Chapter 12 The p H Meter
Chemists know that acidity or alkalinity can be easily measured by dipping litmus papers into solutions. If the litmus-treated paper, on which a water-soluble powder derived from lichens is coated, turns red, the solution is acidic; if it turns blue, alkaline. Color-coded charts can be resorted to for the p H values of the solutions; however, such tests are not accurate enough, and may become misleading if an interference composition is present in the solutions. The first precise and reliable p H meter was invented in 1934 by Dr. Arnold O. Beckman (l 900-2004), son of a blacksmith. Beckman had a career that shaped history in the life sciences. The founder of Beckman Instruments, he is widely credited with creating devices that revolutionized the research and practice of chemistry, human biology, and healthcare. Throughout his lifetime, Beckman wore many different hats, as educator, inventor, civic leader, philanthropist, and humanitarian. All these roles were united by his passion for science and a desire to spread the benefits of his own self-made fortune. As a child, after reading Steele’s Fourteen Weeks in Science, originally published in 1861, Beckman set to work on converting a tool shed built by his father into a chemistry laboratory using gifts he had received for his tenth birthday. This early foray into science led eventually to a place at the University of Illinois to study chemical engineering. By 1923 he was equipped with a master’s degree in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois, having supported both his studies and family members by playing piano in silent movies.
One of the First Hightech Start-up Companies
In 1928 Beckman obtained a doctorate in photochemistry from the California Institute of Technology and began to teach as an assistant professor after graduation. In 1934, he was approached by a former college classmate, Glen Joseph, who was working for California Fruit Growers’ Association and who wanted a way to measure the acidity levels in lemon juice. “When you’re faced with the necessity to do something, that’s a stimulus to invention. If (my classmate) hadn’t come in with his lemon juice problem, chances are I never in the world would have thought about making a p H meter.” Joseph was using H2 electrodes to determine the acidity of lemon juice, but a preservative, sulfur dioxide, interfered with the test. Joseph also tried electrodes with glass as the contact instead of a metal wire or plate commonly found in the hydrogen electrode. The glass electrode occasionally gave reliable results-only when thick glass was used to prevent breaking apart, but at a sacrifice of the resistance to the electrical currents being measured. As a consequence, the galvanometer more often than not failed to show the weak current. Beckman believed that Joseph was using the wrong equipment-galvanometer, because it “just requires too much current. Use a vacuum tube voltmeter.”
Beckman had solid knowledge of vacuum tubes because he worked at Bell Labs a decade earlier, and he knew that vacuum tubes were effective amplifiers of weak electrical signals. He realized that the key was to amplify the current and combine it with a sturdy glass electrode. Beckman thought that by putting the p H measurement into the grid circuit of the vacuum tube the resulting reading would be amplified and easily read by an ammeter for measuring currents.
Soon, Beckman built the instrument himself, and it worked so well for Joseph and was always so busy and in use that Joseph asked Beckman to make a second one. Joseph’s request transformed Arnold Beckman’s life into a new career, turning an assistant professor into an inventor and entrepreneur. Beckman soon built two more devices, one for Joseph and one to see if it could be marketed. Meanwhile, Beckman started to improve his design, and recognized that the amplifier should not be a separate device but part of an integrated instrument to measure p H. As Beckman later recounted, his initial patent US 2,058,761, filed in 1934, was not for a p H meter but rather for an amplifier. Assembled in a little walnut case, the acidimeter included a vacuum tube amplifier, a measuring electrode, and a data meter.
The robust and portable feature of the new design implied that there should be a sizable market for the instrument, which investigators could take into the field to measure acidity. Few people would have predicted the impact of this instrument on lab practice. This device eventually inducted him into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1987, alongside the likes of Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell.
In 1935, Beckman founded National Technical Laboratories (NTL)-one of the first hightech start-up companies-in his garage in Pasadena, California. In 1936, the first full year of sales, NTL sold 444 p H meters, with a revenue of $60,000 and a net profit of $2,358. The business became so good that in 1937 NTL introduced the Model G p H meter. By 1939, Beckman reluctantly quit the Caltech teaching position to run the business full time, and as a result, 1,995 Model G p H meters had been sold and the profit for that year was $22,160. Success meant that soon the“Beckman Glass Electrode p H Meter” was featured in the catalogs of all the major instrument dealers in the United States. The growth occurred even though initially Beckman’s two assistants built each meter by hand. Soon additional staff was hired, including a salesperson to coordinate orders that came in from nationwide dealers in chemical instruments. They decided to use component parts rather than manufacturing them, and achieved economies of production. For example, costs were reduced by purchasing vacuum tubes. The enamel boxes that housed the p H meter’s electrodes came from the Gaffers and Sattler stove company, which produced them as containers for salt and pepper.
Beckman not only figured out how to measure p H accurately; he also revolutionized instrumentation by building the first chemical instrument in one compact unit that utilized electronic technology and which was portable. This simplified research as a chemist no longer had to assemble various components to test data. Now the chemist could purchase the instrument, provide a power source, and immediately begin collecting data. It was no longer necessary to assemble the requisite components and the chemist did not require much knowledge of the electronics. This rather basic but innovative approach to instrument design provided the basis for the subsequent development of modem instrumentation by Beckman and others.
Great Inventions
Beckman and his company quickly became the source of many leading instruments and inventions that have shaped human welfare and the biotechnology industry in particular. Beckman was the driving force behind the DU spectrophotometer-a precision single-beam transmission spectrophotometer that was widely adopted by chemists and biochemists for quantitative absorbance measurements. The instruments greatly accelerated the study of chemical and biological reactions, and played a role in elucidating the structure of penicillin-a milestone achievement that enabled synthesis of the molecule in large quantities. Thousands of applications were developed on the Beckman DU spectrophotometer, including vitamin A measurements, detection of organic contaminants in ground water, and the first chemical analysis of DNA.
The outbreak of World War II created demand for synthetic rubber, which required the rapid analysis of C4 isomers in hydrocarbon mixtures for production of butadiene. Beckman teamed with Shell Development to create the first commercial infrared spectrophotometer, the Beckman IR 1 in 1942. In only two years, the commercial availability of UV and IR spectrophotometers became reality. In 1943, upon the request of Linus Pauling, Beckman’s company created the first commercial oxygen analyzer that monitored air composition in incubators to prevent premature babies from going blind due to oxygen deprivation. Beckman O2analyzers found their way into hospital nurseries and process plants, and they monitored the atmosphere of the Nautilus on the first voyage under the North Pole in 1958.
Further advances included an ultracentrifuge that enabled Jonas Salk to isolate the poliovirus, which was one of the key steps in developing an early vaccine against polio. Instruments from Beckman have also played important roles in screening large numbers of potential drug candidates to treat diseases such as AIDS and cancer. A company of modest beginnings, today Beckman is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and one of the leading manufacturers of instruments and suppliers to the clinical diagnostics and life science markets.
A Philanthropist
From 1982 to 1989, Beckman Instruments merged with Smith Kline Corporation in a deal that was reportedly worth around US$1 billion. The merger catapulted Beckman and his wife into the category of one of the wealthiest couples in California. As such, it marked a stage in Arnold Beckman’s life where he devoted himself increasingly to philanthropy. His earlier efforts in this direction had resulted in the foundation of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation in 1977, an organization that has funded more than US$400 million to five major Beckman Institutes in support of scientific research, medicine, and education. Many additional grants were made to universities, hospitals, and charities too numerous to record here.
A modest, polite, and humble man who valued personal integrity, Beckman’s achievements were honoured by many awards including the 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame, the 1988 National Medal of Technology, the 1989 Presidential Citizen’s Medal, the 1999 Medal of Science as well as the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.“I accumulated my wealth by selling instruments to scientists,” says a humble Dr. Beckman of his vast philanthropic associations. “So I thought it would be appropriate to make contributions to scientists, and that’s been my number one guideline for charity.”
Arnold Beckman died on 18th May of 2004. He was 104.