Word: methanol
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Antifreeze Squeeze. Cold weather caught the U.S. short of antifreeze. In many cities, under-the-counter caches (at over listed price) were the only source of supply. One reason for the shortage: production remained the same, while the number of cars increased. Another reason: chemical manufacturers are using more methanol and glycols, two basic ingredients of antifreeze, for plastics...
...grievously hurt the German economy, but it was the campaign against specific industries which brought the temple down. The most effective attacks were the U.S. assaults against synthetic oil plants, which the Germans viewed as catastrophic and which profoundly affected synthetic rubber production, synthetic nitrogen and methanol (necessary for explosives). Attacks on railways and waterways were the decisive blow...
Take the plastics industry, for example: the source of airplane frames, tank windows, gas masks, gun stocks, an war goods in general. At present it is limited by lack of methanol and acetone, which, like explosives, are made from starch. But in spite of our "vast and untouched" resources it is the United States and not the Axis which feels the pinch. We have been depending mainly on sugar as the source of the mow scarce starch, gathering only one per cent of the possible yield from corn. An attempt not so long ago to industrialize potato starch was ruined...
Toward the close of World War I big Eastman Kodak Co. got scared. Low and uncertain were its supplies of methanol (wood alcohol), indispensable solvent of the cellulose nitrate from which photographic film was made. When peace came, Eastman set about making its wood alcohol supply secure. In doing so, it unwittingly became a pioneer in the infant field of U. S. plastics...
Kingsport, Tenn. (pop.: 11,914) lies among mountains full of Southern hardwood, not far from the coal fields of Virginia. Acquiring 40,000 acres of timber land in 1920, the No. 1 camera and film maker built a plant in Kingsport to distill methanol from waste "chemical wood" (limbs & tops, slabs & ends). They called their new subsidiary Tennessee Eastman Corp...