Word: phenol
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...process was born in 1935 when Basil Albert Adams and Eric Leighton Holmes of the British Department of Scientific & Industrial Research (which has no counterpart in the U.S.) prepared L, phenol-formaldehyde resin which was more useful for its chemical properties than as a plastic. When immersed in "hard" water, which contains salts of calcium, it entered an exchange: it took calcium atoms from the water, replaced them with sodium, thus softened the water...
...artificial zeolites have long been used for such softening. But a slightly more complex resin of the same type proved able to draw even sodium atoms out of solution, replace them with hydrogen. This merely substituted acid for salt, but still another resin, made with amines instead of phenol, extracted the acid intact, leaving pure water. Both resins were gradually used up but could be revived by reverse treatment with stronger solutions...
Highly skilled labor and high-precision machinery, both scarce, are required to make plywood. Precisions adjustable to 1/1,000 of an inch, and scarce chemicals such as phenol (used in the synthetic glue which made modern plywood possible) are additional problems. Perhaps most formidable is the lack of giant "hot plate" presses which form this world's strongest structural material under pressure up to 200 lb. per square inch...
...TIME [July 20] has joined the hullabaloo against the sale of camphor and phenol for athlete's foot...
...every case is individual. Some people, for instance, suffer from a secondary invasion of staphylococcus germs into their broken skin. Others develop various types of inflammation. These conditions should all be treated by a dermatologist with specially compounded lotions and salves, X rays, various fungicides, and-very rarely-with phenol-camphor...