Technikatörténeti szemle 25. (2001-02)

Papers of the Third International Conference on the History of Chemistry and Chemical Industry (Budapest, 2–4 July, 1999) – First Part - Lichocka, Halina: Ignacy Mościcki (1867–1946) in the history of science and technology

school in Lvov he did not hesitate much. He closed down his affairs in Switzerland, bought for his money research equipment, of the kind he had used in Fribourg (several tons of it), and in the autumn of 1912 he arrived in Lvov. In the Lvov area there were still active oil wells. Most of them were water covered, that is under a thin layer of oil there was brine. During the exploitation of such wells they got, together with oil, a fair amount of natural emulsion, resulting from the mixture of oil with brine. The emulsion contained 40-60% of brine and was not fit for transformation in refineries because it upset the process destilation and the escaping salts destroyed the walls of boilers. So the water emulsion of oil was a refuse material. Its amount was additionally increased by the artificial oil emulsion appearing during the refinement of oil, especially in the separation of the higher fractions of oil prone to emulsification. Another source of emultion was the lubricant oil applied in machines and steam turbines where in the atmosphere created by hot water steam they were quickly emulsified and had to be exchanged. As a result thousands of tons of roily oil emulsion, as production refuse, used to be let into rivers where small bays were specially built to catch that emulsion. The annual floods emptied the bays carrying their content over fields and making place for new portions of emulsion refuse. A considerable loss of oil and the environment pollution asked for finding a way of solving that problem. No wonder therefore that Moscicki having arrived in Lvov started energetically to deal with the matter. The methods of regenerating the natural and artificial oil emulsions were at that time expensive and not very efficient. Attempts were made to dry the emulsions by warming them up with hoses filled with hot water steam or by introducing into them strongly hydroscopic compounds. Another way was getting out water by means of sand and metal dust. The Cottrell method, also used sometimes, consisted in the placement of emulsion in a strong electrostatic field, as a result of which particles of water would form greater concentrations that could be separated. Moscicki started his research by using for this purpose artificial emulsion from the reservoirs of the Urban Electricity Establishment in Lvov and the natural emulsion containing 56% of brine coming from the nearby oil well. He noticed that the heating of emulsion under the pressure of 3000 hP made it possible to separate water rather quickly and almost completely. The research resulted in a patent entitled "The method of separating water or water solutions from the emultion of rock oil or other oil emultions" and awarded in 1917. The profits from this and the next patents were taken by the "Metan" company, set up on Moscicki's initiative and whose task was to finance researches having to do with the development of the local petrochemical industry. The company investing into the finding of new methods and technological processes began soon making profits. In 1922 it transformed itself into the Chemical Research Institute covering with its activity all the fields of chemical technology. Moscicki improved with his colleagues the method of separating emultion with its numerous applications, improving the economy and efficiency of the devices.