Cracking Open the Chemical Industry The major achievement at the plant was the development of a gas-fired refractory furnace that could be used to crack hydrocarbons in natural gas.
By Bryan Ward
With the economic promise of
Marcellus Shale gas in West Virginia, industry leaders, state business development officials and eager investors have turned their focus towards development of downstream industries that use natural gas not only as a source of fuel but also for the development of new products in the chemical industry. While using natural gas as fuel is relatively straightforward, using it in the chemical industry requires a process in which hydrocarbon chains that make up the gas are broken or cracked to produce ethylene, propylene, butane and acetylene, which are collectively known as olefins. Lately, there has been a great deal of talk about the building of a large scale cracker plant in West Virginia in the hope of further developing the petrochemical industry in the state. Few people know, however, that the petrochemical industry was created, developed and launched at a small plant along the Elk River right here in Clendenin,
WV. The large scale process of cracking was not only developed at the site, but the plant’s success gave rise to one of the largest chemical companies in the world—Union Carbide. Today, petrochemicals—chemicals produced from petroleum or natural gas—are commonplace, but prior to 1920 this was not the case. Chemicals produced before 1920 were produced using acetylene until some chemists realized that ethylene would be better suited to produce a larger range of chemicals. Although the chemistry of ethylene was known prior to World War I, the chief source of it was derived by the dehydration of ethanol, which was expensive and did not produce large quantities. Efforts ExEdge were made during the war to develop the process, but following the armistice The Marcellus Shale, found in many of those investigations were Pennsylvania, tabled. It was the efforts of a 29-year- New York, old chemist, Dr. George Curme, Jr., at Ohio and West the Mellon Institute that revolutionized Virginia, is on pace to be the the production of ethylene through second largest the cracking process and launched the U.S. gas shale. petrochemical industry.
Research and Development
Source: http://www. marcellusshales. com/
Early in the 20th century companies did not have independent research wings to develop new products and processes. In 1913, brothers Andrew and Robert Mellon launched the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in Pittsburgh to address that need through company-sponsored fellowships. In 1917, three of these sponsored fellowships were combined. The senior fellow of the project was Curme, and the newly conceived fellowship charged researchers with the task of finding uses for ethylene, which was created during the production of acetylene by hydrocarbon cracking. By the end of 1918, Union Carbide officials decided that there was need of a thorough review A view of Union Carbide’s Clendenin plant in 1921.
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