Background
He was born in Narsapur in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.
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Sonti Kamesam
Edit ProfileEducation
After primary education at Visakhapatnam, he graduated from Presidency College, Chennai and obtained his Bachelor of Engineering from Guindy Engineering College.
Career
He joined in Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun and later promoted as an Expert-in-charge of Wood Preservation. He was sent to Germany for research and worked with Falk. They developed the "Falkamesam arsenic-copper mixture".
Till that time Wolman’s formulation – famously known as Wolman Salts – contained dinitrophenol, a chemical manufactured by Hicksons, United Kingdom. Number copper was used in Wolman Salts.
In India, Kamesam had been busy conducting extensive tests which showed that the performance of his Chromated Copper Arsenate mixture (which he actually called "ASCU" from the chemical symbols for copper and arsenic) was far superior to that of Wolman Salts and other preservatives. Laboratories in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France soon came to the same conclusion – that Chromated Copper Arsenate was a highly effective treatment and that the chemicals would ‘fix’ in the timber to give long-lasting protection against decay.
Kamesam sold the patent rights for Chromated Copper Arsenate in the United States to The Bell Telephone Company. They called the product ‘Greensalts’ and used it for the treatment of telegraph poles.
In 1953 Hicksons took out the remains of the ASCU patent against payment of royalties for the British Empire and Dominions and in 1964 Hicksons bought an equity share in ASCU and traded in India as ASCU/Hicksons Limited.
Kamesam his development of Chromated Copper Arsenate made him a rich man but he continued to work hard and was known in India as an outstanding timber engineer and did much to promote the use of bamboo for construction purposes. In 1936 he designed a highway bridge with a 60-foot span. In order to prove the strength of the bridge, he made two adult elephants, each weighing in at around ten tons, walk across.
He developed a wood preservative in the 1930s at the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun, India.
Kamesam obtained the United States patent rights in 1938 He sold his copy rights originally called "ASCU salts" to the Bell Telephone Company of the United States. The acronym "Chromated Copper Arsenate" is believed to have come into popular use for this product in the 1950s. In Chromated Copper Arsenate treatment, copper is the primary fungicide, arsenic is a secondary fungicide and an insecticide, and chromium is a fixative which also provides ultraviolet (Ultraviolet) light resistance.
Recognized for the greenish tint it imparts to timber, Chromated Copper Arsenate is a preservative that was extremely common for many decades. However, it contained arsenic.
After retirement he joined Tiruvankur estate as director of Development department.
He built many bridges with his preserved wood. He wrote a book on Construction of Better and cheaper highway bridges in 1943. He was awarded Doctor of Science by Andhra University for his monumental work.
He died in 1954.
