Pa*e 8
THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1974
Electricity in organic reactions tested
PISCES
Methods to save energy and im
proved ways to effect certain or
ganic reactions are being developed
by a group of A&M scientists.
Dr. Philip C. Scholl is the head of
a group of chemists who are carrying
out organic reactions using electric-
ity ;«
“More simply the change of one
organic molecule to another,”
Scholl explained.
“Industry for years has used elec
trochemical reactions in inorganic
chemistry, for instance the produc
tion of aluminum from bauxite,
chlorine from salt water and most
kinds of metal plating, ” he pointed
out. “Now we want to extend this
method to organic materials. An ex
ample would be the change of al
cohol to esters which are organic
compounds that are used in produc
ing the smell for flavoring and per-
Geology lab
heads tvest
on field trip
A 12-vehicle caravan with 22 in
trepid geology students and instruc
tors led by Prof. Karl Koenig left
A&M this week for the Geology
Department’s annual field camp in
West Texas.
The summer camps began well
before World War II. After the war,
the camps were at Brady where they
were aided by then mayor and later
president of TAMU, General Earl
Rudder. The camp now operates
with headquarters at Sul Ross Uni
versity in Alpine.
The group will spend five days in
the central mineral region at Llano.
There are exposed some of the old
est rocks in existence. The Precam-
brian rocks are in a depression cut
by streams into the center of Ed
wards Plateau.
They will continue Sunday to Al
pine to study the Glass Mountains,
Marathon Basin and areas in the
Davis Mountains. In the Glass
Mountains, the Permian area comes
to the surface.
They will look at a series of folded
and broken rock in the “tuff and
flow” country south of Alpine.
“The six hours of credit,” exp
lained geology professor Dr. Melvin
Schroeder, “is the crucial point in
their education. Now they have to
find out if they’re geologists. The
students will discover if they can see_
what the rocks are telling them.”
1 wurstT beerT "Hi
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“Principally we re interested in
studying the reactions of oxygen
containing molecules,” he noted.
“More specifically, we will use elec
tricity on specific molecules to pro
duce intermediates (transitional
stage in a chemical reaction) which
are known or suspected inter
mediates in other (non
electrochemical) organic reactions.
We ll then determine to what extent
electrolytic methods can be used in
synthetic production.
“If successful, such processes
would provide synthetic methods
which are much more efficient in
energy use,” Scholl added.
“It won’t happen today or tomor
row, but the idea is, if one can use
electricity to cause reactions that
previously needed a chemical reag
ent, considerable energy could be
saved,” he pointed out.
“Electricity may be considered a
reagent, and as such it has a number
of advantages' over chemical reag
ents,” he continued. “Chemical
reagents are bulky and involve
transportation and handling prob
lems. Some reagents, like sulfuric
acid, which are used in commercial
chemical processes can’t be
dumped down drains and are dif
ficult to dispose of. This is very im
portant today with the growing con
cern for the environment. ”
“Furthermore, electricity used in
our process is still relatively cheap, ”
Scholl continued.
He said this factor alone would
make it the “reagent of choice” in
many organic reactions, especially
in large scale industrial processes.
“We are first attacking reactions
which are presently carried out
photochemically (using light) since
these reactions waste a lot of
energy. Both the conversion of elec
trical energy to light and the utiliza
tion of light to effect chemical
change are wasteful processes. Ob
viously it would be advantageous to
use electrical energy directly to
cause the desired chemical
change. ”
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