James A. McIntyre

100 Years of Industrial Electrochemistry

Writing an article about 100 years of Industrial Electrochemistry sounded like an easy task. However, the number of quality papers is enormous. Since the ‘‘Industrial Electrolysis’’ Division, now the Industrial Electrolysis and Electrochemical Engineering ~IEEE! Division was formed in 1943, there are ;40 years of activity without the divisional focus. It is difficult to restrict this article to research that is clearly aligned with industrial electrochemistry. Significant Society interest in industrial electrochemistry was clearly laid out right from the beginning. In the first paragraph of the first paper from the first meeting President Joseph Richards ~Fig. 1! lists three requirements for a ‘‘University Course in Electrochemistry.’’ The first covers the basic requirement for any technical education course, develop the power of observation, reasoning, and the ability for research, but the other two are totally practical, ‘‘fits a student to earn his living ... in an electrochemical establishment,’’ and ‘‘supplies the electrochemical industries with suitable men for their needs.’’ Within this framework it was recognized that electrochemical engineers and electrochemists required a different educational emphasis, but that both were needed. To this end the University of Wisconsin had developed ~starting in 1901! a four year ‘‘applied electrochemistry’’ degree, which started as an outgrowth of the electrical engineering curriculum. Interestingly, from a historical educational perspective, Professor Richards recognized that much was to be gained by exploring the ‘‘borderland’’ between chemistry and electrical engineering ~assuming a strong grounding in metallurgy was also brought to this!. The concept of opportunities at technological interfaces seems obvious today, but note that the founding members weren’t even completely in agreement about where such interfaces lay; they debated whether or not there is an interface between ‘‘electro’’ and ‘‘chemistry,’’ and actually brought the question of whether or not ‘‘electrochemistry’’ should be hyphenated to a formal vote! And, as reported by C. F. Burgess ~Fig. 1!, the voting was close, only 29 were in favor of one word, with 25 opposed. And, the definition of industrial electrochemistry was very broad, ‘‘the application of the electric current to the chemical and metallurgical arts.’’ Thus was covered not only the more obvious electrowinning, electroplating, electrosynthesis, and batteries, but also electrothermics and electric furnaces. Actually, it could be argued that this definition covers just about everything we do as a Society, even today! So, while I greatly admire our founders’ farsightedness in laying out the role of industrial electrochemistry, I also recognize the complexity of the task before me that was created by that foresight! What does industrial electrochemistry ‘‘do’’? Using the abovestated definition of industrial electrochemistry, it is involved in making chemicals, making materials, making things, and measuring and controlling things. Of course a definition that broad means that some of the following not only overlaps with activities that are related to other Divisions, but, in some cases, such as ‘‘measuring and controlling,’’ we have a Division that has that function as a primary role. However, all one needs to do is look at the list of Symposia over the past 25 years ~a compilation for the years 1972 to 1997 is available on the Society’s website! to see that we actually do operate as a Society in that

Novel Breaker/Filtration Process Reduces the Cost of Recycling Viscosified Brine Completion Fluids

This paper reports on the development of a process for recycling polysaccharide-viscosified brine completion fluids. The process used oxidants generated directly in the used brine by electrolysis to break the viscosity. The treated brines can be filtered with conventional equipment, reviscosified, and reused. The process has been applied on a laboratory scale to Br{sup {minus}}/Cl{sup {minus}} brines containing Na{sup +}, K{sup +}, Ca{sup +2}, and Zn{sup +2} cations. Calculations with information from pilot-scale tests on NaBr/NaCl brines indicate that the process should be attractive economically.