, 32, and Major James T. Morehead have accidentally produced calcium carbide while trying either to make aluminum in an electric furnace or to make metallic calcium by fusing lime and coal tar. Molten slag from their operation is dumped into a nearby stream, liberating a gas, and they discover that the gas is acetylene (carbide gas) that can be used in lighting. They will establish the first commercial carbide factory at Spray in 1894, open a works at Merritton, Ontario, in 1896, and found National Carbide Sales to market acetylene (which will soon be found effective for cutting metal; see torch, 1895) (see 1911; Claude, ferrochrome, 1897).

Chemist Henri Moissan at Paris devises a commercially profitable method of producing acetylene (carbide gas) and an electric-arc furnace that enables him to prepare a number of new compounds and vaporize substances heretofore believed infusible (see fluorine gas, 1886).