Stahlke Adoption

My Father's Hands, Part 4

Once a year, our family could visit my Dad's laboratory at Shell Chemical Company.  In my younger years, the lab was nestled within a huge oil refinery.  Getting to it involved walking under a multitude of towering, steaming pipes, curved in all directions, emitting the strong sulphur smell that my father could no longer detect after years of its assault on his senses.

At the time I entered high school, Shell built a new laboratory that consolidated their scientists from around the U.S.  This facility was solely designed for research and not connected to any industrial uses.  On our yearly visit, we would stride down the corporate hallways until reaching a nondescript door that led to Dad's lab, a world of curiosity.  One corner contained a hooded work area, completely enclosed in a box, with fantastic gloves that were GREAT for playing.  (Before we arrived, Dad had cleared out all the dangerous chemicals that were ordinarily inside.)  Here's an image of such a box:


The other equipment that piqued my interest were the miniature washing machines on the lab counters.  My father spent half his career at Shell studying detergents to make them more effective in cold water.  Despite marketing efforts to the contrary, clothes get much cleaner in hot water because the chemical reactions of the detergent are stronger at higher temperatures.  Finding a good cold-water detergent would have an immense positive effect on the environment and on costs because of lower energy use to heat the water.  My father tested his new detergent formulations in tiny washing machines about nine inches tall, with a drum just big enough for a small swatch of cloth.

Part of Dad's research was to standardize the "dirt" on the cloth swatches, to control the variables so that he could measure exactly how a new detergent formula would effect the cleaning.  When he wrote scientific papers or presented his findings at conferences, his graphs and charts would measure the DMO (dirt) before and after washing.  It all looked so official.  But when I asked him what DMO meant, he smiled and told me, "You know when I work on our car in the garage?"  Of course, I knew--I would watch him toil over the car motor, his greasy hands turning wrenches and making repars.  "DMO stands for Dirty Motor Oil, which comes from our car."

So, the stuff draining into a bucket from our Chevrolet, later appeared on a slide at a conference. Too funny!

posted by Stahlkes @ 9:50 PM