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Abstract
Cordite was the main propellant used for ballistic weaponry at the start of the twentieth century. The Royal Navy required high quality specific types of this propellant in order for its ordnance to operate most effectively. Acetone was needed as a gelatinizing agent to incorporate the chemical components during cordite manufacture. At the start of World War I the United Kingdom’s reserve of acetone was very limited.
Traditionally, acetone was obtained from wood distillation. An alternative method for making acetone was essential. Chaim Weitzmann (the first President of Israel) was instrumental in formulating a bacterial process that could make a significant contribution to the supply of acetone needed to keep the guns firing. Many problems relating to the efficiency and scale of production had to be overcome. Holton Heath in Dorset became the site where the process became one of the first examples of biotechnology working at an industrially useful scale.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the kind help of John England and Malcolm Bowditch for both information about and the pictures of the Holton Heath site.
Notes
1 The Official History of the Ministry of Munitions (Naval and Military Press with The Imperial War Museum, Sussex, 2011 reprint of the 1922 Edition), Part IV, p. 65.
2 Ibid.
3 L. F. Haber, The Chemical Industry 1900–1930 — International Growth and Technological Change (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 211–13.
4 Anon, ‘Cordite’, Nature, 84 (1910), 109–10.
5 The Official History (n. 1 above).
6 Ibid.
7 S. Young, Distillation Principles and Processes (Macmillan and Co., 1922), pp. 247–53.
8 R. C. Trebilcock, ‘A “Special” Relationship — Government, Rearmament and the Cordite Firms’, The Economic History Review, 19.2 (1966), 364–79.
9 The Official History (n. 1 above).
10 Ibid.
11 The National Archives, UK, Customs (CUST 49 736) and Munitions (MUN 7 237 and 238) sections.
12 The National Archives, UK, Munitions section MUN 7 237.
13 The National Archives, UK, Customs section CUST 49 736.
14 X-B. Liu, Q-Y. Gu and X-B. Yu, ‘Repetitive Domestication to Enhance Butanol Tolerance and Production in Clostridium acetobutylicum through Artificial Simulation of Bio-evolution’, Bioresource Technology, 130 (2013), 638–43; T. Lütke-Eversioh and H. Bahl, ‘Metabolic Engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum: Recent Advances to Improve Butanol Production. Current Opinion’, Biotechnology, 22 (2011), 634–47; P. Anbarasan, Z. C. Baer, S. Sreekumar, E. Gross. J. B. Binder, H. W. Blanch, D. S. Clark and D. Toste, ‘Integration of Chemical Catalysis with Extractive Fermentation to Produce Fuels’, Nature, 491 (2012), 235–39; R. Gheshlaghi, J. M. Scharer, M. Moo-young and C. P. Chou, ‘Metabolic Pathways of Clostridia for Producing Butanol’, Biotechnology Advances, 27 (2009), 764–81.
15 The National Archives, UK, Customs section CUST 49 736.
16 D. T. Jones and D. R. Woods, ‘Acetone-butanol Fermentation Revisited’, Microbiological Reviews, 50 (1986), 484–524.
17 D. H. Killeffer, ‘Butanol and Acetone from Corn — A Description of the Fermentation Process’, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 19 (1927), 46–49; C. L. Gabriel, ‘Butanol Fermentation Process’, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 29 (1928), 1063–67.
18 Gabriel.
19 Ibid.
20 F. C. Neidhardt, J. L. Ingraham and M. Schaechter, Physiology of the Bacterial Cell — A Molecular Approach (Massachusetts, USA: Sinauer Associates 1990), pp. 3–4.
21 A. Fernbach and E. H. Strange, ‘Improvements in the manufacture of higher alcohols’, British Patent No. 15204/1911; A. Fernbach and E. H. Strange, ‘Improvements in, or connected with, fermentation processes’, British Patent No. 16925/1911; A. Fernbach and E. H. Strange, ‘Improvements in the manufacture of products of fermentation’, British Patent No. 15203/1911; A. Fernbach and E. H. Strange, ‘Improvements connected with fermentation processes for the production of acetone and higher alcohols from starch, sugars and other carbohydrate materials’, British Patent No. 21073/1912; The National Archives, UK, Munitions papers, MUN 7–239.
22 British Patent No. 15204/1911.
23 British Patent No. 16925/1911.
24 British Patent No. 15203/1911.
25 British Patent No. 21073/1912.
26 C. Weizmann, ‘Improvements in the bacterial fermentation of carbohydrates and bacterial cultures for the same’, British Patent No. 4845/1915; C. Weizmann, ‘Improvements relating to fermentation processes for the production of acetone and butyl alcohols’, British Patent No. 149355 (1920, submitted 1916); C. Weizmann and A. Hamlyn, ‘Improvements relating to fermentation processes for the production of acetone and butyl alcohol’, British Patent No. 164023 (1921, submitted 1916); C. Weizmann, ‘Production of acetone and alcohol by bacteriological procedures’, US Patent No. 1315585 (1919, submitted 1916); C. Weizmann and A. Hamlyn, ‘Fermentation procedure for the production of acetone’, Canadian Patent No. 204993 (1920); C. Weizmann and A. Hamlyn, ‘Fermentation process for the production of acetone and butyl alcohol’, US Patent No. 1329214 (1920, submitted 1918).
27 E. McCoy, E. B. Fred, W. H. Peterson and E. G. Hastings, ‘A Cultural Study of the Acetone Butyl Alcohol Organism’, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 39 (1926), 457–83.
28 British Patent No. 149355.
29 British Patent No. 164023.
30 McCoy et al.
31 The National Archives, UK, Munitions papers, MUN 7–239.
32 Ibid., paper 95/A/27.
33 M. R. Bowditch, Cordite-Poole — A Short Account of the Royal Naval Cordite Factory, National Archives ADM 322/1 (date and publisher unknown).
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 J. Reilly, W. J. Hickinbottom, F. R. Henley and A. C. Thaysen, ‘The Products of the Acetone: N-Butyl Alcohol Fermentation of Carbohydrate Material with Special Reference to Some of the Intermediate Substances Produced’, Biochemistry Journal, 24 (1920), 229–51.
37 A. C. Thaysen, ‘The Bacteriology of the Process for Acetone and N-Butyl Alcohol Manufacture’, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, 27 (1921), 529–42; A. C. Thaysen, ‘Bacteriology, its Practical Application and its Importance Outside Medicine’, Journal of the Institute of Brewing, 26 (1920), 147–55.
38 Jones et al.
39 Lütke-Eversioh et al.
40 Anbarasan et al.
41 D. Muñoz-Solano, P. Hoyos, M. J. Hernáiz, A. R. Alcántara and J. M. Sánchez-Montero, ‘Industrial Biotransformations in the Synthesis of Building Blocks Leading to Enantiopure Drugs’, Bioresource Technology, 115 (2012), 196–207; J. Genovino, S. Lütz, D. Sames and B. Touré, ‘Complementation of Biotransformation’s with C-H Oxidation of Tertiary Amines in Complex Pharmaceuticals’, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 135 (2013), 12346–52.
42 Liu et al.
43 Gheshlaghi et al.; T. K. Chua, D.-W. Liang, C. Qi, K.-L. Yang and J. He, ‘Characterisation of a Butanol-Acetone Producing Clostridium Strain and Identification of its Solventogenic Genes’, Bioresource Technology, 135 (2013), 372–78.
44 S. Kawasaki, Y. Watamura, M. Ono, T. Watanabe, K. Takeda and Y. Iimura, ‘Adaptive Responses to Oxygen Stress in Obligatory Anaerobes Clostridium acetobuylicum and Clostridium aminovalericum’, Bioresource Technology, 71 (2005), 8442–50.
45 F. Hillmann, S.-J. Fischer, F. Saint-Prix, L. Girbal and H. Bahl, ‘PerR Acts as a Switch for Oxygen Tolerance in the Strict Anaerobe Clostridium acetobutylicum’, Molecular Microbiology, 68 (2008), 848–60.