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Harold A. Hartung, born 1918, New York City
1942: BS in ChE, Drexel Institute of Technology
1946: Discharged, US Army, Captain, CWS
1947: MS in ChE, PChem minor, University of Pennsylvania
Registered Professional Engineer, Commonwealth of Penna.

1947-60: Atlantic Refining Co., R&D Department: Paraffin wax production, fractionation, refining; lube & process oil production, refining; industrial lubricant R&D (metalworking fluids, turbine & hydraulic fluids, rust preventives, etc); technical service to customers and ARCo tanker fleet turbine drives; crankcase lubricants, aircraft jet fuels & lubes in automotive lab. Supervised Multiple labs; ARCo and Society committee work; patents and technical publications.

1960-76: Consultant in lubrication, PChem and ChE; bought small chemical plant making wax emulsions and hard surface cleaners; set up lab to service company and consulting work. Expanded operations included coatings for food packaging films; engine testing of fuel additives; predicting viscosity of lubes under pressure (150000 psi); plant for slabbing paraffin wax; market surveys, design & construction of automatic equipment & controls for clients. Developed micro nutrient complexing system for client, made product; designed & built two large ammonium thiosulfate plants, one conventional, one novel. Technical publications, patents.

1976-78: Went full time with MacAndrews & Forbes Co, licorice root extractors, to attack many technical problems from within: engineering, process, plant design, quality control, new products, tech staff, training, etc. Concept and design of trickle filter to solve serious long-standing pollution problem. Process for making MAG (mono ammonium glycyrrhizinate) sweetener; designed & built plant, trained staff, etc. Patents. Left, matters in hand, to support another client.

1978-81: Stoller Chemical Co., Houston, seven-plant operation for ag chemicals other than N, P, K. Quality control, waste disposal, regulatory compliance, new products, operation & maintenance, new processes & plants for flowable fungicides and another unique ammonium thio plant. Patents.

1976-81: The scope of activities was rather broad:

Engineering: Mixing, fluid flow, heat transfer, crystallization, distillation, filtration, drying, ion exchange, extraction (organic, inorganic, aqueous, non-aqueous), corrosion & maintenance, instrumentation, cleaning. Process & plant design & construction, from simple mixers to complex MAG.
Technical: Leaf surface energy, micron particle size distribution, permeability, pseudo-gel phase changes, biological instability and degradation, etc.
Waste: Regulatory compliance, recycle systems, evaporation ponds, settlers, complete biodegradation plant.
Extractions: Processes & plants for economic metal recovery from waste streams; fresh & spent licorice root fractions.
Phosphate rock: Processes for direct utilization in granular and suspension fertilizers, avoiding superphosphate.
Seedling and Growth Tests: From simple pots to hydroponics.
Oil Well Chemicals: Scavenger studies for oxygen and hydrogen sulfide in muds, phase relations, stabilization.
OC: analytical, trouble-shooting, patent work, development of new products of great variety were also involved here.

1981-2004: A number of smaller projects undertaken early: Survey of acid sludge site, process to stabilize, verified; six-month market survey; electrostatics in film processing, product to alleviate; VOC's from paper coating; control of acid water runoff from waste site; non-aqueous ion exchange process and products therefrom; consolidation of dilute aqueous waste streams.

A major project dominated this period: Recovery of peat humic substances (PHS). This required development of a novel process, with US and Canadian patents. Pilot demonstration plant was upgraded to a modest production facility; process can also produce fuel peat, horticultural peat, peat fiber.

PHS was first used in agriculture; it is unusually effective compared to other humic sources. A massive literature search supported this work and ultimately led to previously unreported concept that sewage plant microorganisms could be stimulated; this application grew steadily in scope and importance. Also during this period, peat samples from many sources were evaluated for potential licensees; PHS from all over was found to be of equal high activity.

A PHS patent licensee acquired the pilot plant to begin manufacturing, upgrading as required, becoming a commercial source for PHS. On-going ag and sewage plant work shows that PHS can stimulate virtually all microorganisms in complex populations: Aerobic, anaerobic, heterotrophic, autotrophic, etc. PHS continues to show activity far above material from other humic sources.

Anthropogenic Peat (AP) is a direct descendent of the ag and sewage plant experience cited above. Global warming (GW) due to greenhouse gases is a function of level (concentration) in the atmosphere. The most important of these gases, C0₂, is essential for creating biomass; plants take it up from dilute solution in air (ca. 365ppm). If this biomass is then digested anaerobically, as in sewage plants, the products are methane and CO₂, plus stabilized organic residue. CH₄ is an energy and petrochemical source; CO₂ and residue can be segregated to help control CO₂ level in the air and thus GW by removal. AP works without stimulation; PHS makes it work better. Further patents on its manufacture have been obtained, and some papers have described its use and effects: