Jewish Refugee Inventor Grapples with Problem of Smoke Abatement in American Cities

Prof. Karl Sollner, the refugee scientist who recently made a notable contribution to America’s war effort as a co-inventor of the “belly still,” a portable device enabling shipwrecked sailors and airmen to manufacture drinking water from sea water, is now working on a major American home-front problem – abatement of the smoke nuisance – it was revealed today by the National Refugee Service.

Prof. Sollner, a chemist who was assisted by the National Refugee Service in re-establishing his academic career in this country after having left Hitler’s Germany and who is now at the University of Minnesota, revealed that he had come to grips with this long-standing ailment of American cities, in a paper presented before the meeting of the American Chemical Society in Pittsburgh, Pa.

The use of sound-wave devices somewhat similar to those employed by the Navy for detecting submarines and by industry for testing metal castings for hidden defects, was the method suggested by Prof. Sollner for dispelling smoke and fog.