May Mean to Copra

What “Hydrogenation”

May Mean to Copra Producers

OUR friend, Mr. J. M. Clift (formerly of Solomon Is.), has directed our atten tion to a recent article in the Melbourne "Argus,” wherein Professor A. M. Low describes the new process known as hydrogenation, and what it may mean to the world.

Hydrogenation—stated briefly and very inadequately—is the method recently dis covered by scientists by which the ap parently fundamental character of sub stances is changed. A diamond, a piece of coal, and a lump of graphite were iden tical in their initial chemical make-up; but Nature, in the course of millions of years, has subjected the original sub stance to different processes, and to-day it is presented to us as quite different things. Science, having proved that this is so, is proceeding to do, in a few hours, in the laboratory and workshop, what was done by Nature over periods of almost in calculable length. Scientists are as yet only on the edge of this marvellous new world. What they are going to accom plish eventually, in transmitting masses .of apparently useless stuff into foods and materials of value to humanity, heaven alone knows.

Take coal, for example. The forest deposits of millions of years ago, have be come the common carbon. But, in cer tain cases—some think it may have been the result of the action of the sun upon masses of seaweed —hydrogen was added to the original carbon base; and so, in stead of coal, we get the hydro-carbons, such as paraffin oil, petrol, tar, an! many allied substances. To-day, the world’s industrial chemists are at work on the process of securing at will a practicable union of coal and hydrogen, so that humanity may obtain the more precious oil.

That is only one example of hydro genation. There is no limit to the possi bilities of the thing.

We quote, verbatim, the section of the article which is of particular interest to copra producers: ‘‘Oils have been made from cottonseed for many years, but this oil can now be hydrogenated or ‘hardened’ to a fatty substance having the consistency of lard.

It is, in fact, a type of synthetic lard produced at many times less the cost of the original substance, and possessing, for certain purposes, better qualities. Even whale or herring oil can have hydrogen added to their formation in such manner that the least semblance to a fishy oil is removed —to the point, in fact, at which these materials can be employed for the manufacture of chocolate in place of cocoa butter. As solvents, the industrial im portance of turpentine and linseed oils can hardly be exaggerated, but they can now be ‘hardened,’ to use the trade term, and employed, together with fish oils, in the manufacture of pleasant-smelling soap.

“Would any chemist of the late decade have believed that whale oil would form a valuable constituent for the manufac ture of margarine and cooking fats, equalling in result a similar natural pro duct, made, perhaps, by a comparable process, but extending over 100,000,000 years? Perhaps the most remarkable point of all is that the process which achieves these results is as yet in its earliest stages.”