The
M. W. Kellogg Company, headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, specialized in chemical engineering projects. A year before the Manhattan Project began, the
S-1 Section of the
Office of Scientific Research and Development asked Kellogg to work with
John R. Dunning and other scientists at
Columbia University to ascertain the feasibility of gaseous diffusion. The pilot project at Kellogg was led by Percival C. "Dobie" Keith, The newly formed Kellex company was headquartered in the
Woolworth Building in
Lower Manhattan, co-located with the New York Area Engineers Office, which oversaw the contract and the nearly one hundred
Special Engineer Detachment personnel which had been assigned to the firm headquarters. in Kellogg's Jersey City plant, and at the
Clinton Engineer Works in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Kellex was charged with developing processes and equipment and to design the plant. Several technical challenges needed to be met before gas extraction techniques could be effectively applied to separation of uranium. Such a system would need an adequate porous barrier, a workable gas pump, and a pipe that could resist the corrosive effects of uranium hexafluoride gas. Scientists and engineers were developing technology for the proposed production plant at the same time that architects were designing a building to house it. == References ==