The Furans [antikvár]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION American Chemical Society's Series of Chemical Monographs By arrangement with the InteraUied Conference of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which met in London and Brussels in July, 1919, the American Chemical Society was to undertake the production and publication of Scientific and Technologic Monographs on chemical subjects. At the same time it was agreed that the National Research Council, in cooperation with the American Chemical Society and the American Physical Society, should imdertake the production and publication of Critical Tables of Chemical and Physical Constants. The American Chemical Society and the National Research Council mutually agreed to care for these two fields of chemical progress. The American Chemical Society named as Trustees, to make the necessary arrangements of the publication of the Monographs, Charles L. Parsons, secretary of the Society, Washington, D. C.; the late John E. Teeple, then treasurer of the Society, New York; and the late Professor Geliert AUeman of Swarthmore College. The Trustees arranged for the publication of the ACS Series of (a) Scientific and (b) Technological Monographs by the Chemical Catalog Company, Inc. (Reinhold Publishing Corporation, successor) of New York. The Council of the American Chemical Society, acting through its Committee on National Policy, appointed editors (the present list of whom appears at the close of this sketch) to select authors of competent authority in their respective fields and to consider critically the manuscripts submitted. The first Monograph of the Series appeared in 1921. After twenty-three years of experience certain modifications of general policy were indicated. In the beginning there still remained from the preceding five decades a distinct though arbitrary differentiation between so-called "pure science" pubHcations and technologic or applied science literature. By 1944 this differentiation was fast becoming nebulous. Research in private enterprise had grown apace and not a httle of it was pursued on the frontiers of knowledge. Furthermore, most workers in the sciences were coming to see the artificiahty of the separation. The methods of both groups of workers are the same. They employ the same instrumentahties, and frankly recognize that their objectives are common, namely, the search for new knowledge for the service of man. The officers of the Society therefore combined the two editorial Boards in a single Board of twelve representative members. Also in the beginning of the Series, it seemed expedient to construe iii FOREWORD The publication of this book on Furans is another milestone on the road of progress of oat hulls to furfural and its derivatives, and it supplies a need of long standing in the literature on these materials. We think it is fair to say that furfural and its derivatives have evolved in a little over thirty years into a new chemical industry, and we, who in 1920 began the oat hull research that resulted in commercial furfural, can only be amazed at its present magnitude and overawed by its promise. In retrospect, those early days, when we were groping for new or better uses for oat hulls, did not appear to offer either glamour or rich reward, but rather a grim month-by-month challenge on what could best be done to justify the research project. The evolution of chemical attack was (1) analysis of our raw material, (2) acid hydrolysis to give xylose, (3) study of xylose and (4) furfural— mere traces at first, then visible quantities and, finally, furfural in drums and tank cars. We believe the first glimmer of hope in this research came with the emergence of furfural even in small quantities. Not that we envisaged its future as it is today, but rather as something definitely new and interesting to work with, to dream about, and to hope for. Again in retrospect, we think there can be little doubt that the realization that furfural was important was our most vital concept in the early research. In those days, too, there was always the pressing need for more knowledge about this new material. Although known for nearly a century, references to it were widely scattered and scanty in their content. The need for an up-to-the-minute summary and review of the Uterature of these new products was reahzed as important, urgent, and of great magnitude. This need became continuously more urgent because the growth of furan literature had kept pace with the growth of industry. The real problem was to find authors quaUfied with the knowledge, experience, ability and time to collect the information and convert it into a single critical and constructive study. Fortunately, the unfolding of the furfural industry has developed and revealed the joint authors. Dr. F. N. Peters and Mr. A. P. Dunlop, as the men best qualified for the preparation of this work. Both have done basic and trouble-shooting research on furfural for many years. Both have become leaders of research in their own right. Both have made substantial contributions to the literature of furfural. Both have had to reconcile the