Platinum Metals Review - Volume 7, Issue 1, 1963

The expendable immersion thermocouple, developed by Leeds and Northrup to give greater accuracy, speed and convenience in the measurement of molten metal temperatures, has now been in use in a number of steelworks for some time. It has also begun to find a place in the melting of non-ferrous metals. This article surveys the results of experiences so far obtained in replacing the conventional platinum rhodium-platinum immersion thermocouple with the expendable cartridge type.

At the present time the consumption of catalytic materials by industry is increasing rapidly, and the demand is growing for catalysts that are able to promote specific or selective reactions. In practice, however, the formulation of a catalyst for a particular function is frequently empirical, at least in part. We are not yet in the position of being able to design a catalyst “on the drawing-board” for a specific complex operation with any high degree of confidence, although this is a situation which we may reasonably hope to achieve at some time in the future.

Recent research at the University of Hull, most of which is unpublished as yet, has indicated that a considerable rationalisation may soon be possible in the field of the metal-catalysed hydrogenation of multiply unsaturated hydrocarbons and the hydroisomerisation of olefins. It is the purpose of this paper to present a preview of this work and to advance some of its tentative conclusions.