General Chemical Corp., UA Reach Licensing Agreement

General Chemical Corp. has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the University of Arkansas to use and commercialize the UA’s patents and related technology for the use of alum in poultry litter and other animal waste.

Field results obtained with Al Clear Poultry Grade Alum, which is being marketed by General Chemical, show that it minimizes phosphorus runoff in litter used as fertilizer, while enhancing the litter’s nitrogen value, says Mike Giambalvo, General Chemical’s manager of business development. It also controls ammonia formation, improves poultry house productivity and creates more sanitary poultry house conditions.

Phosphorus can result in excessive plant growth, particularly of algae, that can deplete oxygen and can cause death to aquatic life during summer months. Noxious odors from phosphorus also can make recreational lakes less appealing to boaters and swimmers.

Giambalvo says the agreement solidifies the company’s ongoing efforts to aid agricultural productivity and benefit the environment through the application of alum, a product long used in water and wastewater treatment.

He says Al Clear has been evaluated on flocks of more than 30 million birds. A national sales force and distribution network has also been developed.

“The use of alum in poultry litter went from concept to commercialization in about three years,” says John Stokes, director of Research and Sponsored Programs at the UA. “The extraordinary speed of this process is a good example of what can happen when public-private partnerships work well. As a result, I am especially pleased with the new agreement.”

General Chemical has been working with the UA and U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers since early 1994 as they began to explore alum litter treatment.

General Chemical, an industrial chemical and derivatives company based in Parsippany, N.J., is the largest alum producer in the North America. It operates 34 alum plants in the United States and Canada, many of which located near poultry producing centers.

Oracle, UA form alliance

An agreement between the University of Arkansas and Oracle Corp. has given the university’s Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies software, support and technical participation worth more than $1.8 million.

The agreement will also allow the program to be a testing ground for future Oracle software.

The six-year-old program at the UA is at the forefront of research in the field of geographic information systems or GIS, says CAST director Fred Limp. CAST’s claim to fame is its success at integrating geographic data into databases, allowing users to add other data that corresponds with mapped information.

GIS is a fairly new discipline that uses computerized mapping information — road networks, vegetation maps, soil maps, parcel data. Limp says merging the maps with the power of database software will make it easier for companies to add value, such as customer information or market research, to spatial data.

“We’re going to be using [the Oracle software] to create a very large database, almost at terabyte [1 million megabytes] in size, of Arkansas spatial information that anyone around the state can access via the Internet,” Limp says.

The CAST program is set up as a business incubator and makes its technology available to various commercial interests.

“We’ll be developing software solutions that Oracle could take advantage of, or a small startup firm might build on or grow,” Limp says.

Oracle is the Redwood Shores, Calif., company that’s driving the market for inexpensive network computers. The company is initially giving the university Oracle8, the company’s database platform and an add-on cartridge that was designed to manage geographic data.

UA chancellor

hires administrators

John White, who took over last summer as chancellor of the University of Arkansas’ Fayetteville campus, has hired two new administrators.

White named Chauncey Brummer, a UA associate professor of law, as deputy to the chancellor; and Gary Standridge, an assistant superintendent at the Fayetteville School District, as special liaison for public schools.

Brummer will be paid $91,290 annually, equivalent to what he was paid as a law professor. Standridge will receive $60,000 a year.

Since White became chancellor, two UA administrators — William Outhouse, interim vice chancellor for university advancement, and Jim Isch, vice chancellor for finance and administration — have announced they are leaving this spring for jobs elsewhere. n