Local Industry Owes Much to Weizmann

By Frances E. Hughes

Had it not been for Chaim Weizmann, first President

of the State of Israel and an internationally famous
scientist and political leader, the Commercial
Solvents Corporation would not have been in business
nor have gained international status as a large
chemical company as it did.
The Commercial Solvents started at the end of World
War I and continued as an independent company until
1975 when there was a merger of the company with
the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation.
Thus the Commercial Solvents became a wholly-
owned subsidiary of IMC.
The story of Weizmann is an interesting one as he
was a very intelligent and interesting man.
He was born on Nov. 17,1874, in the tiny town of Motele in the Propet marshes of Poland. The story about
Weizmann and the Commercial Solvents Corporation began with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 when
the British were using cordite as a propellant in both cartridges and shells. Cordite was then made by
galatanizing nitroglycerin and guncotton in acetone. The fragrant mint-smelling acetone was obtained almost
entirely from the distillation of wood, which had to be dried six months before being processed.
A desperate shortage developed with the outbreak of the war, and cordite made with defective acetone was
blamed for the defeat of a British naval squadron off Chile. Shells plopped harmlessly into the water far short
of the enemy, and two cruisers were sunk with all hands. The admiralty called for acetone in such quantities
that the wood in all the forests would have been insufficient.
Acetone in those days was obtained by heating wood in closed ovens, and it was supplied largely by Austria
and the United States. With the Austrian supply shut off, the amount of acetone available to the British was
inadequate to meet the rapidly increasing requirements for cordite. Later on, as the air warfare grew in
intensity, a further need for large amounts of acetone developed in the making of the so-called dope used to
coat the wings of airplanes.
In the meantime, Chaim Weizmann had already made a number of important contributions in the field of
chemistry.
One day in 1916, he was summoned to the British Admiralty, where he saw Dir. Frederick L. Nathan, head of
the powder department. He was told of the serious shortage of acetone, the solvent making cordite, without
which it would be necessary to make far-reaching changes in naval guns.
Weizmann was then taken to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, who told him they needed
thirty thousand tons of acetone and asked him to make it.
The chemist had succeeded in making only a few hundred cubic centimeters of acetone at a time by the
fermentation process, did his work in a laboratory and did not think he could even determine what would be
required.
Given carte blanche by Churchill, he began a task that was to take all his strength for two years. It meant
pioneering in a field in which he had had no experience. The first all-scale experiment of the war. Some of the
acetone was manufactured in France, some in India, from rice.
The first American plant for this method of producing acetone was built in Terre Haute.
After the war, Weizmann's patents were taken over by the Commercial Solvents. The government gave
Weizmann a token reward, amounting to about 10 shillings for every ton of acetone produced, a total of 10
thousand pounds.
When Weizmann first made his discovery, it was the first time bacteria had been deliberately sought to
perform a specific industrial labor. His intention was to publish freely the results of his researches as a
contribution to science.
He was more interested in opportunity for congenial work than in making money. But at the suggestion of the
head of the chemical department of Nobel's Explosives Company, he went through the formality of making
application for a patent, and the English patent 4845 was issued to him in March 1915. In 1919, the United
States Government also granted Weizmann a patent. These brought income and fame to him.
Commercial Solvents Corporation made an arrangement with Weizmann to pay him on a royalty basis for
exclusive use of his patent, which expired in 1936. He began to receive payments incredible to one
accustomed to the modest salary of a university instructor or laboratory worker.
Without seeking fame, Weizmann became an international figure. When the British Government wanted to
give him an award of honor for his great contribution, he asked nothing for himself but said he had long been
interested in a plan to have Palestine made a national home for the Jewish people. He had been active in this
movement since 1901.
In consequence of Weizmann's suggestion, the British Foreign Secretary issued the famous Balfour
Declaration which became the charter of the Zionist movement, and at the London conference in 1920,
Weizmann became the head of the whole Zionist organization. Today, Jews throughout the world probably
consider him, along with Einstein, one of the outstanding men of his race now living.
Terre Haute and Commercial Solvents owe much to Weizmann, as the local plant has been an outstanding one
in the community and for Commercial Solvents, the patents have served their purpose. Without them, the
corporation would hardly have been able to develop its markets so rapidly and broadly, nor could it have
carried on research so extensively in industrial bacteriology and chemistry.
In the years following Weizmann's contribution, operations of Commercial Solvents have been so diversified
that products manufactured by the Weizmann process provided only a relatively small part of the company's
revenue.
After 1922, the Weizmann patent was carried on the books at a valuation of only one dollar. Commercial
Solvents businesses in-eluded specialty and commodity chemicals for industry, agricultural chemicals, animal
health and nutrition products, industrial explosives and carbon blacks.
Its products for human health and animal health and nutrition were developed largely through the company's
expertise in fermentation technology that began in the early days of the corporation's history.
It continued to reflect, both in its allegiance to Terre Haute and its emphasis on fermentation chemistry, its
origins in the discoveries of Chaim Weizmann.
Commercial Solvents: child of World War I
By
Second of a Series
Frances E. Hughes
Commercial Solvents Corporation was born of intensive World
War I research in explosives and earned distinction as the pioneer
producer of acetone and butanol by fermentation processes.
It all started with Chaim Weizmann who discovered the method
of making acetone by the fermentation process.
When Weizmann found that cultures of grain-feeding, spindle
shaped bacterium named Clostridium acetobutylicum Weizmann
produced the required acetone at an unprecedented rate, the
British Government adopted the process and started production at
plants in England, Canada and India.
After the United States entered the war, the United States Air
Service and the British War Mission purchased the Commercial
and Majestic whiskey distilleries on the Wabash River at Terre
Haute and adapted them for acetone production by the Weismann
process.
To manage the enterprise, the Joint War Board formed the
Commercial Solvents Corporation of New York. Between May of
1918 and cessation of operations on Armistice Day, 1,500,000
gallons of acetone were produced along with twice this’ amount of
butyl alcohol for which there was then no demand.
Two members of the British War Mission interested a group of Office building with distilling tower in background, 1940.
Americans in the commercial possibilities of the Weizmann
process. With the advantages in mind of cheap and readily mercial Solvents expanded in this direction. Barrel storage
available raw materials, this group purchased the Terre Haute warehouses in Terre Haute, sold after World War I, were
facilities from the government and acquired exclusive rights under repurchased and distillation of bourbon and rye whiskies and
the Weizmann patents for peacetime development of the war-born neutral spirits for the blending of whiskey was started for bulk sale
industry. to bottlers and rectifiers.
Late in 1919, the new company of Commercial Solvents In 1927, the company built a plant at Peoria, III., which made
Corporation of Maryland was incorporated. Production was synthetic methanol, and became the first United States company to
resumed in 1920. market this product.
A series of events shifted interest from acetone to the hitherto Management of Thermatomic Carbon Company, which made
useless butyl alcohol which had been stored in a huge tank. With fine grades of carbon black, was assumed by CSC in 1931. In
the advent of prohibition, limited fusel oil supplies (this was a 1938, the company acquired majority interest in the carbon
byproduct of the manufacture of whiskey) shrank to practically company at Sterlington, La.
nothing. Then, it was found that butyl acetate and butyl alcohol The Rossville Commercial Alcohol Corporation and its
could be substituted for amyl acetate in lacquers and even had subsidiary, American Solvents and Chemical Corporations of
definite advantages over the previously used product. California, were purchased by Commercial Solvents in 1933 as the
Commercial Solvents then registered the name Butanol, which company continued to expand. By this purchase, the company
became the accepted name for butyl alcohol. The contents of the acquired an important antifree'ie and industrial alcohol business
big butanol storage tank quickly found its way into the new, plus additional producing faCilities at Harvey and Westwego, La.,
fastdrying lacquer which permitted automobiles to be finished and
better than ever before in assembly-line operations that required Agnew, Calif. :
only minutes instead of days. In 1921, the company's orders for In 1935, Commercial Solvents and Corn Products Refining
butanol greatly exceeded production. Company formed Commercial Molasses Corporation in Cuba,
Puerto Rico and the United States.
Whiskey distilling resumes During the 1930s, high-pressure synthesis activities of Com- "
mercial Solvents were expanded by development of the nitroparaffin
Some ethyl alcohol had always been made as a by-product of process which utilizes natural gas. In 1940, an oversized pilot plant
the Weizmann process and, with the repeal of prohibition, Com- at Peoria went into operation.

Farmersdelivering grain· 1923. Trucks unloading corn at old grain elevator - 1946.
Product expansion parked postwar years

Anti-freeze introduced In : 1937, the company's line of anti-freezes was broadened to include Norway, a methanol
anti-freeze. In 1941, a permanent-type glycol anti-freeze was added under the trade name Peak. Additional cooling
system products were produced to round out the line.
A large new plant at Terre Haute was completed in 1946 to package these specialty products of the company.
The field of vitamin production was entered by the company in 1938. At Peoria, production of riboflavin
supplements for use by manufacturers in poultry and livestock feeds was started. A new process was developed and
installed at Terre Haute for the production of large quantities of pure crystalline riboflavin by deep-vat fermentation.
Entering the pharmaceutical field in 1943, the company constructed a large penicillin plant at Terre Haute. Penicillin
on a large scale utilizing the deep fermentation process was first produced by Commercial Solvents. In 1946, the
company became the first to commercially produce crystalline penicillin of high potency, heat stable and not
requiring refrigeration.
Aids war effort :During World War II, the company had built and operated the The Terre Haute plant had another
addition in 1946 when a benzene hexachloride plant was built here. The insecticidal material made here was sold to
manufacturers of insecticides, thus the company was entering another field of production.
, Also in 1946, the company purchased the Pennsylvania Alcohol and Chemical Company at Carlstadt, N.J., which
produced alcohols, solvents, clear-base nitrocellulose solutions and pharmaceuticals.
Addition of the Carlstadt property increased to 10 the plants owned and operated by Commercial Solvents.
During that year of 1946, sales of the Commercial Solvents Corporation totaled $41,875,000. T. P. Walker was
Chairman of the Board and Henry E. Perry, who lived in Terre Haute for some years, was President.
The Terre Haute plant was producing benzene hexachloride, nitroparaffin derivatives, penicillin, riboflavin,
automotive specialties and potable alcohol.
Maynard C. Wheeler was vice president of production, maintaining his office in Terre Haute.
Capacity production continued for acetone, butanol and ethanol at Peoria, III.; Terre Haute, Harvey, La., and Agnew,
Calif. Plants at Carlstadt, N.J., and Newark, N.J. were distributing solvents and denaturing ethyl alcohol. The
Sterlington, La., plant was producing ammonia and methanol.
 Third and last in series Work started in 1950 on a new blood volume expander to be called
on Commercial Solvents Expandex. Production of this started in the Summer of 1952. Silan, a
new synthetic insecticide to control the Mexican bean beetle also was
B y Frances E. Hughes placed on the market by the company in 1950.
From the Sterlington, La., plant a new hi-density ammonium nitrate
Terre Haute's plant of Commercial Solvents Corporation got another was introduced by the company in 1951. By that year, there were 2,555
plant in 1947 when a packaging plant for anti-freeze and other consumer employees of Commercial Solvents, with 880 of them in Terre Haute.
products was built here. Sales in 1953 amounted to $51,310,000. There was expansion for
The company also added another plant at Sterlington, La., that year Terre Haute to include benzene hexachloride, Dilan and antifreeze
when a plant for production of methanol was completed there. Bacitracin, canning, and large expansions in ammonia and methanol in the
a new antibiotic, was introduced then by the company. Sterlington plant.
Also in 1947, Commercial Solvents purchased preferred and The Terre Haute plant began production of a new antibiotic called
common stock in the amount of 65.3 percent of Thermatonic Carbon Cycloserine for treatment of tuberculosis and urinary tract infections in
Company, By then, the company had five independent businesses: 1955, and the company put a new nitroparaffin plant in Sterlington. Net
industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agriculture (animal feeds, fertilizer sales that year were $56,623,700 but employment in the company
and insecticide), automotive chemical specialties and potable spirits. dropped to 1993, with 450 of those in Terre Haute.
In 1948, a new animal feed supplement was added to the That year, the company announced a joint venture to construct a
agriculture line -- an essential amino acid, choline chloride, produced by nitrogen and phosphate fertilizer plant at Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.
chemical synthesis. The company was known as Northwest Nitro-Chemicals, Ltd.
Dedication of a new research center, including a pharmacological Commercial Solvents owned 42.7 per cent and operated the company,
laboratory and a microbiological pilot plant, in Terre Haute took place in which began production during 1956.
1949. A large commercial unit to produce benzene hexachloride for Thermatonic Carbon Company merged into the corporation in 1957,
commercial expansion also was constructed at Terre Haute that year. with Commercial Solvents then owning 100 per cent of the company,
Severe infestation of the southern cotton crop had demonstrated the which was operated as a division. There were plant expansions that year
need for benzene hexachloride. Clyde Ellis was then local plant of a new methlyamines plant at Terre Haute; new methanol unit and new
manager. ammonium nitrate unit at Sterlington.
In 1950, a new antibiotic plant was constructed here to produce Further expansion was noted in 1958, when Commercial Solvents
various products made by bacteriological processes and units were built acquired Louisiana Gas Production Company, comprised of gas wells,
in Peoria to make vitamin and antibiotic aninial feed supplements. That gathering and transmission lines; and purchased one third interest in
year, J. Albert Woods, previously President of the Wilson and Toomer Petroquimica De Mexico, S.A., to market aqua ammonia in northern
Fertilizer Company of Jacksonville, Fla., became the new President of Mexico. "
Commercial Solvents. Maynard C. Wheeler of Terre Haute was named president in

An aerial phot of north section of plant with viewFairbanks

of Park and pool (upper right) taken sometime in 1940s. (Photo by Hartin.)
1959, and that year sales and earnings rose sharply with sales at $70,381,000.
The next year, Commercial Solvents acquired 80 per cent ownership of Hoffman-Lampis and FIART, S.PA, of Rome, Italy. A new kind of nitrogen
solution for makers of mixed fertilizers, DriSol, was introduced in March of that year by the company.
Four feed vitamin companies were acquired by the company in 1961. They were Stabilized Vitamins, Inc., Vitarin Chemical Manufacturing Company
and Astrol Products, Inc., all of Garfield, N.J., and Iowa Nutrition Company of Clinton, Iowa.
Both expansion and sales soared during the next year, when the company reported 2,301 employees and annual sales of $80,681,000. Commercial
Solvents increased its holdings in Northwest Nitro-Chemicals, Ltd., to 51 percent from 42.7 percent; acquired major interest in an Italian drug firm,
Instituto Chemioteropico Italiana, S.P.A., of Milan, Italy, and acquired McWhorter Chemicals, Inc., of Chicago, a developer and supplier of resin
products for paints and protective coatings.
Since synthetic production of solvents made fermentation less competitive, the Peoria, III., plant of the company was closed in 1963. That year, the
Terre Haute plant started production of monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer. The company also acquired Industrial Explosive Division of Olin
Mathieson, with plants at Marion, III., Tacoma, Wash., and Mount Braddock, Pa., which it operated as the United States Powder Company.
A second gas company, known as Navarro Gas Production Company, was purchased by Commercial Solvents in 1965, and the Terre Haute plant
announced building of an advanced design chemical derivations plant that year. Sales in 1965 were $90,764,000.
That year, Commercial Solvents announced discovery and initial development of a new class of estrogenic chemicals known as the RALs. More than
300 RAL patent applications were filed in the United States.
In 1966, Maynard C. Wheeler became chairman of the board and his brother, Robert C. Wheeler, became president of the company. The company
announced plans for construction of an ammonia plant capable of producing one thousand tons per day at Sterlington, La., and continued to broaden
its international animal nutrition operations by serving its Mexican customers through Comsolmex, S. A., a wholly owned subsidiary in Mexico City.
The ammonia plant went into production in 1967. In September of that year, the company purchased for cash the Trojan Powder Company with
operations located in Seiple, Pa.; Wolf Lake, III., and Springville, Utah. Approximately 800 employees were added with this purchase.
Ralgro, one of the resocylic acid lactones, was introduced in 1969 as an implant to increase the rate of growth and feed efficiency in cattle. That year,
subsidiaries also were established -- Chemsyna Gmb.H in Munich, Germany, and Industrial Kern Espanola, SA, in Madrid, Spain.
In 1970, the company sold 45 percent of Northwest NitroChemical Ltd., to Canadian interests. During 1972, the company had its best year in
international business in terms of sales volume, profit-ability and market penetration. Sales in Western Europe alone accounted for approximately 15
percent of the company's sales. Subsidiaries and affiliated companies involved were in Italy, Germany and Spain.
In 1973, the biggest volume of sales was in Ralgro, pharmaceutical drugs, thermal carbon black, ammonia, ammonium nitrate, specialty chemicals,
pharmaceuticals and animal health products. Manufacturing operations expanded in Europe, Latin America and the Far East, as well as in the United
States and Canada. That year, William S. Leonhardt was elected president of the company.
Commercial Solvents Corporation and International Minerals and Chemical Corporation merged in March of 1975, making Commercial Solvents a
wholly owned subsidiary of IMC.
The corporate research is done in Terre Haute with this plant known as the Corporation Research Center. Here, 125 technical and supportive
personnel conduct basic research in chemical synthesis and fermentation biochemistry.
Lee Webb is plant manager and there are now approximately 500 employees at the local plant.
Products produced include Ralgro, an implant for cattle;
Aerial Photo of the Commercial Solvents Complex taken in the early 1940s.
(Photo by Miner-Billings, Indpls.)

more; Alkaterges, defoamers; Choline Bicarbonate, synthetic waxes and

bactericides.
Commercial Solvents has long been a part of this community and has
contributed much over the years to the progress of the city. Now that it has
merged with International Minerals and Chemicals Corporation, it is
anticipated that the same close relationship will continue to exist between the
company and community.