Abstract
THE twenty-first annual report of the Director of the Mellon Institute, covering the year 1933–34, directs attention to the improvement in the position of research during recent months and illustrates the wide range of industries which benefit from the activities of the Institute. Sixty-six industrial fellowships were in operation during the year, requiring the services of 101 fellows and 34 assistants, and fifty-five fellowships were in operation at the end of the year. Fellows and assistants then numbered 104 as against 98 in the previous year; new fellowships commencing operations during the year dealt with cosmetics, nitrogen compounds, calgonising, rayon, new plastics, phosphates, tar acids, textile finishing, etc. The calgonising fellowship is concerned with the properties and utility of sodium meta-phosphate (‘calgon’) in textile and laundry technology, the fellowship on phosphates is occupied with their pharmacology and therapeutic value, and a fellowship to investigate problems in starch technology has recently been accepted. The discovery of a process for flaking coffee by the application of high pressure to ground freshly roasted coffee made in a study of the packing of coffee is claimed as an important technical and practical advance. Other investigations have led to the marketing of new and improved strained foods. Industrial applications of the newer organic solvents have been assisted and a new water-soluble lubricant has been introduced for worsteds and wool. New plasticisers, new types of resins, adhesives which do not cause discoloration of envelopes on sealing, the synthesis of new types of amines, are among other achievements of the Institute, which can also point to important investigations on steel, the development of novel building materials, studies on heat insulation and efforts at smoke abatement as other evidence of its importance to the general welfare. The fellows of the pure chemistry department have completed a number of important investigations on quinine, the cinchona alkaloids, etc., while the Institute has also supported investigations on pneumonia and pulmonary diseases at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital.
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Research Activities of the Mellon Institute. Nature 133, 866–867 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133866c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133866c0