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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: whitepine who wrote (49317)	9/16/2005 1:02:01 AM
From: Elroy Jetson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206145

I.G. Farben did not have any patent rights to Tetra ethyl lead. As for Hitler, many large American corporations did business with Germany until war was officially declared. Some firms, like ITT, even continued directing the operations of their German subsidiaries until the international telex cable was cut. ITT directed their German subsidiary to request compensation, which they received, from the Reich Chancellery for the damage to ITT telecom equipment in Poland when Germany invaded than nation. GM Chemist, Kettering, and GM patent attorney McEvoy did meet with I.G. Farben, but Bosch at Farben was trying to sell GM the rights to Iron Carbonyl. This widely referenced biography contains the details. radford.edu It is interesting that Kettering would travel with McEvoy, the patent expert, when he was ostensibly looking only for sources of bromine. In fact, Kettering, McEvoy and Frank Howard of Standard met with I.G. Farben officials in late November, 1924. Most European researchers had left fuel knocking alone, according to one view, considering it the "happy hunting ground of those who deal in magic."100 However, concern about military defense led to development of strong alternative fuels production programs in many nations without oil reserves such as Germany, France, England, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and others.101 German chemists were also working on low percentage class solutions. In the November,1924 meeting, Bosch gave Kettering a secret new antiknock substance to try out in his engine, but he did not tell him what it was, even when Kettering correctly guessed the secret. The substance was iron carbonyl, and Kettering fired off a telegram, probably to Sloan. The undated draft telegram, written on Hotel de Crillon stationary, with many grammatical lapses and strikeouts, demonstrates Kettering's excited state of mind:102 Badiche (Farben) have new compound antiknock. Co saw demonstration and made few rough measurements -- Requires about two and one half times as much as ours. Cost very low. Can produce their material at 21 cents per pound. This would make a lead I figure that with duty included freight etc. The Their compound would cost seventy cents for equivalent one pound lead. Their proposition is to furnish material at cost and take half the difference between our lead mixture cost and their equivalent as profit. Their compound byproduct of nitrogen fixation plant. They will disclose nature of product after commercial agreements have been made. It is metallo-organic and they feel is covered by our patents. This is so very interesting as must be considered prior to any other things. May be a carbonyl of cheap metal. Non-poisonous. Kettering's level of interest in iron carbonyl indicates that he was ready, after the deaths in Dayton, Deepwater and then Bayway, to abandon lead and move forward with iron. Tetraethyl lead at the time cost $1.66 per pound from the bromine process and $1.16 from the chloride process.103 To pay an equivalent price of 70 cents would clearly be attractive. However, when Kettering tried iron carbonyl on a Buick engine while in Europe he was disappointed. Apparently, iron carbonyl caked onto the spark plugs like tetraethyl lead without bromine, and it may have affected the lubricating ability of engine oil. Aware of Ethyl's troubles in the U.S., Bosch stressed that iron carbonyl was "practically non-poisonous and much cheaper to manufacture than tetraethyl lead." In any event, "we weren't as interested in [licensing] iron carbonyl as the IG Farben Co. was in selling it to us," Kettering said later.104 Bosch and other Farben chemists insisted that iron carbonyl did not cause the lubrication problems and cylinder wear that Kettering suspected. "During our own experiments and those made by motor car manufacturers and other reliable people," said a 1926 Farben memo, "these troubles in the lubricating system have never -- not even by way of intimation -- been found. Generally speaking it could be ascertained that the prejudice against the use of iron carbonyl was caused by the -- in itself -- harmless red coating, which is found in the compression chamber... It has been proven by many experiments that a grinding action is not in evidence."105 .