Word: sodium
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...rubber-reclaiming plants the scrap is first sheared and hashed into tiny pieces.It is then sifted past magnets, which draw out any bits of iron. Next it is dumped into a "digester" tank where 1) caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) is added to destroy all cloth fibers and to remove free sulfur (added originally in vulcanizing); 2) coal-tar oils are added to soften the rubber. These added chemicals and decomposed fibers are rinsed out in water sprays and settling tanks. At last the rubber is squeezed into heavy sheets and baled for reprocessing...
...made of relatively abundant materials: 1) caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), 2) sulfur, 3) chlorine, 4) ethylene (a gas sometimes used as an anesthetic...
...sodium nitrate...
...ethylene glycol, which cools the Army's high-speed airplane engines; ammonium picrate, the Navy's chief source of explosives-can be met by a new process which 1) requires no electric power, 2) simultaneously produces another badly needed chemical, salt cake. By electrolysis of chlorides (mostly sodium chloride, common salt) the U.S. now makes about 2,200 tons of liquid chlorine a day. But demand is far outstripping supply: engineers last week estimated that a ton of chlorine goes into making a tank, two tons in the making of a plane (in its plastics, paint & varnish, degreasing...
...whale oil, but the product was too costly to compete with that age-old detergent, soap. During World War I, when fats for soapmaking were scarce, German chemists again tried in earnest to concoct soapless soaps. Real success did not come until after the war, when they developed the sodium alkyl sulfates. Production of these substances was not practical until the 1930s, after techniques were developed which could convert fats to fatty alcohols under pressures of 10,000 to 15,000 lb. per sq. in.-100 times the pressures which were once tops in industry...