By Rachel Atkinson
Because of an $80,000 grant, a BYU professor and a team of students can continue their research on German documents that may make the synthetic fuel industry more competitive.
Calvin H. Bartholomew, a chemical engineering professor, received the grant from the Syntroleum and Sasol corporations to continue the translation of documents written by German scientists during World War II. Bartholomew said these scientists developed the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, a process that changes coal into diesel fuel.
He said after World War II, when the Allies went into Germany, they put all of the information they found concerning this process onto microfilm and then forgot about it. In the last three years it has become available because of the efforts of Dr. Anthony Stranges at Texas A&M University.
Michael Johnson, a mechanical engineering student involved in the translation, said there is a lot of information like patents, inter-office memos and reports to translate. Many of the documents contain information that is not related to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.
“Our job is to take this information and find out what is important, key word it, abstract it or full out translate it,” Johnson said. “We put it into a database which can be accessed by professionals to learn what the Germans knew and help forward research today.”
In studying the German documents, Johnson said he has gained a new appreciation for scientific research.
“I really think it is fascinating to study what the Germans knew, and how advanced they were 50 to 60 years ago,” he said. “They really came far with what little they had. It makes me respect their scientific knowledge a lot more.”
Cody Nelson, a senior double majoring in history and Korean, said he started working on the project two years ago because they needed someone with a technical background to write historic reviews. He said the main reason they are doing this research is because big companies in the synthetic fuel industry are eliminating the competition of smaller companies by claiming they created this technology.
“By looking at the old stuff that the Germans did a long time ago, we see that it really isn”t new,” Nelson said. “We can say that it is not new technology, and that we have the proof. The proof is in these German patents.”
Johnson said their research could make the industry more competitive because it will disseminate information about this process, which, although in use, is not extensive.
“Gas prices are rising because gas is more scarce,” he said. “In the next 50 years our resources will become low, and what this process does is it can take natural gas and pass it over a cobalt, iron or nickel catalyst, and it can actually make gasoline. It provides an alternative way of making gas than just taking it out of the ground.”
Bartholomew said he hopes the information gained from their research will not only increase competition, but will also show how much progress has been made in the synthetic fuels industry since the early developments made by the Germans.
“The Germans were very good in terms of their science and technology,” he said. “They were the best back then and they developed some very nice processes. There is a lot we can learn from what they have done.”
