Editorial

The history of Chemistry

Why is history important in teaching chemistry? Some of you may say vehemently that it isn't. Why waste time on the mistakes people made in the past when we should concentrate on the current state of knowledge. The history of science, and in particular Chemistry, has important lessons to teach us so that we can understand better the present state of the subject. How did ideas and concepts develop? What were the personalities involved in developing Chemistry? What mistakes were made that we can learn from today? The history of science has an important role to play in providing a social and personal dimension to science, that interesting anecdote that brings a subject to life and fixes an idea in the memory. It is also important that young people studying Chemistry know that there is a history of Irish Chemistry as well. Irish chemists have been significant players in the development of chemistry from its earliest days as a real science. Students need to know this in order to realise that they have a stake in Chemistry also - it isn't just a foreign import!

This issue has a special focus on the history of Irish Chemistry, following from the successful RIA Symposium last September on "Three Hundred Years of Irish Chemistry". The Proceedings of this meeting have been published in the Summer issue of Irish Chemical News.

The importance of practical work

One of the continuing themes of Chemistry in Action! has been the importance of student's practical work in the learning of science. Science is an experimentally-based subject, that is its essence: scientific theories, ideas are tested by experiment. For many reasons, too few students in Irish schools - in both Junior Science and Leaving Certificate Sciences - do enough practical work. Reading from the book, writing down experimental procedures, learning off the results of experiments, are the substitute for doing or even seeing experiments in many schools. I know that there are many reasons for this - lack of resources and facilities, lack of technical assistance, lack of expertise and confidence, lack of time - but it still constitutes a crime against science education. I have often used the illustration that it is like learning a sport without ever playing the sport: football theory replaces playing football. The second ChemEd-Ireland conference in 1983 looked at "Practical Work" and we return to this theme again in this year's conference. How much has changed in the intervening years? Not much, I fear and it is something we need to address. Practical skills, confidence, awareness of safety are things that can only be developed in the laboratory over the years as a student develops physically and mentally. One remark that annoys me is the phrase: "They are not able for it at age 12/13/14...". That is nonsense. In other countries children start learning experimental skills in primary school and continue to develop these, as they should, up through junior second-level to senior second-level schooling. Acquiring psychomotor skills in anything requires time and practice; hand-eye coordination, manipulative skills require learning and practising and perfecting. Discipline problems is a much better argument than lack of ability, and that has to be judged on a class by class basis. However, many studies have shown that keeping students active is one important strategy for keeping their interest and hence maintaining discipline.

Is it only my impression, but do their seem to be less in-service courses these days where teachers can themselves learn and practise and polish their own laboratory skills? Confidence is a big factor in doing practical work and it can't be obtained from books. There is always an element of fear of failure in trying something new and in-service courses provide a way of giving teachers confidence in their abilities. Fear of accidents and a heightened sense of safety and possible hazards, have also discouraged teachers from allowing pupils to do practical work themselves. We are denying them an important part of their education if we do so. Science teachers are uniquely placed in school to provide students with important life skills in the area of safety. Skills that will be useful to them in the home and wherever they work. Respect for chemicals and apparatus, the right and wrong way to do things, identifying and preventing hazards - these should be part of every student's education and they can only be developed through a carefully structured practical experience from year one upwards.

I hope to see many of you at ChemEd-Ireland 1998 on "Practical Work in Chemistry II" on October 17th. I would also like to hear from you what is you need to know and to learn and to practise.

Peter E. Childs

Hon. Editor

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Scientific Societies in Ireland: Dublin Philosophical Society to the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland

Dr. J. P. Ryan

Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry, University College Dublin.

This overview of scientific societies in Ireland covers the period from the Dublin Philosophical Society, Ireland's first scientific institution, which was founded in 1684, to today's Institute of Chemistry of Ireland which was incorporated in 1950. The scope is confined to several societies which were (or are) based in Dublin and in particular to those chemical societies which had their origins over seventy years ago (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Scientific Societies in Dublin 1684-1923

Dublin Philosophical Society: 1684 - 1708

The Dublin Philosophical Society, founded by William Molyneaux in 1684, was the forerunner and inspiration of the Royal Dublin Society and may be regarded as Ireland's first scientific institution. Sir William Petty who served as President, also acted as a link to the Royal Society of London being one of its founder members. The Dublin Philosophical Society functioned for twenty-four years, until 1708, when it was interrupted by hostilities at the time. Hoppen (1970), has written a detailed account of the society. Since the Dublin Philosophical Society two societies, namely the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Irish Academy have been influential in the development of Irish science and technology.

Royal Dublin Society: 1731 to date

The Royal Dublin Society was founded in 1731 and incorporated in 1749. The societies scientific work commenced in 1792 through the influence of Richard Kirwan. For a long time the society maintained laboratories and was active in scientific research and until recently owned Thomas Prior House as a base for its scientific activities and also functioned to help smaller scientific societies such as the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland by providing rooms for meetings and some secretarial service (Crowley, 1958).

Royal Irish Academy: 1785 to date

The Royal Irish Academy was founded in 1785 and was chartered in 1786 In the early years it was the equivalent of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh. One of its famous early Presidents was also Richard Kirwan. (Burns, 1977; 1978). Full accounts have been written on both the Royal Dublin Society (Berry, 1915; de Vere White, 1955) and the Royal Irish Academy (Farrington, 1966, and references cited therein).

Early Influences of Chemistry Department, UCD

The Chair of Chemistry at UCD stems from two different sources - the Royal Dublin Society and the Catholic University (Wheeler, 1953). The Royal Dublin Society established a chair of chemistry in 1796 and William Higgins, FRS, was the first holder. In 1826 Edmund W. Davy, FRS, became the second holder. In 1854 the chair of chemistry of the Royal Dublin Society was transferred to the Museum of Irish Industry where it remained for 13 years until it was again transferred to The Royal College of Science for Ireland in 1867 The chair eventually merged with that of the Catholic University, founded in 1855 when it was transferred to University College Dublin. Figure 2 outlines the main transitions that took place during its long history.

The chemists in the Department of Chemistry at UCD and in the State Laboratory played an central role in the origins of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland under the influence of Professor Hugh Ryan in the early twenties. He was also strongly supported by Professor W. E. Adeney and several chemists from the College of Science at the time. Professors Sidney Young, Emil Werner and W. R. Fearon from TCD; Professor William Cadwell from RCSI; Professors A. E. Dixon and Joseph Reilly from UCC; although supportive, played lesser roles in the activity of the early Association.

Figure 2 Chair of Chemistry at UCD

Chemical Society: circa 1911 to date

Professor Hugh Ryan founded two chemical organisations, the first being the UCD Chemical Society. There has always been some doubt as to the exact year of the foundation of the Chemical Society but it is almost certain that the Society was started in the session 1911 to 1912 (Philbin & Gowan, 1987; Ryan, 1987). The National University of Ireland was set up by Act of Parliament in 1908 and first admitted students in November 1909. There was probably a degree of confusion during the first two sessions and undergraduate clubs and societies took time to get organised. The original members of the society included Hugh Ryan; Thomas Nolan; Thomas Dillon; P.J. Nolan; Joseph Algar; Geraldine Plunket and Pauline O'Neill. Hugh Ryan was Professor of Chemistry at UCD from 1889 to 1931. He was also Ireland's first State Chemist from 1924 until his untimely death in 1931. Thomas Nolan was professor of Chemistry from 1931 to 1946. Thomas Dillon played a significant role in the Anglo-Irish War and was actually appointed Professor of Chemistry at UCG when he was in prison. He was to marry Geraldine Plunket, the daughter of Count Plunket and the sister of Joseph Mary Plunket executed as one of the signatories of the 1916 proclamation. Many of the early members of the Chemical Society also became members of the Irish Chemical Association - hence its particular interest in the context of this overview.

Chemical Association of Ireland: 1922 - 1936

Immediately after the foundation of the State in 1922, Hugh Ryan set about establishing another chemical organisation. This time he planned a much wider Chemical Association to include all Irish Chemists working in Ireland at the time. The Association titled "The Chemical Association of Ireland" was founded on 15 June, 1923, at a meeting held in Earlsfort Terrace.

The history of the Chemical Association of Ireland is a story of heroic struggle doomed to failure. Yet, to write off this episode as a complete failure is to underestimate what was achieved and what has endured. It provides a unique insight into the activities and aspirations of Irish chemists in the Twenties and Thirties.

Some of the highlights of its activities included the following. In March 1923, a wide ranging statement setting fourth the necessity for, and objects and functions of, an

organised professional body of chemists resident in Ireland was drafted and presented to the Government by a delegation from the provisional committee of the Association. A Code of Professional Etiquette was approved in February 1924. A Memorandum re terms of appointment of Junior Established Chemists in the State Laboratory was submitted to the Minister of Finance in March 1925. A draft of the Objectives and Constitution of the Association was approved at the AGM in March 1925. Bye-Laws were adopted at the 1926 AGM. A draft Act of Incorporation (1926 Chemists Bill) was approved by Council on Monday 28th June 1926. Examinations for Public Analysts were held in 1927. Only one person, Miss Julia Doyle B.Sc., sat and passed these examinations. The following year the Minister for Local Government and Public Health provisionally recognised the certificate of competence as a Public Analyst granted by the Association. In March 1929, a letter of protest was forwarded to the Civil Service Commission concerning the conditions advertised for a post of Temporary Chemist in the State Laboratory. Finally in 1929 a second draft of the Chemists Bill was drafted by a Parliamentary Draftsman. Lastly, a communication was received by the Association from the Office of the President of the Executive Council, Saorstat Eireann outlining the possible costs of the Bill which proved to be the death-knell of the Association. An account of Ryan's life and work based on a lecture by Professor Tom Dillon has been published in the Blackrock Annual 1946. A full account of the Chemical Association of Ireland has recently been published by the Institute (Ryan, 1997).

In all about forty chemists became members of the Association in the period 1923 to 1929. Professors Ryan, Dillon and Algar were members of the UCD Chemical Society and later The Chemical Association of Ireland. They were founding members of both organisations. Professor Ryan died tragically at the height of his career in 1931, but Professors Dillon and Algar went on to join the Irish Chemical Association in 1936 and later the present Institute of Chemistry of Ireland in 1950. The only other foundation members of the U.C.D. Society to join the 1923 Association appear to be Professor T. J. Nolan and Rev. Michael T. Casey.

The life of the Chemical Association of Ireland, although highly influential, was extremely brief. Its active phase covered only seven golden years from 1992 - 1929 (Dillon, 1966). The Association came to an abrupt halt on 4 December 1929, and several inactive years followed. Towards the end of 1934 and during 1935 a movement to revive the Association gained momentum which culminated in the foundation of the renamed Irish Chemical Association on 14 March 1936, and from that time onwards there has been a constantly active society membership of Irish Chemists. The Irish Chemical Association continued until 1950 when it became incorporated as the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland, the chemical society as we know it today (Anonymous, 1951; Dillon, 1967; Ryan, 1988; 1989).

Irish Chemical Association: 1936 - 1950

Early Years: 1936 - 1947

The inaugural meeting of the new Association took place on 14 March 1936. For the next fourteen years this Association thrived with a vigorous growth of membership. At the AGM in September 1936, Professor Thomas Dillon was elected President, Mr. Bernard Fagan became Vice-President. These officers together with eight additional members formed the Council of the new Association. During the first two years two matters were given uppermost attention by the Council namely, the recruitment of members particularly new graduates, and the salary structures in government, semi-public and industrial Chemistry posts.

At the AGM in September 1938, Mr. A. G. Burnell was elected President. In the period 1938 to 1939 the Council considered recruitment, peaceful penetration of industry by Chemists, and raising the status of Chemists. Several General Papers were presented and there was no restriction on debate following these papers. Six successful broadcasts under the title 'The Chemist and the Nation' were made. The receipts for the year ended 19 October 1939 amounted to £34.

At the AGM in November 1940, Mrs. Phyllis bean Ui Cheallaigh was elected President. The Report of the Honorary Secretary for the period 1940 - 41 recorded the membership as 91 full members and 35 students.

At the AGM in September 1941, Mr. B. G. Fagan was elected President. Special consideration was given to the position of country members of the Association and it was agreed that more lectures outside Dublin should be organised and financed by the Association; synopsis of papers read in Dublin should be circulated to country members; more meetings of the Association should be held outside Dublin and these should be held on Saturdays rather than on Mondays. However, severe restrictions on transport at the time precluded the full implementation of all of these intentions. A Register of Members was compiled and circularised to all members. Over the following two years to 1944, the standard membership grew to 137, but the student membership dwindled to just 6.

At the AGM in October 1943, Mr. D. Mellon was elected President. The activities of the Association continued on an even keel for the next two years. A survey of salaries of Chemists in various grades was undertaken. Lectures with lantern slides continued to be very popular, and a postal ballot came out in favour of an increase in subscriptions to one guinea per annum.

In September 1945, Mr. J. J. Lennon was elected President. The frequency of Council Meetings doubled to approximately twice a month. A review of the Register took place and printed copies listing 144 members were circulated in June 1946. The annual income of the Association had increased to £232 in the year ended 31 August 1946. Average salaries for Chemists in the 36 to 46 age bracket varied from about £600 to £750 per annum depending on category. A typical salary scale would increase from about £300 at age 25 to about £900 at age 60. Full social activities were resumed with the ending of the emergency period, and a magnificent dinner was held at the Hibernian Hotel in February 1946.

At the AGM in September 1946, Dr. Vincent C Barry was elected President. On 6 January 1947, Council decided to invite members and their friends to submit suitable designs for use as a Crest. The design submitted by Jim Gowan, which incorporated the likeness of Robert Boyle, the Irishman so often referred to as 'The Father of Chemistry' appealed to the majority of the Council.

By September 1947, the Membership had increased again to 174. Council Meetings continued at a hectic pace and public lectures thrives. A Connaught Section was initiated. A Colloquium on 'The Industrial Utilisation of Agricultural Products and of Seaweed' in July 1947 had over 130 registered participants and was deemed was a distinct success. The work of Council included issuing the first edition of the Irish Chemical Association Journal, reviewing grants for research students, looking at contracts for Chemists, and making steps to become affiliated with the International Union of Chemistry.

Transition Years: 1947 - 1950

Towards the end of the forties it became clear that the Association needed to change again as a step towards achieving government recognition. As a result the present Institute - Institiuid Ceimice na hEireann (the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland) - was founded on 18 January 1950, and the second Association which was wound up soon afterwards.

The concluding years of the Association cover a period of transition which lasted about three years. On 1 October 1947, Professor T. S. Wheeler stated that he was particularly interested in obtaining government recognition for the profession of Chemistry in Ireland. Following detailed discussion with representatives of the Royal Institute of Chemistry it emerged officially that the Association would have to proceed on this path alone. But informal advice was obtained from the RIC to turn the Association into a limited Company. This was acted on at a specially convened General Meeting on 19 May 1948. A short draft Constitution for such a Company was drawn up and a sub-committee was appointed to consider this and after several amendments it was finally adopted at a General Meeting on 28 February 1949.

In the meantime Denis Crowley had succeeded Professor Wheeler as President of the Association. On 10 October 1949, it was decided that the Council would be signatories to the Memorandum and Articles of the new Institute. On 7 November 1949 Council members signed the necessary documents.

The Association adopted a Crest consisting of an effigy of Robert Boyle. Professor Tom Dillon once observed: 'it is interesting to imagine what Boyle's feelings would be if he saw a halo in the Irish language around his head'. After leaving Ireland at the age of seven, he returned only once. On that brief occasion he described Ireland as a "barbarous country where chymical spirits are so misunderstood and chymical instruments so unprocurable that it is impossible to have any hermetical thoughts therein".

The new Institute was incorporated as a limited liability company without share capital on 28 January 1950. A meeting of the subscribers took place two days later and it was agreed that they would form the first Council. Denis Crowley was elected Chairman with William Griffiths as Vice-Chairman. By April, 1950, 143 members had joined the Institute at a fee of one guinea each. There were 212 members of the Association at the time it was dissolved, therefore about two-thirds decided to continue with the new Institute.

Institute of Chemistry of Ireland: 1950 to date

1950 - 1960

At the first AGM of the Institute in April 1950, Mr. A. G. G. Leonard was elected President, and devoted his year in office to the general organisation of the Institute on a secure running basis.

In April 1951, Mr. W. V. Griffiths became President and Mr. John Keane became Vice-President. They served together for a further year during which Bye-Laws for Local Sections were drawn up and the Connaught Section was established. In effect this was a continuation of the first Section established in the area by the Association as early as October 1946. Arrangements were also initiated to certify Laboratory Technicians. In September 1951, the Institute was represented by Dr. V. C. Barry at the International Chemical Conclave in New York where he presented the American Chemical Society with an illustrated scroll on the occasion of their seventy-fifth anniversary.

In 1952, Mr. J. L. Ginnell became President. A Munster Local Section was established in Cork. It was around this time that the Institute began to settle down to the traditional two-yearly cycles where the Vice-President normally succeeded the President in office.

Professor Tom Dillon served as President from 1954 to 1956. Professor Wesley Cocker accepted the Vice-Presidency for one year but declined to continue for a second on the grounds that the young Institute should have native Irish Chemists as Presidents at least in the formative years. Mr. D. T. Flood thus served as Vice-President for the second year.

Professor Dillon who was a brother-in-law of Joseph Plunket, the executed 1916 leader who was a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. He had close ties with the independence movement and was technical advisor to Sinn Fein on the manufacture of explosives and incendiary devices. He was arrested in 1918 and interned in Gloucester Prison for one year. In later years, Tom remained passionately interested in the affairs of the Institute.

In April 1956, Mr. D. T. Flood was elected President. He chose as his Presidential Address the topic 'Industrial Resources in Ireland in this New Technological Age'. In 1957, Professor Dillon attended a Congress of IUPAC in Paris, where Ireland was formally elected to membership. In a period of slow growth, a circular to over 100 Chemists in the Country brought no new members to the Institute, although by the end of 1957, the total membership had reached the 200 mark. President Flood represented the Institute at various functions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Dublin in September 1957.

In 1958, Dr. O'Tuama was elected President. A salary survey was completed in December 1958 which resulted in a revised recommended minimum salary of œ3650 per annum for Chemists where posts have a

non-contributory pension scheme and it recommended that 15 per cent should be added to basic salaries which did not have such a scheme. Advancement should be such that the salary after 5 years of satisfactory employment should not be less than œ835 per annum.

1960 - 1970

Mr. F. T. Reilly became President in April 1960 and he chose as his address the topic 'Some By-products of Alcoholic Fermentation'.

At the AGM in April 1962 Mr. E. J. Cranley was elected President. A revised register of members was printed in November 1962 listing 205 Fellows and Members. About 35 Technicians were also registered with the Institute at that time. A major recruitment drive was initiated by Dr. N. J. O'Connor. This was very successful and resulted in a 10 per cent increase in membership. Mr. Cranley chose as his address the topic 'Recent Developments in the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards'.

In April 1964, a very successful two day Conference on 'Water' was held in the IIRS, and this was attended by 92 Chemists, engineers and medical personnel. At the AGM which was held during that Conference Dr. D. T. Long was elected President.

In April 1966, Professor Eva Philbin became the first female Vice-President since the time of Phyllis Ryan in the thirties. Evening lectures were still a popular event in those days. Four lectures were held in Dublin, two in Cork and two in Galway in the 1967/68 period.

At the AGM in April 1968 the presidency was transferred to Mr. Brendan Foreman. In that year the Institute held its AGM jointly with the Chemical Society and the Royal Institute of Chemistry, and hosted scientific meetings held by these bodies in UCD. The International Association of Expert Chemists held its Annual Congress in Dublin in July 1969, and this was hosted by the Institute.

1970 - 1980

Professor Pepper served as President from 1970 to 1972. He set as the main objectives of the Institute expanded representation at international meetings, the obtaining of greater financial resources by increased subscriptions and industrial subsidies, the setting up of expert working parties in education and national science policy and the taking of new initiatives on current topics such as pollution. In 1971 a complete special issue of Orbital was devoted to this topic of pollution.

From 1973 onwards, the Institute has dramatically increased its role in the professional interests of its members, by appointing several active committees. Areas of interest at that time included Analytical Chemistry, Education, Industrial and Applied Chemistry, Membership, Pollution Control, Public Affairs, Teachers Refresher Courses and Chemical Technician Training.

Dr. Nichol believed that the Institute should provide sufficient benefits to its members to justify its existence. The Institute successfully intervened in the formulation of an EEC Directive in 1974, which could have prohibited the employment of Chemists in certain areas of the pharmaceutical industry. In those days the official journal Orbital was published very rarely. So in 1974, 'Voice', a periodic newsletter was launched by Diarmuid MacDaid which became an alternative line of communication for several issues.

In 1975, Dr. Letters continued the good work of his predecessor and laid emphasis on expanding the role and activity of the Institute in the regions, the status and responsibility of the Chemist and his profession, an improved image of Chemistry particularly in the industrial dimension, and the maintaining of our representation in Europe.

In 1976 with Professor Brown at the helm, the Institute held its first Congress, and the topic chosen was 'The Chemist and the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Industry in Ireland'. It was attended by over 75 participants and was judged as great success. Professor Brown chose as the theme of his Presidential Address 'The Role of the Chemist in Ireland in the Seventies'.

A cheerful note was struck in 1978, however, when President Harrington, in a move to improve the image of Chemistry, got some advice from 'The Father of Chemistry' The Right Honourable Sir Robert Boyle himself, who 'appeared' unexpectedly at Euroanalysis III and mingled with the crowds. This Conference, hosted by the Institute in Dublin in 1978 was attended by over 700 delegates from 38 Countries around the world. In the following year, the Institute hosted another major Meeting, namely the Third International Conference on Chemical Education which was attended by over 300 delegates from 59 Countries.

1980 - 1990

The President, Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald, toured the Country from 1980 to 1982 both to recruit new members and to deliver his presidential address entitled 'Chemical Risks and Benefits' at several centres.

In April 1982, severe opposition to increasing the subscriptions led to the convening of an Extraordinary General Meeting in September 1982. During the Summer, Council had formulated a master plan for the development of the Institute, and after its presentation by President Tony McKervey, the vote to increase the subscriptions was passed unanimously. The ambitious plan included the setting up of a permanent secretariat and the establishing of a more effective journal and involvement of the regions.

Table 1 Officers of the various chemical societies 1923-1997

Cumann Ceimdhe na hEireann The Chemical Association of Ireland

Cumann Ceimicidhe na hEireann The Irish Chemical Association

Institiuid Ceimice na hEireann The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland

In 1983, a Special Resolution was passed to enable the concept of membership to be extended to include Companies. The Institute started to recruit Company Members and the additional income that this allowed had greatly helped the development of the Institute and benefited the members in the past 12 years which has seen a dramatic increase in activities.

In April 1984, Mr. Donal Carroll was elected President and Council. From that time a major change took place. The AGM venue was transferred from the hard-benched perches of academe to the comfort of first class hotels. Activity in the regions was stepped up and our journal thrived.

In 1986-88, under the presidency of Professor Dick Butler, nearly every Chemist in Galway was encouraged to join the Institute. President Butler travelled far and wide delivering his presidential address on 'The Growth of the Irish Chemical Industry'.

The decade 1980 to 1990 saw unprecedented growth in membership despite some necessary pruning of deadwood. In 1987, the total income of the Institute was œ15,780 and the Expenditure was œ13,956. By 8 December 1987, the Institute had 458 Members, including 5 Honorary Fellows, 20 Licentiates, 53 Student Members and 12 Company Members. Of these 138 were PhD's, 81 were female, 35 were Professors, 3 were Priests, and 1 was a Religious Brother. And remarkable 49 were previously members of the Irish Chemical Association, and 2 were members of the first Association of Chemistry in Ireland. An Institute directory was published in January 1988 listing over 500 members.

In April 1988, President Conor Murphy took hold of the reins. Conor's deep interest and knowledge of Institute affairs contributed greatly to the growth of the Institute over the following two years. For his presidential address he chose the topic 'Analytical Chemistry into the Nineties'.

On 14 September 1988, Council approved a scheme drawn up by Professor Butler to provide sponsorship for Student Chemical Societies to host Institute of Chemistry of Ireland Lectures on chemistry topics. Since the scheme was introduced, the Institute has sponsored over thirty student Society Lectures and associated social events such as receptions in Colleges all over the Country at a cost of £3,000.

1990 - 1997

In March 1990 our Annual Congress was held in Limerick with the theme 'Chemical Industries and Green Fields' organised by Dr. Tim Smyth. Over 100 people participated in this highly successful Congress. Since April 1990, all our Annual General Meetings have been held in the Berkeley Court Hotel, Ballsbridge, and each year more members attend with the numbers now approaching 100. At the AGM in April 1990, Professor John Corish was elected President, thus opening a busy and exciting decade for the Institute. By the end of March 1991, the Institute had 641 members in all categories, and the annual income by the end of that year reached œ20,767 while the expenditure was œ23,402.In April 1992, Dr. David Melody was elected President and Professor Dervilla Donnelly was elected Vice-President. Dr. Melody's level-headed approach steadied Council as it expanded its influence.

In April 1994, Professor Dervilla Donnelly was elected President. Her superb skills at chairing meetings are unequalled and the Council meetings were switched again, from the State Laboratory Board Room where they had been held for the previous ten years to the opulence of the newly appointed Custom House Docks Development Authority Board Room. In her acceptance speech she paid tribute to the outgoing President, David Melody, saying that of the 70 PhD students she had directed over the years, David had been one of the brightest.

In April 1996, Joe Rowley was elected President of the Institute. He dedicated himself to re-activating the Committees of Council and introduced new categories for Analytical Chemistry and Young Chemists. A new data base to maintain up to date information on names and addresses of members and on the accounts of the Institute was set up. And plans were drawn up to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the origins of the Institute in style.

The Institute as it is today

Compared to the situation two decades ago when it was often difficult to reach a quorum for Council meetings, there has been a radical shift in involvement in recent years. At the present time there are 27 places on Council and all of these are filled. The main officers over the past seventy five years are catalogued for interest (see Table 1). Because it represents the profession of Chemistry as a whole the Institute is free from the necessity of pursuing sectional interests or of acting as a lobby for a particular sector. The Institute is a non-profit making charitable organisation without share capital. It presents an independent and dispassionate front, especially to Government and to the Public on matters of concern to the full spectrum of chemical workers and the chemical industry. The Institute has been increasingly active at EU level in all areas in recent years.

The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland is justly proud of its history which provides a fascinating and unrivalled account of the birth of a European Chemical Society coinciding with the birth of a Nation.

References

Anonymous [Keane, J]. (1951) 'In Retrospect, 1923 - 1950', The Institute of Chemistry of Ireland Journal. 1950 - 1951, 12.

Berry, H. F. (1915) History of the Royal Dublin Society. Longmans Green and Co., London.

Burns, D. T., (1977) 'Irish Contributions to Analytical Chemistry'. History of Analytical Chemistry. Proc. Analyt. Div. Chem.. Soc. July 1977. 171.

Burns, D. T. (1978) 'Irish Contributions to European Analytical Chemistry', Reviews on Analytical Chemistry. Euroanalysis III, Dublin 20 - 25 August, Eds. D. M. Carroll, D._T. Burns, D. A. Brown & D. A. MacDaeid, Applied Science Publishers Ltd., London.

Crowley, D. (1958) J. Roy. Inst. Chem. 82: 10.

de Vere White (1955) Story of the Royal Dublin Society, Kerryman, Kerry.

Dillon, T. (1966) 'A History of Institiuid Ceimice na hEireann. Part I: The First Cumann Ceimice', bital 2 - 1966, 40.

Dillon, T. (1967) 'A History of Institiuid Ceimice na hEireann. Part II: The New Cumann and the Institute', Orbital 2 - 1967, 21.

Farrington, A. (1966) Chem. Ind. 1053.

Hoppen, K. T. (1970) The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century. A Study of the Dublin Philosophical Society, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

J. R. (1946) 'Professor Hugh Ryan (1873 - 1931)', The Blackrock Annual, 1946, 32.

Philbin, E and Gowan, J. (1987) 'The Chemical Society', UCD News, February

1987, 4.

Ryan, J. P. (1987) 'Professor Hugh Ryan: Founder of two Chemical Organisations', UCD News April 1987, 18.

Ryan, J. P. (1988) 'Archive Report: 21 Year Report (1968-88)', Irish

Chemical News 1988, Winter: 6.

Ryan, J. P. (1989) 'Archive Report: Transition Years (1947-50)', Irish

Chemical News 1989, Autumn: 9.

Ryan, J. P. (1997) The Chemical Association of Ireland 1922 - 1936,

Sampton Ltd. for the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland.

Wheeler, T. S. (1953) 'Schools of Chemistry in Great Britain and Ireland - III : The Dublin Schools', The Journal of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. March 1953, 113.

This article was first published in Irish Chemical News Vol. XI (2), Winter 1997, 11-17.

Dr. J. P. Ryan is a lecturer in Veterinary Science at UCD and he has been secretary of the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland since 1982.

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Some 'older' members of the ISTA at this year's AGM in Limerick

( see report )

Ireland's Early Chemical Industry

Peter E. Childs

Department of Chemical and Environmental Sciences,University of Limerick, Limerick

Introduction

Very little has been written on the history of industrial chemistry in Ireland as distinct from the history of chemistry and individual chemists. Indeed, most people think that there is no history of industrial chemistry in Ireland and that it is only in recent years, from the 1960s onwards, that Ireland has had any significant chemical industry. The information in this article shows that this is not completely accurate. Although Ireland has never been a major player on the world scene in chemicals until recently, and even now it is only a bit player, there is a considerable and interesting history in the 18th. and 19th. Centuries. Indeed in the early years of this century Ireland was home to a chemical company employing 4-5,000 people.

Some of the chemicals that have been made in the past in Ireland include:

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  • bleaching powder

•  
  • gunpowder and explosives

•  
  • fertilizers

•  
  • iodine (from seaweed)

•  
  • alumina (from bauxite)

•  
  • sulphuric acid (vitriol)

•  
  • alkali (soda)

The oldest chemical company in Ireland, Boileau and Boyd in Dublin, goes back to 1700 and will celebrate its tercentenary in 2000. It is still in business packaging and selling chemicals, though no longer manufacturing them (Boyd, 1970; Bonner, 1997). Goulding's of Cork were established in 1856 and are still in the fertilizer business over 140 years later (Goulding, 1956). Economic and industrial histories of Ireland rarely mention the chemical industries, and tend to focus on linen, shipbuilding etc. It is rare to find anything more than a passing mention under 'other industries' to chemically-based industries. One of the exceptions is Mary Daly's Dublin: the deposed capital (1984). In it she refers to a study of steam power in the city (p.22) which indicates 12 chemical factories using steam power in 1864, and spends then spends two pages discussing chemical industries.

This neglect is not justified and the chemical industry was a significant employer and contributor to national wealth, as well as a support for other industries. At one time most chemistry textbooks would emphasize the significant people in the development of the chemical industry, at least as a passing reference, and James Muspratt's name would nearly always be mentioned, as he is in every history of the early chemical industry in England. As Hardie (1952) commented rather sardonically: "Textbook writers generally hasten on from their 'historical introductions' to their technical chapters, having lit somewhat dim candles before the dusty busts of Roebuck, Keir, LeBlanc, perhaps William Losh, and certainly James Muspratt." (emphasis added). How many contemporary chemists in Ireland have heard of James Muspratt and know that he started manufacturing chemicals in Dublin?

Useful sources of information about early chemical industries, and who was involved can be found in the various directories that were produced in the last century. One example is given below. Another source is the Alkali Inspector's Reports from 1862, which list chemical companies in the U.K. and Ireland, plus mentions in exhibition catalogues, newspaper advertisements etc.

Pigot & Co's. ,City of Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory, London

The various directories list firms and occupations in each county of Ireland. In the 1824 Directory for example, we find the following categories listed (number of individuals or companies in brackets) in Dublin alone:

Tallow chandlers and soap manufacturers (118)

Apothecaries (133)

Chemists (Manufacturing) (12,including Muspratt and Gamble)

Distillers and Rectifiers (13)

Druggists (33,inc. Boileau and George, 88 Bride Street)

Glass manufacturers (4)

Vitriol manufacturers (4)

This example shows that there was a significant amount of chemical manufacturing going on in Dublin in 1824, including four vitriol (sulphuric acid) manufacturers. Muspratt and Gamble are listed as manufacturing chemists.

In the 1898 Alkali Inspector's report 69 factories producing chemicals in Ireland are identified: "one alkali manufacture, thirteen sulphuric acid manufactures, sixteen chemical manure manufactures, twenty-six sulphate of ammonia manufactures, two cement manufactures and eight tar distilling and felt manufactures."

This also indicates a substantial chemical manufacturing industry at this date. Note that this list does not include gunpowder and explosives or soap manufacture, nor the most successful and long-lasting 'chemical' industry from the 17th. Century to the present: the brewing and distilling industry! The location of industries mentioned in this article are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 The Location of Early Chemical Industries in Ireland

Specific Chemical and Allied Industries

Bleaching Chemicals for the Linen Industry

Linen, in particular, is an interesting case since the successful production of linen and the expansion of the industry required a ready supply of chemicals, particularly bleaching agents. Aileen L'Amie Master's thesis (L'Amie, 1984), Chemicals in the Eighteenth Century Irish Linen Industry. is one of the few historical studies of chemicals in Ireland.

The first vitriol (sulphuric acid) works was established in Lisburn around 1764 by Thomas Grey and Waddell Cunningham . The first sale notice was in 1767 when they thanked "the Gentlemen of the Linen Trade for the preference they have been pleased to give them for the Oil of Vitriol of their infant manufacture", (L'Amie p.109) Sulphuric acid was used as a "sour" to neutralize the alkalis used in bleaching linen; it replaced buttermilk and speeded up the bleaching process considerably. A second vitriol plant was established by James Christy at Moyallon in 1786 (The Moyallon Vitriol Company). (L'Amie p. 120)

Claude Louis Berthollet first showed in 1786 that chlorine could be used as a practical bleaching agent. Charles Tennant in Scotland experimented with absorbing chlorine in an aqueous slurry of slaked lime. He took out a patent on this bleaching liquor (BP2209/1798) and it was shown to be an effective bleaching agent. Charles Macintosh, working with Tennant, improved on this by absorbing chlorine on dry lime to produce bleaching salt, later known as bleaching powder (BP 2312/1799). Bleaching powder became a key commodity in the development of both the textile industries and the chemical industry. Chlorine speeded-up the bleaching process and increased output and in turn stimulated the demand for sulphuric acid, lime and alkali, also used in the textile industry. In 1798 James Fox and Robert Tennant (younger brother of Charles) traveled to Ireland to promote their beaching inventions in the heart of the linen industry. A trial was arranged and a favourable report was sent to the Trustees of the Linen and Hempen Manufacturers on 3/4/1798: bleaching time was reduced from twelve weeks to 2 weeks. An agreement was negotiated: "In the Kingdom of Ireland, the right honourable and honourable trustees of the Linen and Hempen Manufacturers , had voted to the said Charles Tennant the sum of £10,000, as a consideration for his relinquishing to the manufacturers of Ireland the benefit of the said invention." This sounded good but not one penny ever reached the inventor as a result of this agreement! A subsidiary company called The Bleaching Salt Company was set up at Malahide, seven miles north of Dublin, in 1798.

Robert Tennant traveled around the country showing the Irish bleachers how to use the new process (Crathorne, 1973). William Higgins refers to this in his essay The theory and practice of bleaching (Dublin, 1799). Chlorine (made from hydrochloric acid and manganese dioxide) was passed into: "eighty lb. of well slaked and well sifted quick-lime in eight hundred gallons of water. This short description will give a sufficient idea of the apparatus and of the expense attending it. Those who use it, I understand, find it very convenient, but doubtless practice will improve. The apparatus itself may be seen at work at the bleach-greens of Charles Duffin, at Dungannon. A Mr. Tennant who works with him, and who it seems, is very expert at the process, may be employed at the different bleachers, until they get into the method of managing it themselves." Higgins reports that there were 30 such bleaching plants in operation in the North of Ireland (and presumably none of them paying royalties to Tennants!)

The Irish Bleachers admitted to having saved £166,800 in 1799 alone by using Tennant's bleaching process. They proposed paying a royalty to Tennants, but it seems that this was not paid and in 1807 Tennant, Knox & Co. presented a final appeal to the Linen and Hempen Manufacturers and were awarded £982.14s.11d. Although Tennant's opened agencies in Belfast in 1805 and in Dublin shortly afterwards, the Irish adventure had cost Tennant's a lot of money and the Malahide works was closed down in 1807.

Chlorine bleaching released a lot of land previously used for bleach fields by the textile industry and Clow and Clow (1952) comment: "So extensive was the area devoted to bleachfields that, with the introduction of chemical bleaching materials which rendered sunlight a non-essential, the release of land for agricultural purposes was heralded as one of the great benefits conferred by chemistry upon the community."

(p.172)

It can be argued that chemistry played as big a part in the industrial revolution, particularly in the textile industry, as did developments in machinery, despite the almost total absence of attention to the role of chemicals in conventional histories. The linen industry was liberated from the restrictions imposed by traditional bleaching, by the introduction first of sulphuric acid and then of bleaching powder. Each of these scientific innovations required a supporting industry to make and supply the chemicals. Other chemical manufacturers, notably Josias Gamble, started their chemical careers making bleaching powder in Ireland - first in Co. onaghan and then in Dublin (see below).

The quotation from Green (1963) below shows that the need for chemicals for bleaching can be taken as the start of Ireland's chemical industry: "After the middle of the eighteenth century linen bleaching began to profit from chemical discoveries. In 1756 a Scottish scientist, Francis Home, first described the use of dilute sulphuric acid as an effective substitute for buttermilk sour and which reduced the time of bleaching from eight to four months. The growing use of sulphuric acid led to the development of a chemical industry in Ireland. In 1764 two Belfast merchants, Thomas Greg and Waddell Cunningham, established the Vitriol Island works at Lisburn. Some years later a company was formed by bleachers on the River Bann to build a sulphuric acid works at Moyallen. The discovery of chlorine and the demonstration of the bleaching power of the gas by Berthollet in 1785 did away with the whole process of bucking. Bleaching became a more scientific process although continuing to rely a great deal on the action of water and on the atmosphere. The basic equipment of the bleacher remained much the same _ The difference was that with the aid of the new chemicals the bleacher was able to work twelve months of the year and greatly to reduce the time needed for finishing cloth." (Emphasis added)

Explosives: Gunpowder and Cordite

From 1794 to 1918 Ireland was a significant producer of chemical explosives. From 1794 to 1903 the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Ballincollig, Co. Cork produced gunpowder, the earliest explosive used. By the end of the 19th. Century gunpowder had been largely superseded by more powerful explosives like dynamite, guncotton etc. Overlapping with the last few years of the Ballincollig gunpowder mills, an English company Kynoch opened a new factory to make explosives at Arklow, Co. Wicklow which at the peak of production during World War I employed up to 4-5,000 people. The histories of both industries is dealt with in Gunpowder to Guided Missiles (Kelleher, 1993) , and Kynoch's alone by Murphy (1977) in The Kynoch Era in Arklow. Thus for nearly 125 years Ireland was a major producer and exporter of explosives, each factory being a very significant employer in its own area.

a) Ballincollig Royal Gunpowder Mills 1794-1903

Since 1983 restoration work has been underway on the Ballincollig site and the Royal Gunpowder Mills are now a major tourist attraction and one of the most important industrial archaeology sites in the country. The mills date from the Napoleonic Wars and were established in 1794 by Charles Henry Leslie on the banks of the River Lee.

Figure 2 Showcard Advertisment from the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills

In 1809 the British Board of Ordnance bought the mills rom Leslie and developed them. They built a canal to move materials around the site, expanded production and built an army barracks in Ballincollig to protect the mills. In 1815, with the defeat of Napoleon, the mills were closed down. In the 1830s Tobin and Horsfall, a Liverpool-based company, bought the mills. Thomas Tobin was appointed manager and over the next 20 years the mills expanded. In 1837 production was 16,000 barrels per year and 200 people were employed, reaching 500 by the mid 1850s. However, by the end of the century demand for gunpowder declined and the mills changed hands twice eventually ending up in the hands of Curtis and Harvey in 1898. The mills were finally closed in June 1903. With amalgamations in the chemical industry in the 1920s, Imperial Chemical Industries became the owners of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills, just as they also became owner of Kynochs. The remains of this vast industrial complex on the banks of the river Lee are well worth a visit.

b) Kynochs Explosives and Munitions Factory, Arklow 1895-1918

Arklow has a long history of industrialization. The copper mines at Avoca date back centuries and in the 1860s a chemical factory was set up by the Wicklow Copper Mine Co. in Avoca, Co. Wicklow to make use of the sulphur-containing by-products of the mine. They produced sulphuric acid, nitric acid, acetone and fertilizers at the factory (see section on Fertilizer Manufacture below). In 1894 Kynoch's, an English explosives and munitions company, bought the site of the chemical works and additional land to build a factory to make high explosives. Very little trace remains of Kynoch's factory which covered hundreds of acres and employed at its peak nearly 5,000 people, except for a concrete water tower looming over the caravan park which was later built on the site. Production and employment peaked from 1914-1918 and in the rationalization of the explosives industry, which was to lead eventually to the formation of ICI, Kynochs' explosives factories were closed in 1918-19, almost overnight. The plant produced, at the time, nitroglycerine, guncotton, cordite and picric acid (Lyddite).

Figure 3 A Recent View of Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills (photo: Peter Childs)

Fertilizer manufacture

The manufacture of artificial fertilizers or artificial manures (as they were first called) is still an important part of the chemical scene in Ireland, with plants at Marino Point, Arklow and Belfast. All histories of industrial chemistry give the credit for founding this major branch of the heavy chemical industry to J.B. Lawes in England in 1842. However, in 1846 Lawes bought out the prior patents of Sir James Murray (1788-1871) who had started making artificial manures in Belfast in 1817. (Alford and Parkes, 1953; Garvin and O'Rawe, 1993) He made field trials of soluble biphosphate of lime in 1808 and his trials were reported in 1817 in the press. He transferred his chemical works to Dublin and in 1841 "Murray was engaged in the fertilizer business on a large scale" and in 1842 he was granted a patent for making a dry superphosphate fertilizer, later bought by Lawes.

In 1898 there were sixteen manure works in Ireland, several of which were owned by Goulding & Co.. They are the oldest-established fertilizer company in Ireland and started making phosphate fertilizers in Cork in 1856 (Figure 4) At the time of their centenary in 1956 they had eight factories in Ireland, North and South, with two more planned. Nearly all these factories had sulphuric acid plants, often using pyrites from Wicklow and imported phosphate rock, to make phosphate fertilizers (Goulding, 1956).

Fertilizer manufacture was started near Arklow in the 1860s when the Wicklow Copper Mine Co. decided to set up a chemical works to utilize the sulphur-rich pyrites from their mines (Figure 5). The works survived until 1894 when they were taken over by Kynochs to supply acids and acetone for their new explosives plant (see above). Fertilizer manufacture, including the production of sulphuric and nitric acids, recommenced at Arklow in 1963 when NET set up their plant there, which continues today as part of IFI.

Figure 4 Goulding's Works at the Glen, Cork (Goulding, 1956)

Figure 5 Advertisement for the Wicklow Copper Mine Co. (1882)

Mary Daly describes the manufacture of fertilizer in Dublin, where several plants were located near the mouth of the river Liffey (Daly, 1984):

"The chemical and manure industry .. expanded to fill agricultural needs. The growing use of artificial manure provided many commercial opportunities .. In 1870 there were apparently four artificial manure plants, by 1895 this had risen to seven while employment had risen from 347 to 463. The most successful firm was W. and H.M. Goulding, founded in Cork in 1858 (sic), which opened a Dublin plant in 1869."

These figures give an idea of how substantial the fertilizer industry was in Ireland in the late 19th./early 20th centuries, well before the era of NET (now IFI). All the manufacturing factories in the Gouldings group have now ceased manufacturing, with the exception of Richardsons (now part of IFI), although Gouldings of Cork is still in the fertilizer business after 140 years. Another long-established Irish fertilizer company is McDonaghs of Galway.

Iodine and the Seaweed/Kelp Industry

The use of seaweed as a source of alkali probably started in Ireland, and was important in the west of Ireland and the highlands and islands of Scotland in the 17th. and 18th centuries. Seaweed was collected, dried and burnt to obtain a fused mass of ash, known as kelp. (Kelp is now used as a name for the seaweeds themselves.) The kelp was then shipped to the end users (soap, glass, alum, bleach manufacturers) where alkali was extracted. A major user of kelp was the linen industry, where it was used to produce the alkali used in bleaching. The market for this collapsed from 1800s onwards when first barilla, imported from Spain, and then synthetic alkali (from the LeBlanc process) displaced it. Thousands of people were employed in kelp collection and their livelihood was destroyed overnight.

The kelp industry revived when Bernard Courtois discovered iodine by accident in 1811 in the residues from kelp extraction. There are contemporary descriptions of kelp burning in this century in Synge (1905) and Mullen (1934), since it survived into this century. In 1817 Ure discovered that manganese dioxide and sulphuric acid could be used to liberate iodine from soap-boilers' spent lye (obtained from kelp). This then led to the rise a new, though smaller scale industry in the mid 19th. Century for the extraction of iodine from seaweed. The extraction of iodine from seaweed started in France, then in Scotland where there were 10 small factories in Glasgow in the 1830s, dropping to 4 by 1845. In the Great Exhibition of 1851 seven British and two French companies exhibited their products. Among the British companies were listed:

J. Ward, Ramelton. Co. Donegal

E. Bullock & Co., Galway

John Ward had an iodine factory in Ramelton, Co. Donegal from 1845 onwards, and this would appear to have been a subsidiary of John Ward & Co. Glasgow. J. Ward, Ramelton is mentioned in Muspratt vol.2 (1856) and also in a note published in 1851 on the Great Exhibition (reproduced below).

"I observed in the Great Exhibition a case of chemical stuffs produced from Irish sea weed - viz. Iodine, chloride of potassium, sulphate of potash and alkaline kelp-salt, manufactured in the Ramelton Chemical Works by the exhibitor, Mr. John Ward. These works, the first of their kind started in Ireland, were established by Mr. Ward in March 1845 .. to the town of Ramelton these Chemical Works have been of the greatest benefit by the number of workmen labourers employed in an around it, and the very considerable shipping trade, in vessels ranging from 50 to 120 tons, which the importation of manufactured stuff has been the means of bring to Lough Swilly."

(Freeman's Journal, 27th. Sept. 1851, reprinted in the Donegal Annual, vol..2, no. 1 1951)

The firm of J. Ward was bought by the British Seaweed Co. Ltd. in 1867 (Booth, 1978). The site of this factory is still known and the remains were only demolished 30 years or so ago (Hagan, 1994). It is not clear when it stopped production.

Figure 6 Kelp burning on the Aran Islands

The iodine industry based on seaweed is described by Booth (1979) and Chapman (1970). This industry in turn was eclipsed by cheaper sources of iodine as a by-product of Chilean nitrate production from 1868 onwards. Kirby (1953) records that the burning of kelp for iodine manufacture stopped in Ireland in 1953 : "Up to 1953, kelp also continued to be burnt for iodine in Eire, the amount of ash produced ranging from 330 tons to 1,335 tons annually with a value of £3 15s. 3d. to £8 11s 4d. per ton". This was exported to Scotland, and later to France, for the extraction of iodine. Iodine production from kelp stopped in Scotland in the 1930s and in France in 1957/8. It seems likely that the Scottish owners closed down the Irish iodine works and imported the kelp for processing in Scotland. Chapman (1970) records that. "In the 19th. Century much of the Irish kelp was shipped to Glasgow for the extraction of the iodine". Ireland still has a seaweed industry, although in this its third phase seaweed is processed to produce alginates for use in the food industry and other industries. Arramara Teo processes around 32,000 tonnes of seaweed a year to produce seaweed meal, most of which is exported for further processing into alginates.

Alumina Industry in Larne, 1895-1961

The conversion of bauxite to alumina by the Bayer process is familiar to most chemists and in Ireland one would immediately think of Aughinish Alumina Ltd. (AAL) located on the Shannon Estuary, which started up in 1983. However, a much earlier bauxite to alumina plant was operating at Larne, N. Ireland, soon after Bayer invented his process, initially using local bauxite deposits.

Bauxite was discovered in Cargan, Glens of Antrim, in association with iron ore, by J.F.N. Hodges in 1871 (Scally, 1954; Wilson. 1965). Iron ore was shipped out to supply the English iron smelting industry and bauxite was also exported to England to make aluminium sulphate (alum). The bauxite deposits offered an opportunity to supply raw material for the new aluminium smelting industry being set up in England by the British Aluminium Co., following the discovery of the electrolytic method of aluminium production from alumina. The first sod of the new "Aluminium Factory" (as it was always known) was cut in May 1895, north of Larne harbour, and the first alumina was produced on Christmas Day 1895.

The bauxite for the Larne plant came initially from deposits in Co. Antrim. The Irish ore was used for only 2-3 years, as it contained too much silica. It was replaced by imports from France, and then from Spain and British Guyana. Extraction of alumina from bauxite at Larne stopped in 1948. It employed 500 people but the plant was out-of-date and energy and transport costs were high. During WWII a total of 296,000 tons of bauxite was produced, equivalent to 60,000 tons of aluminium. When the alumina plant finally stopped production in 1948 2 million tons of "red mud" had accumulated over the previous half century. This was used in paintmaking, after drying and grinding, and this continued from 1948-61 with about 40 workers until it finally closed for good. Another chapter in Ireland's chemical history had closed, only to be reopened in the 1980s on the Shannon estuary.

Bauxite continued to be mined and exported for use in making alum (Scally, 1954) from 1877 until 1934. The Clinty Chemical Co. still uses bauxite to make water-treatment chemicals.

Sulphuric Acid (Vitriol) Manufacture

Sulphuric acid is the key industrial chemical, from which many other chemicals are made and on which many industries depend. Sulphuric acid, as we snoted earlier, first came to prominence as a sour in bleaching linen. It was then used, together with salt and manganese dioxide, to make chlorine for bleaching linen and other textiles. The introduction of the Leblanc Process for making soda, also used in bleaching, involved the action of sulphuric acid on salt. The soda thus produced was used to make soap and glass. Thus a supply of sulphuric acid was essential in the textile industry, and for the manufacture of alkali and later for producing fertilizers, as well as for many other uses. Initially sulphuric acid was produced in Scotland and Birmingham, and imported into Ireland, particularly from Scotland. The quantities imported were quite substantial as the data in Table 1 shows:

Table 1 Annual Average Exports of Oil of Vitriol from Scotland to Ireland (Cochran, 1985)

These quantities show the demand of the linen industry from 1750 onwards for the more effective "sour", sulphuric acid. Oil of vitriol was shipped in glass bottles and was not a nice commodity to handle or transport. The first vitriol works in Ireland was opened in 1764 in Lisburn and a second one was opened in 1786. There were four vitriol manufacturers in Dublin in 1824, three in Belfast and one in Lisburn (Pigot, 1824).

The last sulphuric acid plant in the Republic closed in 1982 when the supply of pyrites to NET, Arklow (the sulphur source) from Avoca Mines stopped. The last sulphuric acid plant in Northern Ireland at Richardsons, which used imported sulphur, closed in the early 1990s thus ending over 200 years of sulphuric acid manufacture in Ireland.

The Alkali Industry in Ireland

In the 19th. Century the terms 'Alkali Industry' and 'Chemical Industry' were almost synonymous, largely thanks to the efforts of the Irishmen James Muspratt and Josiah Gamble (see below). Alkali or soda was vital for the soap industry, in textile production, in making glass and paper, and for many other industries. It was classed as a 'heavy chemical' i.e. bulky and relatively cheap, and was usually made close to its raw materials supply (coal, limestone, salt and sulphuric acid) and end-users. Not surprisingly alkali was manufactured in Ireland, given the demand from bleachers and soap-makers.

Boileau and Boyd made alkali and manures as Boyd & Alexander , later just Boyd, until 1890 - their chemical and manure plant was taken over by the United Alkali Company and closed soon afterwards (Figure 7). It also seems likely that James Muspratt was making soda in Dublin on a small scale before he moved to Dublin as Kurtz, during a visit to Dublin in 1818 refers to 'soude de Muspratt' in some investigations he was making (Allen, 1906).

The Alkali Act of 1862 required all alkali works (later all chemical works) to register and be inspected. The following works were listed under the Alkali Act in 1863 and 1865 in Ireland were:

1863:

Boyd & Alexander, Dublin

1865: in addition

William Jos. Kane & Son, Dublin

William McLiesh, Belfast

J.McKenny & Co., Dublin

Morgan Mooney, Dublin

By 1882 The Alkali Statistics recorded one each in Dublin and Belfast (presumably dedicated alkali works). By 1898 the Alkali Inspector's report listed only one alkali works in Ireland, presumably in Belfast.

Early this century an attempt was made to set up a Solvay Process soda works based on local salt in Co. Antrim, called the Larne Salt and Alkali Company. (1904-1925) It went out of business in the 1920's after Brunner Mond refused to buy it (Ludlow, 1997).

Figure 7 Advertisement for the United Alkali Company Showing Boyd, Dublin

Early Irish Chemical Industrialists

A number of Irishmen were major chemical industrialists, particularly in the last century. Two of them are well-known as "Founders of the Chemical Industry" - James Muspratt and Josias Gamble. These are mentioned briefly below, although most of their careers were outside Ireland. However, Sir John Murray, the Goulding family and the Boyd's (of Boileau and Boyd) played important roles in Ireland in developing the chemical industry and their full story has not yet been told. No doubt there are others also whose achievements are now lost. Robert Kane's father was a chemical manufacturer on a small scale in Dublin. The careers of James Muspratt and Josias Gamble will be briefly outlined here.

James Muspratt (1793-1886): "the Father of the British Chemical Industry"

James Muspratt (Figure 8) had an exciting and varied career. He spent four years as an apprentice to Mitchletree, a wholesale druggist and apothecary in Dublin. After periods as a soldier and a naval officer (from which he deserted) he returned to Dublin in 1817. James Muspratt started off his career in chemical manufacturing in 1818 by making acetic acid, turpentine and hydrochloric acid, and later prussiate of potash with his partner Abbot at 14 Parkgate Street, Dublin. Prussian blue was a valuable pigment and was made by calcining potash with a mixture of animal products, such as hides, woolen rags and horns, in iron pots. The resultant mess was extracted with water and iron sulphate added to precipitate Prussian Blue. Potassium prussiate (ferrocyanide) could also be obtained in bulk by crystallizing it from the extract. It also seems likely that he was making small quantities of soda and other chemicals. In 1818 Andreas Wurtz, a German chemist recently settled in England, visited Dublin and described experiments in making soda. Later he describes using "Une lb de Soude de Muspratt" (Allen, 1906, p. 123).

Figure 8 James Muspratt (from Allen, 1906)

Muspratt soon saw that greater opportunities existed across the water around Liverpool, where there were better supplies of raw materials and a bigger market for soda in the soap industry. He thus emigrated and set up business in Vauxhall Rd., Liverpool, initially making potassium prussiate and sulphuric acid to raise some capital, and then moved into large-scale soda production by the LeBlanc process from 1823 onwards. The rest, as they say, is history and another story (Allen, 1906; Childs, 1997). Muspratt became known as the founder of the British chemical industry because of the impetus he gave to the large-scale manufacture and use of soda in the soap and other industries. His name appeared first in 1819 by himself, and remained in the Dublin trade directories as Abbott & Muspratt until at least 1830.

Josias Christopher Gamble (1776-1848)

Josias (or Joseph) Gamble (Figure 9) is listed along with James Muspratt as one of Allen's seven Founders of the Chemical Industry (Allen, 1906). Unlike Muspratt, Gamble's name survives to this day in the American firm Proctor & Gamble, started by William Proctor and James Gamble in 1836. Josias Gamble originally trained as a clergyman in the Irish Presbyterian Church but was evidently bitten by the chemical bug as a result of attending a course of lectures in chemistry in Glasgow. He took a position as a Presbyterian minister first in Enniskillen and then in Belfast. He then left the ministry to start making bleaching powder in Co. Monaghan in 1805. His bleaching powder chambers consisted of half beer casks inverted over a thin layer of slaked lime. The sulphuric acid he imported from Tennants in Glasgow.

Figure 9 Josias Christopher Gamble (from Allen, 1906)

He moved to Dublin in 1815, abandoning the Monaghan Works, and set up in business manufacturing chemicals in works built on the banks of the Liffey, just below Islandbridge. Here he produced sulphuric acid, bleaching powder, alum and Glauber's Salts. He started before Muspratt and stayed on after him in Dublin until 1828, when he too moved to Liverpool to seek his fortune. Initially he set up in partnership with James Muspratt and they built a new works in St. Helens but this partnership only lasted 2 years. They parted company and each developed his own business: Gamble in St. Helens and Muspratt in Newton. Derry and Williams (1960, p. 534)) comment: "Gamble was exceptional among chemical manufacturers of his day in that he had received some formal training in chemistry, under Professor Cleghorn at Glasgow".

Conclusions

There is a surprising amount to be told about the early chemical industry in Ireland and much that remains to be found out. This review is only an introduction to the story. Research carried out to date shows that there is a strong tradition of chemical industry in Ireland going back at least into the 18th Century. The survival of companies like Boileau & Boyd and Goulding is also encouraging evidence of longevity in the industry. Muspratt's name no longer survives, but Proctor & Gamble are still going strong. The current profitable and thriving chemical industry in Ireland, employing over 20,000 people with exports of £5 billion, is the inheritor of a proud tradition going back nearly 300 years.

References

W.A.L. Alford and J.W. Parkes, Sir James Murray: a pioneer in the making of superphosphate, Chemistry & Industry, 1953, pp.852-5

J.F. Allen, Some founders of the British Chemical Industry, Sherratt & Hughes, London, 1906

Ernest Booth, The history of the seaweed industry: Part 2 E.C.C. Stanford and the iodine industry, Chemistry & Industry, 1978, 838-840

Ernest Booth, The history of the seaweed industry: Part 3: The iodine industry, Chemistry & Industry, 1979, 52-55

Donald W. P. Boyd, History of the Irish pharmaceutical industry - a memoir, Technology Ireland, October 1970, 1-5

V.J. Chapman, Seaweeds & their uses, Methuen, London, 1970 (especially ch.2)

Peter E. Childs, The Muspratt Dynasty, (in preparation)

Archibald Clow and Nan L.Clow, The Chemical Revolution, Batchworth Press, London, 1952

L.E. Cochran, Scottish trade with Ireland in the Eighteenth century, John Donald, Edinburgh, 1985

Nancy Crathorne, Tennant's Stalk: The story of the Tennants of the Glen, Macmillan, London, 1973

Mary E. Daly, Dublin The Deposed Capital: A social and Economic History 1860-1914, Cork University Press, Cork, 1984

T.K. Derry and Trevor I. Williams, A Short History of technology, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960

Wilbert Garvin and Des O'Rawe, Northern Ireland Scientists and Inventors, The Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1993

E.R.R. Green, The Lagan valley, 1800-1850, London: 1949

W. & H. M. Goulding Ltd., Dublin, Ireland 1856-1956, souvenir booklet produced by the company, 1956

Mary Hagan, private communication, 1994

D.W.F. Hardie, Chemistry & Industry, 1952, 606-613

William Higgins, An essay on the Theory and Practice of leaching, Royal Dublin Society, Dublin ,1799

George D. Kelleher, Gunpowder to Guided Missiles: Ireland's War Industries, Private publication, Cork 1993 (available from the Royal Gunpowder Mills, Ballincollig)

R.H. Kirby, Seaweeds in Commerce, HMSO, London, 1953

Aileen L'Amie, Chemicals in the Eighteenth Century Irish Linen Industry, MA Thesis (unpublished), Queen's University Belfast, 1984

Charles Ludlow, private communication, 1997

Pat Mullen, Man of Aran, Dutton, New York, 1935 (reprinted MIT Press: 1970)

Sheridan Muspratt, Chemistry Theoretical, Practical and Analytical as applied and relating to The Arts and Manufactures, Vol.2, William MacKenzie, London, 1856

Hilary Murphy, The Kynoch era in Arklow 1895-1918, 2nd. Edition, Arklow: 1977

Pigot & Co.'s, City of Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory, London: 1824

John Kevin Scally, The Economic geography of the iron Ores and Bauxites of County Antrim, M.A. Thesis, Queen's University, Belfast, 1954

John M. Synge, The Aran Islands, 1905

H.E. Wilson, The rise and decline of the iron ore and bauxite industry of Co. Antrim, Proc. & Rep. of the Belfast Nat. Hist. Phil. Soc., 1961-4, vol. 7 Pt. 1965, 14-23

Acknowledgments:

I would like to acknowledge the help and advice of the following people:

Mary Bonner of Boileau and Boyd;

Mary Haggan, Ramelton Heritage and Development Association, Ltd.;

Aileen L'Amie, University of Ulster;

Charles Ludlow;

Helen Walsh of Gouldings.

If anyone reading this has further information on any of the companies mentioned above (or other early chemical companies), particularly local records or photographs, then the author would be most interested in hearing from them.

Dr. Peter Childs is a lecturer at the University of Limerick and editore of Chemistry in Action! since 1980. As well as teaching chemistry at third level, he is also active in promoting chemical education in schools and helping chemistry teachers, and in recent years has become more interested in the history of chemistry, particularly the history of the chemical industry in Ireland.

Book Reviews

ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY IN CLASSROOM EXPERIMENTS

Rudiger Blume and Hans Joachim Bader, Translated by Hans Bouma

IUPAC 1996, Pp. 329

IR£10 (from CinA! bookstall).

This book has been written to assist teachers incorporate environmental issues in science education into their teaching. It focuses particularly on the methodology of teaching environmental chemistry and contains 143 experiments in the teaching schemes included in the book. With the emphasis on environmental chemistry in the new Leaving Certificate chemistry syllabus, I was delighted to receive this book to review and have read it with great interest.

The book is very competitively priced as it is one of the low cost resource books published by the Committee on Teaching of Chemistry of IUPAC in association with UNESCO. It is divided into nine chapters covering topics like the methodology of teaching environmental chemistry, air pollution, heavy metals, environment-friendly technologies, recycling processes, treating effluents, environmental consciousness at home, etc. This book (translated from the German version) provides an excellent account of environmental chemistry and focuses on topics which are relatively easy to understand and can be illustrated by experiments in the school laboratory.

One of the most impressive aspects of this book is the wide range of very good teaching ideas suitable for all chemistry courses. Even if one is not teaching environmental chemistry itself, one can use examples from environmental chemistry in teaching topics in mainstream courses e.g. when teaching filtration one could use water treatment as an example; when teaching acids and bases one could refer to the components of acid rain; when teaching redox reactions one could give the treatment of exhaust gases as an example. The book is filled with many simple examples which help to make the teaching of chemistry both stimulating and interesting.

Not only is this book of great assistance for teachers of Leaving Certificate chemistry, it is also an ideal resource for teachers of Transition Year. In my opinion, chapter 3 in this book, dealing with topics like formation of pollutants, preventing environmental damage, recycling etc. would serve as an excellent introduction to any module dealing with environmental studies. In chapter 4 there are some excellent experiments (most of them taking only 10 - 15 minutes to carry out) in which students prepare small quantities of some of the oxides of nitrogen and carry out simple tests with these gases. Each experiment contains detailed lists of apparatus and chemicals, instructions for making up the various solutions as well as the experimental procedure and gives the approximate time required to carry out the experiment.

Experiment 25: Model Experiment on the Limestone Process

Pupil's Experiment: 20 min

Basis: in this model experiment the formation of SO₂ on roasting pyrites is combined with the limestone process.

Apparatus:

Chemicals : Calcium Carbonate Powder, pyrites (FeS₂)

Methods:

Iron pyrites is heated to glow in the open combustion tube, with air being sucked through the tube by means of the suction pump. Sulphur is deposited on the cooler parts of the tube. The gases given off contain sulphur dioxide and are sucked through a receiving flask containing a slurry of 1g limestone in 100 cm3 distilled water, which is being constantly stirred. The pH value of this mixture falls from 9.8 at the beginning to a first clear stopping at pH 4.5-5.5 (buffer region of the H₂CO₃ and the H₂SO₃ system)

Now as the solution begins to clarify the capacity of the limestone is exhausted and it is time to halt the flow of the gas. The solution also becomes more strongly acidic, the pH value being about 2. If air without sulphur compounds is now passed through the solution or if the gas phase and the solution are saturated with oxygen, closed up and the stirring continued, gypsum is precipitated after about 10min. If the solution does not become cloudy a small amount of it i.e. just enough to cover the bottom, is put on to a crystallising dish. The formation of fine monoclinic crystals of gypsum, radially arranged, can be observed within a few minutes.

Note: The residue in the combustion tube should also be examined; the pyrites has largely been converted to red iron oxide.

CHEMICAL CLASSICS:

"A Chemical History of a Candle"

Michael Faraday (1861)

In this issue we present the second of Michael Faraday's famous lectures on "A Chemical History of A Candle". The first lecture appeared in issue #54 and the other lectures will be presented in subsequent issues.

LECTURE II

A CANDLE: BRIGHTNESS OF THE FLAME - AIR NECESSARY FOR

COMBUSTION - PRODUCTION OF WATER

We were occupied the last time we met in considering the general character and arrangement as regards the fluid portion of a candle, and the way in which that fluid got into the place of combustion. You see, when we have a candle burning fairly in a regular steady atmosphere it will have a shape something like the one shown in the diagram, and will look pretty uniform, although very curious in its character. And now, I have to ask your attention to the means by which we are enabled to ascertain what happens in any particular part of the flame; why it happens; what it does in happening; and where, after all, the whole candle goes to: because, as you know very well, a candle being brought before us and burned, disappears, if burned properly, without the least trace of dirt in the candlestick - and this is a very curious circumstance. In order, then, to examine this candle carefully, I have arranged certain apparatus, the use of which you will see as I go on. Here is a candle; I am about to put the end of this glass tube in the middle of the flame - into that part which old Hooker has represented in the diagram as being rather dark, and which you can see at any time if you will look at a candle carefully, without blowing it about. We will examine this dark part first.

Now, I take this bent glass tube, and introduce one end into the part of the flame, and you see at once that something is coming from the flame, out at the other end of the tube; and if I put a flask there, and leave it for a little while, you will see that something from the middle part of the flame is gradually drawn out and goes through the tube and into that flask, and there behaves very differently from what it does in the open air. It not only escapes from the end of the tube, but falls down to the bottom of the flask like a heavy substance, as indeed it is. We find that this is the wax of the candle made into a vaporous fluid - not a gas. (You must learn the difference between a gas and a vapour: a gas remains permanent, a vapour is something that will condense.) If you blow out a candle, you perceive a very nasty smell, resulting from the condensation of this vapour.

That is very different from what you have outside the flame; and, in order to make that more clear to you, I am about to produce and set fire to a larger portion of this vapour - for what we have in the small way in a candle, to understand thoroughly, we must, as philosophers, produce in a larger way, if needful, that we may examine the different parts. And now Mr. Anderson will give me a source of heat, and I am about to show you what that vapour is. Here is some wax in a glass flask, and I am going to make it hot, as the inside of that candle-flame is hot, and the matter about the wick is hot. [The Lecturer placed some wax in a glass flask, and heated it over a lamp.] Now, I dare say, that is hot enough for me. You see that the wax I put in it has become fluid, and there is a little smoke coming from it.

We shall very soon have the vapour rising up. I will make it still hotter, and now we get more of it, so that I can actually pour the vapour out of the flask into that basin, and set it on fire there. This, then, is exactly the same kind of vapour as we have in the middle of the candle; and that you may be sure this is the case, let us try whether we have not got here, in this flask, a real combustible vapour out of the middle of the candle. [Taking the flask into which the tube from the candle proceeded, and introducing a lighted taper.] See how it burns. Now this is the vapour from the middle of the candle, produced by its own heat; and that is one of the first things you have to consider with respect to the progress of the wax in the course of its combustion, and as regards the changes it undergoes. I will arrange another tube carefully in the flame, and I should not wonder if we are able, by a little care, to get that vapour to pass through the tube to the other extremity, where we will light it, and obtain absolutely the flame of the candle at a place distant from it. Now, look at that. Is not that a very pretty experiment? Talk about laying on gas - why, we can actually lay on a candle! And you see from this that there are clearly two different kinds of action: one the production of the vapour, and the other the combustion of it - both of which take place in particular parts of the candle.

I shall get no vapour from that part which is already burnt. If I raise the tube (Fig. 7) to the upper part of the flame, so soon as the vapour has been swept out, what comes away will be no longer combustible; it is already burned. How burned? Why, burned thus: In the middle of the flame where the wick is, there is this combustible vapour; on the outside of the flame is the air which we shall find necessary for the burning of the candle; between the two, intense chemical action takes place, whereby the air and the fuel act upon each other, and at the very same time that we obtain light he vapour inside is destroyed. If you examine where the heat of a candle is, you will find it very curiously arranged. Suppose I take this candle and hold a piece of paper close upon the flame, where is the heat of that flame? Do you not see that it is not in the inside? It is in a ring, exactly in the place where I told you the chemical action was; and even in my irregular mode of making the experiment, if there is not too much disturbance, there will always be a ring. This is a good experiment for you to make at home. Take a strip of paper, have the air in the room quiet, and put the piece of paper right across the middle of the flame (I must not talk while I make the experiment), and you will find that it is burnt in two places, and that it is not burnt, or very little so, in the middle; and when you have tried the experiment once or twice, so as to make it nicely, you will be very interested to see where the heat is, and to find that it is where the air and the fuel come together.

This is most important for us as we proceed with our subject. Air is absolutely necessary for combustion; and, what is more, I must have you understand, that fresh air is necessary, or else we should be imperfect in our reasoning and our experiments. Here is a jar of air; I place it over a candle, and it burns very nicely in it at first, showing that what I have said about it is true; but there will soon be a change. See how the flame is drawing upwards, presently fading, and at last going out. And going out, why? Not because it wants air merely, for the jar is as full now as it was before; but it wants pure, fresh air. The jar is full of air, partly changed, partly not changed; but it does not contain sufficient of the fresh air which is necessary for the combustion of a candle. These are all points which we, as young chemists, have to gather up; and if we look a little more closely into this kind of action, we shall find certain steps of reasoning extremely interesting. For instance, here is the oil-lamp I showed you - an excellent lamp for our experiments - the old Argand lamp. I now make it like a candle [obstructing the passage of air into the centre of the flame]; there is the cotton; there is the oil rising up it; and there is the conical flame. It burns poorly because there is a partial restraint of air. I have allowed no air to get to it, save round the outside of the flame, and it does not burn well. I cannot admit more air from the outside, because the wick is large; but if, as Argand did so cleverly, I open a passage to the middle of the flame, and so let air come in there, you will see how much more beautifully it burns. If I shut the air off, look how it smokes; and why? We have now some very interesting points to study: we have the case of the combustion of a candle; we have the case of a candle being put out by the want of air; and we now have the case of imperfect combustion, and this is to us so interesting, that I want you to understand it as thoroughly as you do the case of a candle burning in its best possible manner. I will now make a great flame, because we need the largest possible illustrations. Here is a larger wick [burning turpentine on a ball of cotton]. All these things are the same as candles, after all. If we have larger wicks, we must have a larger supply of air, or we shall have less perfect combustion. Look now at this black substance going up into the atmosphere; there is a regular stream of it. I have provided means to carry off the imperfectly burned part, lest it should annoy you. Look at the soots that fly off from the flame: see what an imperfect combustion it is, because it cannot get enough air. What, then, is happening? Why, certain things which are necessary to the combustion of a candle are absent, and very bad results are accordingly produced; but we see what happens to a candle when it is burnt in a pure and proper state of air. At the time when I showed you, by turning to the other side, that the burning of a candle produces the same kind of soot - charcoal, or carbon.

But, before I show you that, let me explain to you, as it is quite necessary for our purpose, that, though I take a candle and give you, as the general result, its combustion in the form of a flame, we must see whether combustion is always in this condition, or whether there are other conditions of flame; and we shall soon discover that there are, and that they are most important to us. I think perhaps the best illustration of such a point to us, as juveniles, is to show the result of strong contrast. Here is a little gunpowder. You know that gunpowder burns with flame; we may fairly call it flame. It contains carbon and other materials, which altogether cause it to burn with a flame. And here is some pulverised iron, or iron filings. Now, I purpose burning these two things together. I have a little mortar in which I will mix them. (Before I go into these experiments, let me hope that none of you, trying to repeat them, for fun's sake, will do any harm. These things may all be very properly used if you take care, but without that, much mischief will be done.) Well, then, here is a little gunpowder, which I put at the bottom of that little wooden vessel, and mix the iron filings up with it, my object being to make the gunpowder set fire to the filings and burn them in the air, and thereby show you the difference between substances burning with flame and not with flame. Here is the mixture, and when I set fire to it you must watch the combustion, and you will see that it is of two kinds. You will see the gunpowder burning with a flame and the filings thrown up. You will see them burning too, but without the production of flame. They will each burn separately. [The Lecturer then ignited the mixture.] There is the gunpowder, which burns with a flame, and there are the filings: they burn with a different kind of combustion. You see, then, these two great distinctions; and upon these differences depend all the utility and all the beauty of flame which we use for the purpose of giving out light. When we use oil, or gas, or candle, for the purpose of illumination, their fitness all depends upon these different kinds of combustion.

There are such curious conditions of flame that it requires some cleverness and nicety of discrimination to distinguish the kinds of combustion one from another. For instance, here is a powder which is very combustible, consisting, as you see, of separate little particles. It is called lycopodium⁷, and each of these particles can produce a vapour, and produce its own flame; but to see them burning you would imagine it was all one flame. I will now set fire to a quantity, and you will see the effect. We saw a cloud of flame, apparently in one body; but that rushing noise [referring to the sound produced by the burning] was a proof that the combustion was not a continuous or regular one. This is the lightning of the pantomimes, and a very good imitation. [The experiment was twice repeated by blowing lycopodium from a glass tube through a spirit flame.] This is not an example of combustion like that of the filings I have been speaking of, to which we must now return.

Suppose I take a candle, and examine that part of it which appears brightest to our eyes. Why, there I get these black particles, which already you have seen many times evolved from the flame, and which I am now about to evolve in a different way. I will take this candle and clear away the gutterage, which occurs by reason of the currents of air; and if I now arrange a glass tube so as just to dip into this luminous part, as in our first experiment, only higher, you see the result. In place of having the same white vapour that you had before, you will now have a black vapour. There it goes, as black as ink. It is certainly very different form the white vapour, and when we put a light to it we shall find that it does not burn, but that it puts the light out. Well, these particles, as I said before, are just the smoke of the candle; and this brings to mind that old employment which Dean Swift recommended to servants for their amusement, namely, writing on the ceiling of a room with a candle. But what is that black substance? Why, it is the same carbon which exists in the candle. How comes it out of the candle? It evidently existed in the candle, or else we should not have had it here. And now I want you to follow me in this explanation. You would hardly think that all those substances which fly about London, in the form of soots and blacks, are the very beauty and life of the flame, and which are burned in it as those iron filings were burned here. Here is a piece of wire gauze, which will not let the flame go through it, and I think you will see, almost immediately, that when I bring it low enough to touch that part of the flame which is otherwise so bright, that it quells and quenches it at once, and allows a volume of smoke to rise up.

I want you now to follow me in this point - that whenever a substance burns, as the iron filings burnt in the flame of gunpowder, without the assuming the vaporous state (whether it becomes liquid or remains solid), it becomes exceedingly luminous. I have here taken three or four examples apart from the candle, on purpose to illustrate this point to you; because what I have to say is applicable to all substances, whether they burn or whether they do not burn - that they are exceedingly bright if they retain their solid state, and that it is to this presence of solid particles in the candle-flame that it owes its brilliancy.

Here is a platinum-wire, a body which does not change by heat. If I heat it in this flame, see how exceedingly luminous it becomes. I will make the flame dim for the purpose of giving a little light only, and yet you will see that the heat which it can give to that platinum-wire, though far less than the heat it has itself, is able to raise the platinum-wire to a far higher state of effulgence. This flame has carbon in it; but I will take one that has no carbon in it. There is a material, a kind of fuel - a vapour or gas, whichever you like to call it - in that vessel, and it has no solid particles in it; so I take that because it is an example of flame itself burning without any solid matter whatever; and if I now put this solid substance in it, you see what an intense heat it has, and how brightly it causes the solid body to glow. This is the pipe through which we convey this particular gas, which we call hydrogen, and which you shall know all about next time we meet. And here is a substance called oxygen, by means of which this hydrogen can burn; and although we produce, by their mixture, far greater heat⁸ than you can obtain from the candle, yet there is very little light. If, however, I take a solid substance, and put that into it, we produce an intense light. If I take a piece of lime, a substance which will not burn, and which will not vaporize by the heat (and because it does not vaporize remains solid, and remains heated), you will soon observe what happens as to its glowing. I have here a most intense heat produced by the burning of hydrogen in contact with the oxygen; but there is as yet very little light - not for want of heat, but for the want of particles which can retain their solid state; but when I hold this piece of lime in the flame of the hydrogen as it burns in the oxygen, see how it glows! This is the glorious lime-light, which rivals the voltaic-light, and which is almost equal to sunlight. I have here a piece of carbon or charcoal, which will burn and give us light exactly in the same manner as it it were burnt as part of a candle. the heat that is in the flame of a candle decomposes the vapour of the wax, and sets free the carbon particles; they rise up heated and glowing as this now glows, and then enter into the air. But the particles when burnt never pass off from a candle in the form of carbon. They go off into the air as a perfectly invisible substance, about which we shall know hereafter.

Is it not beautiful to think that such a process is going on, and that such a dirty thing as charcoal can become so incandescent? You see it comes to this - that all bright flames contain these solid particles; all things that burn and produce solid particles, either during the time they are burning, as in the candle, or immediately after being burnt, as in the case of gunpowder and iron-filings - all these things give us this glorious and beautiful light.

I will give you a few illustrations. Here is a piece of phosphorus, which burns with a bright flame. Very well; we may now conclude that phosphorus will produce, either at the moment that it is burning or afterwards, the solid particles. Here is the phosphorus lighted, and I cover it over with this glass for the purpose of keeping in what is produced. What is all that smoke? That smoke consists of those very particles which are produced by the combustion of the phosphorus. Here again are two substances. This is a chlorate of potassa, and this other sulphate of antimony. I shall mix these together a little, and then they may be burnt in many ways. I shall touch them with a drop of sulphuric acid, for the purpose of giving you an illustration of chemical action, and they will instantly burn⁹. [The Lecturer then ignited the mixture by means of sulphuric acid.] Now, from the appearance of things, you can judge for yourselves whether they do or do not; for what is this bright flame but the solid particles passing off?

Mr. Anderson has in the furnace a very hot crucible - I am about to throw into it some zinc filings, and they will burn with a flame like gunpowder. I make this experiment because you can make it well at home. Now, I want you to see what will be the result of the combustion of this zinc. Here it is burning - burning beautifully like a candle, I may say. But what is all that smoke, and what are those little clouds of wool which will come to you if you cannot come to them, and make themselves sensible to you in the form of the old philosophical wool, as it was called? We shall have left that in the crucible, also, a quantity of this woolly matter. But I will take a piece of this same zinc and make an experiment a little more closely at home, as it were. You will have here the same thing happening. Here is the piece of zinc; there [pointing to a jet of hydrogen] is the furnace, and we will set to work and try and burn the metal. It glows, you see, there is the combustion; and there is the white substance into which it burns. And so if I take that flame of hydrogen as the representative of a candle, and show you a substance like zinc burning in the flame, you will see that it was merely during the action of combustion that this substance glowed - while it was kept hot; and if I take a flame of hydrogen and put this white substance from the zinc into it, look how beautifully it glows, and just because it is a solid substance.

I will now take such a flame as I had a moment since, and set free from it the particles of carbon. Here is some camphine, which will burn with a smoke; but if I send these particles of smoke through this pipe into the hydrogen flame you will see they will burn and become luminous, because we heat them a second time. There they are. Those are the particles of carbon re-ignited a second time. They are those particles which you can easily see by holding a piece of paper behind them, and which, whilst they are in the flame, are ignited by the heat produced, and, when so ignited, produce this brightness. When the particles are not separated you get no brightness. The flame of coal-gas owes its brightness to the separation, during combustion, of these particles of carbon, which are equally in that as in a candle. I can very quickly alter that arrangement. Here, for instance, is a bright flame of gas. Supposing I add so much air to the flame as to cause it all to burn before those particles are set free, I shall not have this brightness; and I can do that in this way: If I place over the jet this wire-gauze cap, as you see, and then light the gas over it, it burns with a non-luminous flame, owing to its having plenty of air mixed with it before it burns; and if I raise the gauze, you see it does not burn below¹⁰. There is plenty of carbon in the gas; but, because the atmosphere can get to it, and mix with it before it burns, you see how pale and blue the flame is. And if I blow upon a bright gas-flame, so as to consume all this carbon before it gets heated to the glowing point, it will also burn blue. [The Lecturer illustrated his remarks by blowing on the gas-light.] The only reason why I have not the same bright light when I thus blow upon the flame is, that the carbon meets with sufficient air to burn it before it gets separated in the flame in a free state. The difference is solely due to the solid particles not being separated before the gas is burnt. You observe that there are certain products of the combustion of a candle; and that of these products one portion may be considered as charcoal, or soot; that charcoal, when afterwards burnt, produces some other product; and it concerns us very much now to ascertain what that other product is. We showed that something was going away; and I want you now to understand how much is going up into the air; and for that purpose we will have combustion on a little larger scale.

From that candle ascends heated air, and two or three experiments will show you the ascending air current; but, in order to give you a notion of the quantity of matter which ascends in this way, I will make an experiment by which I shall try to imprison some of the products of this combustion. For this purpose I have here what boys call a fire-balloon; I use this fire-balloon merely as a sort of measure of the result of the combustion we are considering; and I am about to make a flame in such an easy and simple manner as shall best serve my present purpose. This plate shall be the 'cup', we will so say, of the candle; this spirit shall be our fuel; and I am about to place this chimney over it, because it is better for me to do so than to let things proceed at random. Mr. Anderson will now light the fuel, and here at the top we shall get the results of the combustion. What we get at the top of that tube is exactly the same, generally speaking, as you get from the combustion of a candle; but we do not get a luminous flame here, because we use a substance which is feeble in carbon. I am about to put this balloon - not into action, because that is not my object - but to show you the effect which results from the action of those products which arise from the candle, as they arise here from the furnace. [The balloon was held over the chimney, when it immediately commenced to fill.] You see how it is disposed to ascend; but we must not let it up, because it might come in contact with those upper gas-lights, and that would be very inconvenient. [The upper gas-lights were turned out, at the request of the Lecturer, and the balloon was allowed to ascend.] Does not that show you what a large bulk of matter is being evolved? Now, there is going through this tube [placing a large glass tube over a candle] all the products of that candle, and you will presently see that the tube will become quite opaque. Suppose I take another candle, and place it under a jar, and then put a light on the other side, just to show you what is going on. You see that the sides of the jar become cloudy, and the light begins to burn feebly. It is the products, you see, which make the light so dim, and this is the same thing which makes the sides of the jar so opaque. If you go home and take a spoon that has been in the cold air and hold it over a candle - not so as to soot it - you will find that it has become dim just as that jar is dim. If you can get a silver dish, or something of that kind, you will make the experiment still better: and now, just to carry your thoughts forward to the time we shall next meet, let me tell you that it is water which causes the dimness, and when we next meet I will show you that we can make it, without difficulty, assume the form of liquid.

Notes:

(numbered sequentially from Lecture 1 onwards.)

⁷Lycopodium is a yellowish powder found in the fruit of the club moss (Lycopodium claratum). It is used in fireworks.

⁸Bunsen has calculated that the temperature of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe is 8061⁰Centigrade. Hydrogen burning in air has a temperature of 3259⁰C, and coal gas in air, 2350⁰C.

⁹The following is the action of the sulphuric in inflaming the mixture of sulphuret of antimony and chlorate of potassa. A portion of the latter is decomposed by the sulphuric acid into oxide of chlorine, bisulphate of potassa, and perchlorate of potassa. The oxide of chlorine inflames the sulphuret of antimony, which is a combustible body, and the whole mass instantly bursts into flame.

¹⁰The 'air-burner', which is of such value in the laboratory, owes its advantage to this principle. It consists of a cylindrical metal chimney, covered at the top with a piece of rather coarse iron wire gauze.. This is supported over an argand burner, in such a manner that the gas may mix in the chimney with an amount of air sufficient to burn the carbon and hydrogen simultaneously, so that there may be no separation of carbon in the flame with consequent deposition of soot. The flame being unable to pass through the wire gauze, burns in a steady, nearly invisible manner above.

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The problem of communicating chemistry to the public

"It is likely that what the public wants to know about chemistry is not exactly the same as what chemists think the public should know about chemistry."

C&ENews Nov. 29, 1993, p.5

"That which brings joy to the heart of a chemist brings fear to the public, and our telling them about all the good things we have brought them doesn't do much to alleviate the fear of the things they don't understand."

B.J. Luberoff, C&ENews 13/12/93 p.5

Science versus the arts

"The fact that science is a communal activity provides the only strict rule of the game; the answer that we offer to any scientific question must be good enough to convince our scientific colleagues. It is useless to pretend that we have a solution if we cannot demonstrate it clearly to other people and persuade them that it is true. In a very broad sense, this is the difference between a science and an art, such as painting or poetry, where our statements about the world may be as private and personal as we care to make them. The purpose of science is to create a body of public knowledge, not an impalpable. shifting scenario that could be a camel for one man and a weasel for the other"

John Ziman in Puzzles, Problems and Enigmas, CUP 1981 p.5

Integrated Chemistry Approach to the Leaving Certificate

Dr. Martin Knox

Roche Ireland Ltd., Clarecastle, Co. Clare

Historically there has been a tendency, at least in recent times, to divide the subject matter of chemistry into various components such as physical, organic, inorganic, analytical, bio-chemistry etc. Presumably this occurred because those involved in teaching, research and textbook writing tended to specialise in narrow areas of interest.

While it is difficult to be conversant with the vast amount of knowledge that constitutes the subject matter of chemistry, a greater effort should have been made to integrate the various branches, particularly for 13-18 year-olds. It is of no benefit whatsoever to the student to know that there are several branches of chemistry: this fact will probably have the effect of turning such a student off the subject. Indeed these divisions ought not to be made until he/she reaches third level where a certain amount of specialisation will inevitably take place in any event, and where his/her understanding of the subject matter will be greater.

These distinctions carry over also to the experimental techniques, which we wish to impart. Again this is a mistake. Frequently the synthetic organic chemist ignores the analytical side of chemistry while paying little attention to the impacts thermodynamics, for example, may have on his or her endeavours.

This segmentation of the subject causes the student to compartmentalise his/her knowledge and may cause him/her to ignore the very strong threads that hold the subject of chemistry together. They may learn certain facts about the subject during classes in physical chemistry and later re-learn the same facts with a different interpretation when taking, for example, organic chemistry or biochemistry classes. The two interpretations may never be connected. The compartmentalisation used historically as outlined above is quite arbitrary and does nothing to enhance the teaching or understanding of the subject. Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of professional snobbery involved also where those pursuing a certain branch of chemistry are considered to be somewhat inferior to those pursuing another.

The study of chemistry should be used to remind us of the enormous benefits to the individual that a study of empirical science imparts as well as those that accrue to society from understanding nature and from applying the techniques of scientific methodology. We must also give the student a feel for the evolution of the subject matter through reference to the lives and times of the great scientists and the scientific revolutions. These latter considerations are particularly applicable to those students who may no longer wish to pursue the study of any branch of science to a higher level. The second-level study of science must therefore be considered to be terminal with the presumption that the student will not formally encounter the subject matter again.

One could envisage the following flow process to help to clarify what we wish to achieve in our students through a study of a science subject and how such pursuits differ from others such as literature, art, philosophy and mathematics.

For second level students of chemistry we must ask what it is we wish to achieve having taking cognisance of the dimensions given in Figure 2. We would then write a syllabus that will meet the needs inherent in Figure 2 and draw upon the student's own intuition and experiences. Contributions from teachers of chemistry, the profession, industry etc. should be elicited at several brainstorming sessions.

Figure 1 Historical Approach to the Study of Chemistry

Figure 2 The Dimensions to Science Teaching

It is important too that we elicit from the student what his/her perceptions may be in relation to scientific matters and the world in general.

It is the nature of science to adopt conventions and classifications. The conventions and classifications adopted must be made clear to the student and what the need for these classifications and conventions might be.

Integrated chemistry at second level would not advert to the

divisions given in Figure 1 but would rather keep such distinctions to a minimum. It might be suggested that we would merely refer to matter, energy and measurement, while ignoring the equivalence of matter and energy for the moment. We would have then three big divisions which would more or less stand-alone but which can be drawn together as the story unfolds.

The student should be asked to design experiments. Measurement of the vapour pressure of a liquid for example is a good exercise.

By way of example, it might be worthwhile taking a study of the energy segment and to evaluate this segment from the integration standpoint.

One could start with the student's intuitive knowledge of natural processes.

Questions such as:

1. Why does your mother hang clothes out to dry?

2. Why does she not leave them in a ball on the floor following removal from the washing machine?

3. Why do puddles of water on the roadways dry up?

Ask a 12-year-old to place some wet cloths in a polythene bag and then to seal the bag. Then ask him/her to proceed to the nearest line equipped with pegs to hang out the clothes to dry in the bag. This should initiate some interesting comments. All of the students will know intuitively that hanging out wet cloths to dry in a sealed plastic bag is doomed to failure.

Try to envisage the discussion that would ensue. It might be worthwhile spending several minutes considering this phenomenon. Some or all of the following ideas would probably be touched upon or could be introduced:

•  
  • Saturated vapour pressure

•  
  • Preferred state.

•  
  • Le Chatelier's Principle

•  
  • Equilibrium system (clothes in the sealed bag)

•  
  • Non-equilibrium system (clothes hanging on the line) K_non>K_eq The change is forced to the right by the wind and sunshine. The preferred state is for the clothes to dry rather than to get wet in dry weather.

•  
  • Temperature dependence of the evaporation process. Use a hair dryer on the wet cloths. Measurement of relative rates of drying.

•  
  • Thermodynamic universe: Surroundings + system.

•  
  • Intermolecular forces. Weak forces versus strong forces. Bonding.

•  
  • Kinetic theory ties in here also.

•  
  • Enthalpy changes (enthalpy of vapourisation) should also be discussed. Bond energies would fit in here.

•  
  • The story of thermodynamics: Clausius, Lord Kelvin, Joule, Willard Gibbs.

•  
  • Equilibrium is a dynamic process. Use common salt and water to as an example of an unsaturated solution. Then continue to add salt until the solution becomes saturated.

•  
  • Investigate the effect of temperature here.

_ Colligative properties could be introduced here.

•  
  • The particulate nature of matter.

•  
  • Ponds on roads: where do they go to when the sun comes out?

•  
  • The use of perfume.

•  
  • Simple equilibrium systems such as acetone in a sealed beaker

•  
  • Water in a sealed beaker.

•  
  • Non-equilibrium systems. The "open" beaker.

Figure 3 The main Components of a Chemistry Programme

The liquid-vapour equilibrium:

It is important to realise that in a vapour - liquid equilibrium, the equilibrium constant is the equilibrium vapour pressure for the given temperature K_p = P_eq. It is easy to get across at this stage that the liquid concentration does not enter the calculation because the amount of liquid present is immaterial. All that is required is that there be some liquid present. Whether it is 200mg or 2g is irrelevant and hence the equilibrium constant expression does not contain the concentration of the liquid. For the teacher and the more advanced student, the activity of the liquid component is considered to be unity. The same applies to undissolved solids in saturated solutions.

Measure the pressure and you have the equilibrium constant. This is quite simple to carry out in the laboratory. One could arrange for liquids to boil (dichloromethane, methanol, ethanol, water) under reduced pressure. An approximate value for K_p could be easily obtained at room temperature using readily available vacuum pumps with a pressure gauge in line.

By now we will have had a considerable amount of discussion on equilibrium and as yet we haven't considered complicated systems such as weak electrolytes etc. because such considerations are far too involved, at least until the idea of equilibrium is driven home using simple one/two component systems where no chemical process occurs.

The reason why students consider K_p and K_c so difficult is because we arrive at these particular expressions without having given proper consideration to physical and mechanical systems first which are far easier to deal with and fit into the students intuitive knnowledge.

The above ideas will develop out of considering some ordinary everyday phenomena and these phenomena should be referred to as the development continues. It will take several classes to deal with these ideas at the level appropriate to the student's age and knowledge base.

The developing ideas should be referenced to the original intuitive ideas and the discussions and notes should be interspersed with experiments some of which the student will execute some of which the teacher will perform.

Consider in some detail simple two component systems such as acetone in a sealed container and water in a sealed container. The equilibrium vapour pressures of the two systems should be introduced and the equilibrium constant K_p is then simply the vapour pressure when K_p reaches atmospheric pressure, the external pressure, the liquid boils. The two liquids would then be contrasted for intermolecular forces. Which has the higher equilibrium constant at the given temperature? It will also be obvious why the liquid concentration does not appear in the equilibrium constant for such cases. For example, the student will be convinced immediately after watching a kettle boil that the K_p for water at 100⁰C is 1 atmosphere. And for acetone K_p is again 1 atm at 56⁰C. Acetone is therefore more volatile than water because its intermolecular forces are weaker. It should also be emphasised that as the temperature increases so does K_p as heat is absorbed in keeping with Le Chatelier's Principle.

It should be emphasised that K_p is dependent on the nature of the liquid and the temperature. It will also depend on the external pressure. All of these can be demonstrated using simple uncomplicated experiments using a heat source and a water pump.

K_p depends on:

•  
  • Temperature: K_p at 90oC is greater than K_p at 25⁰C for the same liquid

•  
  • External pressure: K_p

•  
  • The nature of the liquid (its molar mass)

•  
  • The nature of the intermolecular forces

The Clausius-Clapeyron equation should then be introduced for at least for the teacher! And the enthalpy of vapourisation of various liquids obtained.

Log P2 = ?Hvap(1/T1 - 1/T2)

Log P1 2.303R

R is the gas Constant 8.314J/K/mol

Remember these are very simple systems with two components in equilibrium: the liquid and its vapour.

K_p = Pgas

K_p = 1 atm at 100⁰C for water at sea level.

K_p = 1 atm at 56⁰C for acetone at sea level, and so on for other liquids.

Table 1

Refer to Table 1 to discuss the relative volatilities of the liquids.

The kinetic theory of gases will get a mention here and the dynamic nature of equilibrium should also be mentioned.

The following questions will undoubtedly arise:

1. What will happen if the beaker is heated?

2. What will happen if the seal is removed from the container?

3. What will happen if more liquid acetone is introduced?

4. What will happen if hot acetone vapour is introduced to the acetone beaker?

5. An experiment to measure the relative rates of evaporation of acetone and water should be devised and used.

6. The constraints should be discussed.

Following the discussions on mechanical and liquid/ vapour equilibria discussions on chemical equilibria should begin.

The approach taken above considers a number of ideas that support the notion of equilibrium. Equilibrium is not foisted on the student but developed naturally in an integrated way from the student's own intuitive ideas. Primarily, the vapourisation equilibrium constant is a thermodynamic issue related to the enthalpy of vapourisation of the liquid in question.

During the discussion the following ideas come together:

Bonding, relative volatilities, enthalpy of vapourisation, the molar mass, the kinetic theory, the particulate nature of matter, saturated solutions and un-saturated solutions, activity of unity, Le Chatelier's Principle, equilibrium constant, lowest energy state.

Measurements: vapour pressure, chloride concentration in a saturated sodium chloride solution, measurement of relative volatilities, measurement of boiling points, measurement of the solubility product of sodium chloride, temperature dependence of solubility.

Colligative properties - the lowering of the vapour pressure of a liquid by a soluble solute, e.g. sodium chloride.

This approach should help to increase the connectivity between various ideas.

The current and proposed syllabi from the integration standpoint:

Examination of the current LC syllabus and the proposed one, it appears that we wish to continue with a segmented approach to teaching the subject. It horrifies me to think that we desire to teach the principle of equilibrium, for instance, in isolation from other ideas. That the equilibrium constant is a thermodynamic entity is nowhere alluded to in the syllabus. Why is this? Would it not be better to leave equilibrium out of second-level courses altogether rather than approach the way the syllabi propose?

The complexities of chemical equilibrium are then expected to be imparted in about 9 hours total teaching time, without first having considered the simpler physical and mechanical systems and without relating K to energy. Is it any wonder we have problems interesting students in the pursuit of chemistry? The segmentation of chemistry by syllabi and by the way the subject is examined, together with the formal omission of the use of the students' intuition lead, in my view, to learning difficulties for the student.

Some significant improvements are however proposed. It has been the tradition (I hope) to intersperse one's teaching with allusions to the political, social and economic dimensions of chemistry, together with the applications of science in solving problems in the world. It is now proposed to give formal recognition for this by allowing for the possibility of examination questions in these topics. However, the increased emphasis on experimental work and on the industrial applications of chemistry are to be commended.

Dr. Martin Knox now works at Roche Ireland in Clarecastle, Co. Clare but before moving there he taught Chemistry at Athlone R.T.C. for several years and was involved in running Industry Study Tours.

Amount: Teaching Difficulties

Barry O'Brien

Bandon, Co. Cork

Worthwhile discussion on amount and the mole must address the web of interacting ideas inherent in considering quantity concepts, units of quantity concepts and the use of a coherent system of units.

Precision

Accuracy, precision, decimal places, significant figures and semi-exponential expressions need an extended discussion. 6 x 1023 is the mode and precision needed for the present discourse.

Philosophical Concept of Amount

7g of iron reacts with 4g of sulphur to produce 11g of iron sulphide. This change of substances is an exact and complete process. There is no excess of iron or sulphur remaining after the reaction. In suitable circumstances the original mass of iron and of sulphur can be recovered. The concept amount claims the amounts of iron, sulphur and iron sulphide are equal. 7g of iron is equal, in amount, to 4g of sulphur and to 11g of iron sulphide.

1g of hydrogen and 8g of oxygen produce exactly 9g of water. Dalton presumed that the amounts of hydrogen, oxygen and water represented by these masses are equal.

Chemical reactions show a dichotomy between amount and mass. The physical properties of gases and the colligative properties of solutions show that mass and amount do not concur.

Dalton, Avogadro and Arrhenius explained this dichotomy in terms of atoms, molecules and ions.

Philosophical Concept of Measurement

The SI unit of mass is assigned to a lump of platinum alloy. This lump has properties extraneous to its SI interest, e.g. lustre, lengths, temperature, weight. It's SI significance lies in its response to any force which can be used to compare it to the response of other objects to a force. The SI unit of amount is assigned to a lump of carbon. This lump has properties extraneous to its SI interest., e.g. lengths, temperature, mass, hardness. Its significance lies in its response to any of a variety of physical or chemical effects characteristic of amount which can be used to compare it with the responses of other objects to amount characteristics.

No one really knows what mass is but mass does have specific responses to certain forces. Theory suggests that gravitational forces are a function of mass and should be considered the distinguishing features of mass. No one knows what amount is but theory suggests that number of particles is a function of amount and should be considered the distinguishing feature of amount.

Historical Notes

1. Dalton, when theorising, had a rule of thumb that "nature is simple". This is a version of the "Razor" of his fellow Englishman, William of Ockham. "Ockham's Razor" is a guiding principle of ontology. Dalton queried the accuracy of Gay Lussac's results when they threatened this simplicity.

2. About 1805 Dalton proposed HO as the formula for water. In 1856 Cannizzaro proved beyond doubt that the hydrogen molecule is H2 and that water is H2O. This established the mass of an atom of oxygen as 16 relative to the mass of hydrogen. The fifty years from Dalton to Cannizzaro had seen intense work in the area of measurement of mass but this work had not solved the central problem, viz.. the number of atoms in a simple molecule. Once Cannizzaro had established H2 and H2O, the measurement data and the measurement techniques already in place, made 1860 to 1870 the decade that transformed chemistry. This decade laid the groundwork for Stoney, Fischer and Arrhenius. Cannizzaro's success focused attention on H = 1; subsequent shifts to O = 16 and C = 12 are still versions of the relative atomic mass scales of the 1860s and bypass the important point that any element or any molecular substance or any substance composed of suitable entities can be used as a starting point and can be assigned any number ('easy' or otherwise).

3. The fact that it took fifty years to move from HO to H₂O is an indication of the subtleties involved in the concept of amount. Chemistry started as a branch of natural philosophy. Natural philosophy is not just a quaint name for chemistry; chemistry needs to be based on a rigorous philosophy.

4. The committee which introduced the concept amount as an independent SI quantity deliberated during the late 1950s and early 1960s. At that time gram-molecule and equivalent were the dominant concepts in chemical calculation. Gram-molecule and equivalent are both mass concepts. The difficulties foreseen in switching from a mass-based calculating system to an amount-based calculating system was a major concern of the committee. Amount was to be established as the quantity concept which distinguished physical chemistry from other branches of science. Expositions of the concept amount stressed that amount is not mass and concentrated on the relationship between amount and number, mathematically,

n = f(N)

this emphasis achieved the all-important

n / f(m)

but it missed the fundamental

N = f(n)

Mathematical Conventions

Two mathematical conventions are needed to develop the discussion on a unit of amount.

1. If a number y is related to a number x,

y = f(x)

implies that y has only one value for any given value of x;

y = mx

is usually used for the equation of a line;

y = kx

is used where it is implied that k is a fixed number.

2. 1/x = x^-1 which implies 1/x^-1 = x

Measurement Conventions

Two measurement conventions are needed to further develop discussion on a unit of amount.

1. Any measurement has two parts, a number and a unit. The number is obtained by some counting process. The number is multiplied by the unit. A length of five metres is, according to this convention, 5 x metre. This has two implications:

(i) the plural form of the unit is inappropriate, and

(ii) the unit is treated as an algebraic item.

2. Units can be combined by algebraic processes called the quantity calculus (or in quantity terms dimensional analysis), for example,

length x length = area = length²

5m x 4m = (5 x 4) x (m x m) = 20m²

These two measurement conventions are abstractions; they are acts of creative imagination. Measurement conventions are powerful tools for coming to grips with scientific ideas. These conventions have serious cognitive implications; in the cognitive sense they may be justly called fictitious.

Symbol Conventions

In the SI system N is the symbol for number of entities; n is the symbol for amount; m is the symbol for mass; mol is the symbol for mole. Symbols are not abbreviations so the full stop used with abbreviations is inappropriate. In mathematics, x is the symbol for the independent variable and y is the symbol for the dependent variable; m and k are symbols for constants; constants are fixed numbers; f(x) is the symbol for a function of x.

Avogadro Number

Number of particles is a function of amount according to atomic, molecular and ionic theories. This implies

N = f(n)

N = kn

Number of entities = a fixed number x amount

Comparing with y = mx; any two of y, m, x is needed to solve the equation. Usually m is fixed, then a value is given for x and y is calculated; if x and y are known then m is calculated.

In dealing with amount the value for N is supplied from atomic, molecular or ionic experimental data; a value for n is chosen; k is then calculated. Consider the situation where N is 72 x 10²³ entities

N = k x n

(a) 72 x 10²³ = 12 x 6 x 10²³

(b) 72 x 10²³ = 6 x 10²³ x 12

(c) 72 x 10²³ = 20 x 3.6 x 10²³

(d) 72 x 10²³ = 3.6 x 10²³ x 20

(e) 72 x 10²³ = 144 x 0.5 x 10²³

(f) 72 x 10²³ = 0.5 x 10²³ x 144

(g) 72 x 10²³ = 10²⁴ x 7.2

(a) and (b) are versions of 'dozen' solutions

(c) and (d) are versions of 'score' solutions

(e) and (f) are versions of 'gross' solutions

(g) is the SI multiples solution.

IUPAC opted for (b) and the precise value for k is determined by reference to the number of atoms in the reference lump of an isotope of carbon (carbon-12). This can be done because number is a function of amount.

The Avogadro Constant

N = kn

N is a number supplied by experiment; k is the constant; n is the amount; n is required to be expressed in units. In accordance with measurement conventions the answer for n must now be written in the form of a number multiplied by a unit. This requires that k is not written as a number, but as a number divided by a unit. This is a requirement of the algebra chosen in the original measurement convention.

In the case of the mole, the numerical value for k is 6 x 10²³ but k as the constant in the equation is 6 x 1023 per mole, or 6 x 10²³/mole, or 6 x 10²³ x mole^-1, or 6 x 10²³ x 1/mole

Taking the set of numbers already used:

72 x 10²³ = 6 x 10²³ x 1/mole x n

72 x 10²³ x mole = n

6 x 10²³

12 x mole = n

n = 12 mol

The algebra is now correct.

6 x 10²³ is the Avogadro Number

6 x 10²³mol^-1 is the Avogadro Constant.

The distinction is a requirement of the algebra.

Introductory Exercise

Ar values were in place forty years before any evaluation of N. A periodic table with Ar values rounded to whole numbers (except ₁₇Cl, ₂₉Cu and ₇₂Hf) is very useful. Select the following sets from this table>

Set A

9 27 45 108 144 207 243

Be Al Sc Ag Nd Pb Am

4 13 21 47 60 82 95

Set B

7 28 56 70

Li Si Fe Ga

3 14 26 31

Set C

40 80 160

Ca Br Tb

20 35 65

The following will give useful ideas for oral work in class:

(a) Given that 10²⁴ atoms of 4Be has a mass of 15g, what is the mass of 1024 atoms of each of the elements in set A.

(b) Given that 6 x 10²⁴ atoms of 3Li has a mass of 70g, the masses of the same amount of atoms of the elements of set B can be determined.

(c) 9 x 10²⁰ atoms of ₂₀Ca has a mass of 6mg, what are the masses of the same amounts of set C?

(d) Consider multiples and fractions of 9 x 10²⁰ atoms of the Set C elements.

(e) Consider the peculiar value of the SI unit, the mole, and apply the algebra conventions to its use.

Result: Impatience with the simplicity of the concept amount and its unit, the mole.

A unit of amount

A suitable unit of amount could be defined:

10²⁴ particles are contained in the unit of amount.

Such a unit of amount would relate directly to the characteristic property of amount, namely, number. Any system which compares numbers of particles would then be used to measure amount. It would focus on the essential relationship

N = f(n)

Acknowledgement

A debt of gratitude to Marten J. ten Hoor whose letter in issue 53 focused my mind on the urgent need to treat the question of amount and the mole at a fundamental level. This article will show my yeses and noes to his opinions. If readers choose to benefit from his suggestions, education in chemistry will progress. Chemists have not really adopted the SI system; imagine the effect on the pH scale of SI units!

In the next issue we will have an article from Martin J. ten Hoer on "Quantity Calculus for Chemists".

Editorial comment:

The mole concept still bedevils chemistry several decades after its introduction as a major unifying concept. It is one that students find difficult and don't really understand even at university level. At best they can use the right magic formula to solve a problem. I suspect that many teachers also do not really understand the mole concept, thus making it difficult to teach convincingly.

Identification of Anions without using Test-tubes (almost!)

Graham Hewston

St. Clare's Comprehensive School, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim

One practical which tests students' observation and recording skills at L.C. level is the identification of aqueous anions by using a series of ion-exchange reactions and the careful observation of precipitate formation, gas evolution, colour changes or none of these. In practice, this requires large volumes of stock solutios, test-tubes and many labels. Sometimes unsatisfactory results are obtained if students do not clean test-tubes well or if solutions are inadvertently mixed-up.

An idea from a recent issue of the International Newsletter on Chemical Education¹ identifies a method using drop-size quantities of chemicals and sheet of acetate. The technique involves using a template placed under a sheet of acetate so students can follow the step-by-step procedures.

I have tested this method out with a group of 22 students who performed all the tests with a collection of labelled anions. The students were then given samples of X^-, Y^- and Z^- to identify, using the template, all within a 40 minute class period! This procedure considerably reduces tidying-up, preparation time, and wastage and students have a permanent record of the results which can be used to write up chemical reactions for the tests carried out. The master sheet for doing this experiment is given on the next page in a form suitable for photocopying.

The solutions were stored in baby juice jars (100mL capacity) with a hole punched in the lid to take a 1cm3 polyethene pipette. This idea can also be easily modified as a prelab presentation or revision exercise on an OHP.

1. Stuart W, Bennett, Getting started in small-scale, International Newsletter on Chemical Education, No. 45, 1997

Add 10cm³ of a freshly prepared iron(II)sulphate to a 1/4 filled test-tube containing the nitrate. CARE! Pour approx. 2cm³ of H₂SO₄ (concentrated) down the side of teh tube and a brown ring should form at the interface of teh liquids indicating the presence of nitrates.

CHYMISTS: that strange class of mortals

Caricatures of famous chemists #3

John Dalton (1766-1844): "Atomic Marbles"

ISTA Annual Meeting

Limerick, March 27-29

This year's Annual Meeting of the ISTA was held in Limerick at the Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT). This was a new venue for the meeting - the last time the meeting was in Limerick it was in Thomond College in 1987. LIT has a new building just on the edge of Limerick at Moylish, close to the Ryan Hotel which was the other venue for the conference. The sparkling-new, high-tech buildings proved to be an excellent location for the conference and every teacher who attended (between 200 and 300) went away suitably impressed by the facilities - particularly the laboratories and computer facilities. The long, central atrium or mall provided the venue for the exhibitions and this mall was a centre of activity over the weekend. The restaurant and the lecture rooms and laboratories were just off the mall and this worked very well.

Ron Perkins in action!

One of the highlights of the weekend for me was the show by Ron Perkins, a recently-retired US high school teacher, who now runs a company Educational Innovations producing and marketing teaching aids for science teachers. His talk was titled "Eating carrots, blinking lights and glowing metal" and you may have seen his talk featured in an issue of the Irish Times' Education & Living supplement. I also had the privilege to sit with him and his wife at a couple of meals and found them a delightful couple. His talk was the usual mixture of repartee and showmanship, with some simple but effective demonstrations. I particularly liked the copper cone filled with liquid nitrogen, which appeared to condense water on its outer surface which dripped into a beaker. This wasn't water, of course, not at 77K but liquid oxygen.

Physics is a match dropped; chemistry is a match struck"

The programme had the usual mix of interesting lectures and workshop sessions on the Saturday afternoon. One innovation, which I thought very useful, was to provide two opportunities to see the two demonstration lectures - the one by Ron Perkins and the other by and on "Photochemistry in Action" by Peter Douglas and colleague from the University of Swansea, so that it was possible to attend both.

"Physics is no match for chemistry; chemistry is more striking than physics"

The scene in the Atrium and the exhibition

At the conference banquet Dr. Jim Barry handed over his Presidential Chain to Dr. Frank Turpin of Intel. I was very pleased to see Roy Brown and his wife at the meeting and even more pleased when Roy was awarded the Lodge Medal for his outstanding services, over many years, to the ISTA. A well-deserved award, although I am sorry that Roy has dropped out of the chemical scene in the last few years since he retired from Trinity. Ann Wilkinson, from Galway, won the annual BP Science Educator of the year award.

Michael Guerin (Head of IT, LIT) and Ruaidri Neavyn (Head of Science, LIT) and Rose Lawlor (Chair, Organising Committee) are to be congratulated on this highly successful meeting.

One of the instrumental workshops

Next year's AGM will be held in Galway, always a popular venue. See you there!

PEC

*****

Variety in Irish Chemistry Teaching

DCU, April 8th.

For some years the Education Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry has been running a two day meeting for third-level chemistry lecturers at the University of York. These conferences are called Variety in Chemistry Teaching and are the brainchild of Dr. John Garratt at York. (He is also the founding editor of Chemistry Review). The purpose of these meetings is to provide an opportunity for chemistry lecturers in the U.K. to share useful or new teaching ideas with their colleagues. The meeting consists of short talks and an exhibition/display of software, teaching aids and posters.

I went to my first one last September and found it very stimulating and useful. I met Bill Byers from the University of Ulster and we agreed that we should organise a similar one in Ireland. Brian Murphy (DCU) and Brian Hathaway (UCC) were also in York.

Consequently, with the financial support of the Ireland Region Committee of the RSC's Education Division (RSCEDIRC) I recruited Brian Murphy from DCU to help me organise the first Variety in Irish Chemistry Teaching meeting on April 8th in DCU. DCU was chosen because of its accessibility to chemists from around the country, North, South, East and West - as all roads and rails lead to Dublin! All third level institutions, North and South, were circulated with a request for presentations and an invitation to come along. We managed to get a very full programme with 10 talks and a total of nearly 40 participants, from almost every third level institutions in the country. The Institute's of Technology were particularly well represented. We were also very pleased that John Garratt agreed to come over and open the meeting, in his capacity as President of the Education Division, and also gave a paper during the day and delivered the 1997-98 Nyholm Lecture at 5 p.m. on "Inducing People to Think", which was advertised as an open lecture. A satisfactory number of people stayed on for this lecture, which was a fitting end to a very satisfactory and stimulating day.

I thought the meeting went off very well, the attendance was excellent and was the standard of the papers and I hope we shall run this again. I would like to thank Brian Murphy (incidentally an ex-student of Declan Kennedy) and colleagues at DCU for their hospitality, and RSCEDIRC for their support.

RSC/SICICI Study Tour to Cork

June 22-24th. 1998

This Study Tour has been planned since 1995 and this year it finally got off the ground, thanks to the support and encouragement of the RSCs Education Division. It was run as a joint Industry Study Tour between the RSC and SICICI. Ten teachers + two leaders came from the UK and ten teachers plus myself from Ireland. The UK end was organised by Chris Baker. We were based at the Vienna Woods Hotel in Glanmire, which turned out to be an excellent venue.

The group assembled in Cork on Monday evening (June 22nd.) and the Study Tour finished on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday we went to visit Schering Plough (Brinny) at Innishannon (who are a biotechnology company, making Interferon and other products) in the morning and went down the road to Dunderrow, near Kinsale in the afternoon to visit Eli Lilly. They make a range of bulk pharmaceuticals, including Prosac. The visits were excellent but the weather was atrocious - rain and mist. The next day was bright and sunny and in the morning we went to visit IFIs ammonia plant at Marino Point, a massive contrast to the pharmaceutical plants. In the afternoon we went to Henkel on Little Island who make the LIX liquid ion exchange reagents and an activator (TAED) for detergent bleaches. This marked the official end of the tour but 3 intrepid teachers went for the bonus - a quick visit to the Royal Gunpowder Mills, Ballincollig.

It is hoped to run another tour next year in conjunction with the RSC but to different industries in the Cork area. Watch out for details.

PEC

Environmental News

Chemical Industry Contributes to Restoring the Ozone Layer

HORIZONS February 1998

At the 10th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) presented the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) with a certificate of recognition in respect of the industry's continuous support of the UNEP Ozone Action Programme. Brussels-based CEFIC reckons that its members have invested up to ECU 300 million in the development testing of environmentally safer substitutes for CFCs, while maintaining the positive characteristics, i.e. good toxicity, inflammability and non-corrosiveness.

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Is the global nitrogen cycle out of balance?

Fertilizers and Agriculture January 1998 (http://www.fertilizer.org)

As the climate change debate moves on from the complex UN negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997, the global nitrogen cycle is receiving increased attention from scientists, environmentalists, governments and industry. While climatic implications of changes in the carbon cycle, especially from CO₂ emissions, dominated Kyoto discussions, other greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide (N₂O) and methane (CH₄) also present formidable challenges.

N₂O and CH₄ add to solar radiation absorption in the lower atmosphere. Although the amount of CO₂ is much greater, the atmospheric lifetime of N₂O is longer than a century, and every one of its molecules absorbs roughly 200 times more radiation energy than a single CO₂ molecule. Reactions of N₂O with oxygen also contribute to the destruction of ozone in the upper atmosphere. The combination of these factors defines the GWP - Global Warming Potential- of each gas:

GWP

CO₂ 1

CH₄ 21

N₂O 310

Concerns have arisen as human activities account for less than 5% of total CO₂ emissions, but as much as 68% of the CH₄ and 40% of the N₂O emissions.

Between 90 and 140 million tons of atmospheric nitrogen are fixed naturally each year by soil microbes and lightning, but humans are now adding at least 140 million tons annually through the combustion of fossil fuels, power generation, other industrial processes and the production and use of inorganic nitrogen fertilisers. While it is difficult to produce an exact measurement, it is estimated that N₂O contributes between 5 and 7% of the overall greenhouse effect caused by human activity. The future priority for fertiliser users (whose current crop yields are between 35 and 50% dependent on nitrogenous fertilisers) to maintain production levels yet reduce N₂ and ammonia emissions from agricultural sources.

Methane is produced during microbial decomposition of organic materials in aerobic conditions. Two major sources are paddy rice production (28%) and natural wetlands. The direct impact of nitrogenous fertilisers on methane production is probably rather small.

The major recommendation of scientists studying the problem of nitrogen over production appears to be to minimise the use of fossil fuels and to look to more efficient methods of using fertilisers.

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Tough for Tyres

Elm Energy, Europe's first purpose-built tyre incinerator, has been operating in Wolverhampton in the English Midlands since November 1993. The plant has recently stepped up to full capacity with five incinerators devouring 100,000 tonnes of scrap tyres a year (20% of the UK's used tyres).

Tyres are one of the world's biggest waste problems. Technically, incineration is the ideal method of disposal since tyres have a higher calorific value than coal because they are composed predominantly of petrochemicals. The heat produced can be used to raise steam to generate electricity (the Wolverhampton plant generates enough electricity to light a small town) and there is potential for recycling many spin-off products, e.g. their steel content can be recycled, while zinc oxides, in the form of ash, can be used to recover zinc.

However, it is unlikely that the experiment will be repeated on the grounds that it is economically infeasible and that it is still suffering from a number of technical hitches. Based on the original investment in plant, Elm's electricity costs about four times that produced by a conventional plant. The scrap steel which it has produced has also been impossible to sell because it is covered with white ash and installation of high pressure water jets will be necessary to clean the scrap. The UK government has rejected the company's proposals to build two newer and smaller plants using refined technologies. However, Anne Evans, the former managing director of the company is now working on setting up a large plant in Belgium.

Education News

CHEMistry for Life: A unique European Educational partnership for the next Millennium

A unique partnership, pioneered between the main European science centres and museums and the European chemical industry, in collaboration with the EC, was launched in Brussels in late November 1997. The partnership has been named CHEMistry for Life and is designed to give the general public, and particularly young people, a better understanding of the importance of chemistry in everyday life. This will be achieved through the development of a variety of different innovative museum displays, interactive exhibits, shows, multimedia and laboratory workshops.

Sixteen leading science centres and museums are working together to produce over 50 prototype exhibits by the year 2000 (14 are already close to completion). The exhibits, demonstrating principles of chemistry and properties of chemicals, will be available for replication and display in a further 100 museums, and inside the schools' and teachers' network across Europe. It is significant that the project focuses on chemistry: the science of the new millennium, and is welcomed as a means of bridging the gap between society and science.

There are eight global themes to the initiative - aren't they what we chemistry teachers are passing on every day? -

You are chemistry! life is a chemical process..

..and the rest of the universe, too chemistry the facilitator,

Chemistry invents new matter a la carte chemistry makes new materials but cannot yet reproduce all the materials in nature

In chemistry there are no copies of molecules, only identical originals! synthetic molecules are indistinguishable from their natural equivalents,

There are no toxic substances, only toxic doses! quantities and concentrations are what produce hazardous effects,

Chemistry provides solutions to its own problems! chemistry can transform matter, including pollution,

Beethoven, Dante, Velsquez, Lavoisier! chemical achievements are comparable with the greatest cultural achievements of mankindand

Not even chemists are perfect awareness of risks.

Further information on the initiative is available from David Bricknell at CEFIC, Avenue van Nieuwenhuyse 4, bte 1, B-1160 Brussels. The CEFIC website is at Http://www.cefic.org

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New Resources

Shell Education Service

Teachers will be familiar with the long-running Shell Education Service and much of its range of cross-curricular resource material. New for this year are a series of careers leaflets called Science Works, which contain the stories of 10 men and 10 women who studied science at school and higher education and went on to find careers in science and education. these leaflets are free to UK schools but a postage charge applies to overseas schools.

About Plastics is a pack developed in collaboration with CIEC York, comprising three fully illustrated and cross-referenced science and technology booklets to support the study of plastics by 14-16+ year old students. The pack is priced œ10 + postage ex-UK and the books are:

General Notes: information on the discovery and development of plastics and environmental issues relating to their use;

Chemistry Notes: information on the molecular structures and properties of plastics;

Technology Notes: information of processing plastics into useful products.

The pack also contains Naming Plastics, a card listing the traditional names of common plastics and a curriculum supplement.

Further information and full catalogue available from: Shell International, Group External Affairs, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA.

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Aughinish Alumina: Its role in the Alumina Story

The 3rd. edition of the booklet on the production of alumina at AAL's plant on the Shannon and its conversion into aluminium is under preparation. It has been redesigned by Austin Bovenizer and should be available in the Autumn. Copies of it will be available free on request from Pat Lynch, AAL, Aughinish Island, Co. Limerick. It has been written and compiled by Peter E. Childs and contains much new material.

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SICICI goes on the internet

Ms. Elaine Regan, a B.Sc. (Education) graduate of UL has been working over the summer to put the SICICI Directory of the Irish Chemical Industry on the internet. It will be accessible from the UL site at www.ul.ie./~childsp, where you will also find back issues of Chemistry in Action! and other useful chemistry links. Keep an eye on this site, as they say!

Careers Focus

Chemistry: an essential subject

The CAO forms have all gone away, the change of mind forms may be pending, the pressure is on for the examinations, but what about the students who are trying to decide what to study next year at school? They have to think not just of what the school has to offer, but also about their plans for third level study (no matter how vague). The following university and college courses specifically demand a minimum of C grade at Higher Level in Leaving Certificate Chemistry as entry requirement (in addition to other requirements):

UCC: Dentistry (+ 1 other science subject)

DIT: Human Nutrition degree

DIT: Med Lab. Science (+ 1 other HC subject)

Students applying for Pharmacy degrees overseas will also find that many of the colleges specify A-level chemistry, or indeed recommend a year on general science/applied sciences courses at third level in Ireland before transferring to first year in the UK.

My own experience of teaching chemistry as a common first year subject to three Applied Science courses in an RTC is that the students who have most difficulty are those who come in with only one Leaving Certificate science subject and have to cope with all three plus Maths at third level. The most surprising thing of all is the number of students who opt to study Applied Biology or Environmental and Analytical Science, who don't realise until they walk into their orientation week that they will have to study all three sciences - worse still, it takes quite a bit of persuasion for many of them to understand why. In some cases it also requires enormous effort to get over the prejudices against chemistry and/or perceptions of it as a "difficult subject" that they have brought with them from school. Perhaps it's time we chemistry teachers tried wearing the career guidance cap!

I know there are many teachers all over the country who make a big effort to sell chemistry when students are making their choices for Leaving Certificate - if you feel that we could give you any help in terms of posters, career/course information, etc. please contact SICICI at University of Limerick. You can also hire our videos on applications of chemistry and careers in chemical and allied industries.

An incentive to register for Leaving Certificate Chemistry programmes might be the following list of courses which specify having at least one science subject (and why shouldn't it be chemistry???).

(See college prospectuses to check individual course requirements)

Mariee Walsh

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The Fate of 1996 Science Graduates

The data here is according to HEA statistics. Almost half of all 1996 science graduates (degree level) gained full time employment by April 1997. Just over one third went on to research work or further academic study while 2% went into teacher training. The proportion seeking work at the time of the survey was just 3.5% (compared to overall 3.6% graduate unemployment rate).

18.6% of working graduates went into the chemical, pharmaceutical or healthcare sectors. Perhaps surprisingly 29.5% of graduates went on to work in the insurance, finance, business and commercial computer sectors.

The statistics for national certificate and diploma holders were just as satisfactory. 28% of certificate holders went on to full-time employment and 62% to further study (most to diploma level). 48.9% diploma holders went on to further study and 42.5% into full-time jobs. At each of these stages there was <5% unemployment. The certificate and diploma routes to a degree are becoming more and more popular.

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Chemical and allied industries: SICICI job survey 1997

The chemical and allied industries continue to advertise a steady stream of jobs for well qualified graduates. The key factor to many of the advertised jobs is that they not only require a relevant qualification, but also experience. This reinforces our belief that many first time entrants into the workforce in these industries are recruited through the so-called milk round, or through direct contact between the companies and colleges. Research posts also tend to be advertised within the third level network rather than in the press. Our survey therefore makes no claim to be definitive and is based on our own recording of jobs we have seen advertised, largely in the Irish Times' weekly business supplement.

In June 1997 the Irish Pharmaceutical and Chemical Manufacturer's Federation (IPCMF) announced that It was targeting total employment in the sector of 18,600 by the year 2002, representing growth of 6.7% per annum over the five years. Its five year business plan also aims to have total exports of œ5 billion - 18% of Ireland's total national exports! The sector's annual contribution to the economy is targeted at £1 billion. Apart from the increased employment which has been created, the sector has shown a 6,300% increase in exports since 1973.

The key factor for career guidance is that some 30% of all employees in the sector have third level education and many companies are very supportive of further study by their employees.

In previous years when this survey was carried out, the average number of jobs which we recorded was about 300 per year. It is always difficult to put an exact figure on the number of jobs since it is very common for the advert to show a plural, e.g. "Chemists" but to give no indication of whether this means two posts, or how many more than two. In 1997 the total number advertised (and recorded by us) was 334.

Among the familiar (and some not so familiar) names of advertisers were:

Smithkline Beecham Cork

Boehringer Ingleheimm

Louisiana Pacific Europe

Fujisawa, Killorglin

Helsinn, Mulhuddart

Nexstar Pharmaceuticals

Newport Synthesis

Eli Lilly

The geographical spread was pretty much as before; the industry is concentrated in the Cork area and in the east and south east, where there is greater accessibility to transport systems and deep water port facilities. However, there are several long established companies in the mid west and west which continue to maintain buoyant workforces. In addition, we did not record adverts for UK and overseas companies, but it seems certain that a chemistry qualification can be a passport to broaden your horizons. All things considered, with IDA jobs announcements forecasting 1,500 new jobs in the sector at the end of 1996, there is no doubt that there are jobs in chemistry.

Marie Walsh

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International Chemistry Celebration (ICHC) 1999

The American Chemical Society is coordinating an International Chemistry Celebration. It is a year long event from 23rd. October 1998 (Mole Day!), including an International Chemistry Week (17-23 October 1999) and an International Chemistry Day (23rd. October 1999). Its aim is: To enhance the public appreciation of chemistry and its contribution to everyday life throughout the world, and to enhance communication among the chemical societies and organisations worldwide.

(www.acs.org/memgen/meetings/ichc/ichc.htm)

Original Page Design & Layout by Stephen Childs

Web Site Maintained By Darina Slattery,

Dept. of Computer Science & Information Systems,

University of Limerick.

(November 2000)

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