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R6Y31F . 2.435 1( 28>, oblong See also:iron See also:pan, the bottom of which slopes from both sides to a narrow channel. The latter rests on a See also:brick See also:pillar; the remaining See also:part of the sloping bottom is heated, either by the See also:waste See also:fire from a See also:black-ash See also:furnace or by a See also:special fireplace. This arrangement has the effect that the salts, as they See also:separate out, slide down the sloping part and arrive in the central channel, which is not exposed to the fire-gases, so that they quietly See also:settle there, without caking to the pan, until they are fished out by means of perforated ladles. These See also:boat-pans were for many years almost everywhere employed, and did their See also:work quite well, but rather expensively. At many See also:works they have been replaced by either Thelen pans or vacuum pans. The " Thelen pan " (thus named from its inventor, a foreman at the Rhenania works near Aachen) is a mechanically worked fishing-pan, which requires considerably less labour and See also:coal than See also:ordinary boat-pans. It is a See also:long trough, of nearly semi-circular See also:section, the whole bottom being exposed to the fire-gases. A See also:horizontal See also:shaft runs length-ways through the trough, and is provided with stirring See also:blades, arranged in such a manner that they constantly scrape the bottom, so that the salts cannot See also:burn fast upon it, and are at the same See also:time moved forward towards one of the ends of the trough where they are automatically removed by means of a See also:chain of buckets. The most efficient evaporating apparatus, as far as See also:economy of See also:fuel is concerned, is the vacuum-pan, of which from two to five are combined to See also:form a set, but it has the See also:drawback that the removal of the salts is much more difficult than with the older pans, described above. In this apparatus only the first of the pans is heated directly, usually by means of ordinary See also:boiler-See also:steam circulating See also:round a number of pipes, containing the liquid to be concentrated. The steam rising from the latter is passed into a similar pan, in which it circulates round another set of pipes, but as it could not bring the liquid in the latter to See also:boil under ordinary conditions, the second pan is connected with a vacuum-See also:pump so that the boiling-point of the liquid in this pan is lowered. This pan may be followed by a third pan, in which a stronger vacuum is maintained, and so forth. By this means the latent See also:heat of the steam, issuing from all pans but the last, is utilized for evaporating purposes, and from See also:half to three-fourths of the fuel is saved. After being concentrated up to a certain point, and after the separation of nearly all the salts, the See also:caustic liquor is transferred to See also:cast-iron " See also:finishing-pots " (fig. 9), holding from ten to twenty tons. Here it is further boiled down until the greater part or nearly all of the See also:water has been removed, and until the salts on cooling would set to a solid See also:mass. This requires ultimately a See also:good red heat. Before the mass has reached that point the sulphides still See also:present have been destroyed, either by the addition of solid nitrate of soda or by blowing See also:air through the red-hot melt. Before finishing, the molten mass must be kept at a quiet heat for some See also:hours in See also:order to settle out the ferric See also:oxide which it always contains, and which becomes insoluble (through the destruction of the See also:sodium ferrite) only at high temperatures. When it has completely cleared, the liquid caustic is ladled or pumped out into See also:sheet-iron drums, holding about 6 cwt. each, where it solidifies and forms the caustic soda known to See also:commerce. The best caustic soda tests from 75 to 76 degrees of " available soda "; this is only a few per cent removed from the See also:composition of pure NaOH, which would be = 77.5 degrees Na2O. Most of the caustic soda is sold at a strength of 70 degrees, sometimes as See also:low as 6o degrees. Caustic soda is used in very large quantities in the manufacture of See also:soap, See also:paper, textile fabrics, See also:alizarin and other colouring matters, and for many other purposes. 7. Soda-Crystals.—Another product made in See also:alkali works is soda-crystals. Their See also:formula in Na2CO3, 10H2O, corresponding to 37 % of dry sodium carbonate. They are made by dissolving ordinary soda-ash in hot water, adding a small quantity of chloride of See also:lime for the destruction of colouring See also:matter and the oxidation of any ferrous salts present, carefully settling the See also:solution, without allowing its temperature to fall below the point of maximum solubility (340 C.), and See also:running the clarified liquid into cast-iron crystallizers or " cones," where, on cooling down, most of the sodium carbonate is separated in large crystals of the decahydrated form. This See also:process lasts about a See also:week in See also:winter, and up to a fortnight in summer. In See also:France the See also:crystallization of soda is performed not in large tanks but in sheet-iron dishesholding only about 4 cwt., and requires only from 27 to 48 hours in the cool See also:season; it is not carried on at all in warmer climates during the summer months. The See also:mother-liquor, drained from the soda-crystals, on boiling down to dryness yields a very See also: The sulphur was by these converted partly into gaseous sulphuretted See also:hydrogen, partly into soluble polysulphides, thiosulphates and other soluble compounds, and in all shapes caused a See also:nuisance which became more and more intolerable as the number and See also:size of alkali works increased. Both the air and the water in their neighbourhood were contaminated thereby. Both this nuisance and the loss of the sulphur (whose cost sometimes amounted to more than . half of the See also:total cost of the soda-ash) led to many attempts at extracting the sulphur from the alkali-waste. This was first done with a certain amount of success by the processes of M. Schaffner (1861) and L. See also:Mond (1862), but as these required the use of hydrochloric acid, and as they only recovered about half of the sulphur, they were superseded by another—a process which had been originally proposed by W. Gossage in 1837, but has been made practicable only by the in- ventions of C. F. Claus, in 1883, and from 1887 onward by the technical skill of Messrs See also:Chance See also:Brothers, of See also:Oldbury. The Claus-Chance process, as it is called, comprises the following operations. The wet alkali-waste as it comes from the lixiviating vats, is transferred into upright iron cylinders in which it is systematically treated with lime-See also:kiln gases until the whole of the calcium sulphide has been converted into calcium carbonate, the See also:carbon dioxide of the lime-kiln gases being entirely exhausted. The sulphur issues as sulphuretted hydrogen, mixed with the See also:nitrogen of the air. It is mixed with fresh air containing
sufficient oxygen for the See also:combustion of the hydrogen, and the
mixture is passed through red-hot iron oxide (burnt pyrites)
which by its catalytic action causes the reaction H2S+O=
See also:H2O+S to take See also:place. By cooling the vapours the sulphur is See also:con-
densed in a very pure form, and about 85% of the whole of it is
recovered, the remaining 15% escaping in the shape of sulphur
dioxide (SO2) and H2S. Unfortunately it has been hitherto
found impossible to See also:deal with these gases in any profitable way.
It should be noted that this " recovered sulphur," which is equal in purity to the " refined brimstone " of commerce, has a far higher value than the sulphur contained in the originally employed pyrites, so that the recovery is a paying process, in spite of the somewhat considerable cost of the plant and of the working operations. It has been introduced at most large Leblanc alkali works, and has, so to say, given them a new See also:lease of See also:life.
Dec.10 5 0 2 3 4 5 6 7 3 9 1.0 Met.
I I 1 I I I I
II. THE AMMONIA-SODA PROCESS
In spite of the See also:great improvements effected during See also:recent times the Leblanc process cannot economically compete with the ammonia-soda process, principally for two reasons. The sodium in the latter See also:costs next to nothing, being obtained from natural or artificial brine in which the sodium chloride possesses an extremely slight value. The fuel required is less than half the amount used in the Leblanc process. Moreover, the ammonia process has been gradually elaborated into a very complicated but perfectly regularly working See also:scheme, in which the cost of labour and the loss of ammonia are reduced to a minimum. The only way in which the Leblanc process could still hold its own was by being turned in the direction of making caustic soda, to which it lends itself more easily than the ammonia-soda process; but the latter has invaded even this See also: One See also:advantage, however, still remained to the Leblanc process. All endeavours to obtain either hydrochloric acid or See also:free See also:chlorine in the ammonia-' soda process have proved commercial failures, all the chlorine of the sodium chloride being ultimately lost in the shape of worthless calcium chloride. The Leblanc process thus remained the See also:sole purveyor of chlorine in its active forms, and in this way the fact is accounted for that, at least in Great See also:Britain, the Leblanc process still furnishes nearly half of all the alkali made, though in other countries its proportional See also:share is very much less. The profit made upon the chlorine produced has to make up for the loss on the alkali. The ammonia-soda process was first patented in 1838 by H. G. Dyar and J. Hemming, who carried it out on an experimental See also:scale in Whitechapel. Many attempts were soon after made in the same direction, both in See also:England and on the See also:continent of See also:Europe, the most remarkable of which was the ingenious See also:combination of apparatus devised by J. J. T. Schloesing and E. See also:Rolland. But a really economical solution of the problem was first definitely found in 1872 by Ernest Solvay, as the result of investigations begun about ten years previously. The greater portion of all the soda-ash of commerce is now made by Solvay's apparatus, which alone we shall describe in this place, although it should be See also:borne in mind that the principles laid down by Dyar and Hemming have been and are still successfully carried out in a number of factories by an entirely different See also:kind of apparatus.
The leading reaction of this process is the mutual decomposition of ammonium bicarbonate and sodium chloride: NaCl+NH4HCO3 = NaHCO3+NH4Cl. It begins, however, not with ready-made ammonium bicarbonate, but with the sub-stances from which it is formed—ammonia, water and carbon dioxide—which are made to See also:act on sodium chloride. In practice the process is carried out as follows. A nearly saturated solution of sodium chloride is obtained by purifying natural or artificial brine, i.e. an impure solution of See also:common See also:salt, especially removing the alkaline earths and so forth by addition of sodium or ammonium carbonate and settling out the precipitate formed. This solution is saturated with ammonia, produced in the recovery plant (see below), in vessels provided with See also:mechanical See also:agitators and strongly cooled by coils of pipes through which See also:cold water is made to flow. These vessels, as well as all others which are used in the process, are not open to the air, but communicate with it through washers in which fresh salt solution is employed for retaining any escaping vapours of ammonia. The ammoniacal salt solution is now saturated with carbon dioxide. This is employed in the shape of lime-kiln gases, obtained in a comparatively pure and strong form (up to 33 % See also:CO2), in very large kilns, charged with lime-See also: The heat evolved by the See also:compression in the air-pumps (which rises to four atmospheres or upwards) is again removed by cooling, and the gas is now passed upwards in the " Solvay See also:tower " (fig. ro). This is a tall iron erection, built up from superposed cylinders, which are separated from one another by perforated horizontal diaphragms, con-structed in such a way that the gases are over and over again subdivided into many smaller streams and are thus thoroughly brought into contact with the ammoniacal salt solution with which the tower is about two-thirds filled. There the reaction mentioned above takes place, and owing to the concentration of the liquid the sodium bicarbonate formed is to a great extent precipitated in the shape of small crystals, forming with the mother-liquor a thin magma. This takes place with considerable See also:evolution of heat which is removed by See also:internal and See also:external cooling with water. The temperature must not be allowed to rise beyond a certain point, for the reaction NaCl+ NH4HCO3 =. NaHCO3+NH4C1 is reversible, and at a temperature of about 6o° or 7o° C. it is in fact practically going the wrong way, viz. from right to See also:left. On the other See also:hand the cooling must not be carried too far, for in this See also:case the crystals of sodium bicarbonate become so See also:fine that the muddy mass is very difficult to See also:filter. The best temperature seems to be about 3o° C. Either at certain intervals, or continuously, a portion of the contents of the tower is withdrawn and fresh ammoniacal salt solution is introduced higher up. The muddy liquid running out is passed on to the vacuum filters (Z, fig. io). Here a separation takes place between the crystals of sodium bicarbonate and the mo ther-liquor. The former are washed with water until the chlorides are nearly removed, and are then carried into the drying apparatus. This must be constructed in such a manner that the bicarbonate, which always contains some ammonium salts, is first freed from these by moderate See also:heating (of course taking care that the ammonia is completely recovered), and later on, by raising the temperature, it is decomposed into solid sodium carbonate and gaseous carbon dioxide. The former needs only grinding to constitute the final product, ammonia-soda ash; the latter is again employed in the process of treating the ammoniacal salt solution with carbon dioxide. Various forms of apparatus are employed for this treatment of the crude bicarbonate—sometimes semi-circular troughs with mechanical agitators on the principle of the Thelen pan (see above)—all acting on the principle that the escaping ammonia and carbon dioxide must be fully utilized over again. The soda-ash obtained in the end is of a high degree of purity, testing from 98 to 99% Na2CO3, the remaining r or 2% consisting principally of NaCl. A very important part of the process has still to be described, viz. the recovery of the ammonia from the mother-liquor coming from the vacuum filters and various washing liquors. Unless From See also:Thorpe's See also:Dictionary of Applied See also:Chemistry, by permission of Longman, See also:Green & Co. this recovery is carried out in the most efficient manner, the process cannot possibly pay; but so much progress has been made in this direction that the loss of ammonia is very slight indeed, merely a fraction per cent. The ammonia is for the See also:major part found in the mother-liquor as ammonium chloride. A smaller but still considerable portion exists here and in the washings in the shape of ammonium See also:carbonates. These compounds differ in their behaviour to heat. The ammonium carbonates are driven out from their solutions by See also:mere prolonged boiling, being thereby decomposed into ammonia, carbon dioxide and water, but the ammonium chloride is not volatile under these conditions, and must be decomposed by See also:milk of lime: 2NH;CI+Ca(OH)2=2NH3+CaCI>-I-2H20. The solution of calcium chloride is run to waste, the ammonia is re-introduced into the process. Both these reactions are carried out in tall cylindrical columns or " stills," consisting of a number of superposed cylinders, having perforated horizontal partitions, and provided with a steam-heating arrangement in the enlarged bottom portion. The milk of lime is introduced at a certain distance from the bottom. The steam causes the action of the lime on the ammonium chloride to take place in this See also:lower portion of the still, from which the steam, mixed with all the liberated ammonia, rises into the upper portion of the See also:column where its heat serves to drive out the volatile ammonium carbonate. Just below the top there is a cooling arrangement, so that nearly all the water is condensed and runs back into the column, while the ammonia, with the carbon dioxide formerly combined with part of it, passes on first through an outside cooler where the remaining water is condensed, and afterwards into the vessels, already described, where the ammonia is absorbed by a solution of salt and thus again introduced into the process. The reversible See also:character of the See also:principal reaction has the consequence that a considerable portion of the sodium chloride (up to 33 %) is lost, being contained in the waste calcium chloride solution which issues from the ammonia stills. This is, however, not of much importance, as it had been introduced in the shape of a brine where its value is very slight (6d. per ton of NaCl). It is true that all the chlorine combined with the sodium is lost partly as NaCl and partly as CaCl2; ; none of the innumerable attempts at recovering the chlorine from the waste liquor has been made to pay, and success is less likely than ever since the perfection of the electrolytic processes. (See CHLORINE.) For all that, especially in consequence of the small amount of fuel required, and the total See also:absence of the See also:necessity of employing sulphur compounds as an intermediary, the ammonia-soda process has supplanted the Leblanc process almost entirely on the continent of Europe and to a great extent in Great Britain. In theory by far the simplest process for making alkalis together with free chlorine is the See also:electrolysis of sodium (or See also:potassium) chloride. When this takes place in an aqueous solution, the alkaline See also:metal at once reacts with the water, so that a solution of an alkaline See also:hydrate is formed while hydrogen escapes. The reactions are therefore (we shall in this case speak only of the sodium compounds): (I) NaC1=Na+Cl, (2)Na+H20= NaOH+H. The chlorine escapes at the anode, the hydrogen at the See also:cathode. If the chlorine and the sodiun hydrate can act upon each other within the liquid, bleach-liquors are formed: 2NaOH+C12= NaOCI+NaCl+H20. The See also:production of these for the use of papermakers and bleachers of textile fabrics has become an important See also:industry, but does not enter into our See also:province. If, however, the action of the chlorine on the sodium hydrate is prevented, which can be done in various ways, they can both be collected in the isolated See also:state and utilized as has been previously described, viz. the chlorine can be used for the manufacture of liquid chlorine, See also:bleaching-See also:powder or other bleaching compounds, or See also:chlorates, and the solution of sodium hydrate can be sold as such, or converted into solid caustic soda. Precisely the same can be done in the electrolysis of potassium chloride. There is a third way of conducting the action, viz. so that the chlorine can act upon the caustic soda or potash at a higher concentration and temperature, in which case chlorates are directly formed in the liquid: KC1+3H20=KC1O3-l-3H2. This has indeed become the principal, because it is the cheapest, process for the manufacture of potassium and sodium chlorate. Perchlorates can also be made in this way. In all these cases the chlorine, or the products made from it, really See also:play •a greater part than the alkali. From 58.5 parts by See also:weight of NaCl we obtain theoretically 23Na=4ONaOH 53Na2CO3, together with 35.5 Cl, or See also:loo bleaching-powder. As the weight of bleaching-powder consumed in the See also:world is at most one-fifth of that of alkali, calculated as Na2CO3, it follows that only about one-tenth of all the alkali required could be made by electrolysis, even supposing the Leblanc process to be entirely abolished. The remaining nine-tenths of alkali must be supplied from other See also:sources, chiefly the ammonia-soda process. As long as the operation of the Leblanc process is continued, it will See also:supply a certain share of both kinds of products. See also:Trust-worthy See also:statistics on this point cannot be obtained, because most firms withhold any See also:information as to the extent of their production from the public. The first See also:patents for the electrolysis of alkaline chlorides were. taken out in 1851 and several others later on; but commercial success was utterly impossible until the invention of the See also:dynamo See also:machine allowed the production of the electric current at a sufficiently cheap See also:rate. The first application of this machine for the present purpose seems to have been made in 1875 and the number of patents soon rapidly increased; but although a large amount of See also:capital was invested and many very ingenious inventions made their See also:appearance, it took nearly another twenty years before the manufacture of alkali in this way was carried out in a continuous way on a large scale and with profitable results. A little earlier the manufacture of potassium chlorate (on the large scale since 189o) had been brought to a definite success by H. See also:Gall and the Vicomte A. de Montlaur; a few years later the processes worked out at the Griesheim alkali works (near See also:Frankfort) for the manufacture of caustic potash and chlorine established definitely the success of electrolysis in the field of potash, but even then none of the various processes working with sodium chloride had emerged from the experimental See also:stage. Only more recently the manufacture of caustic soda by electrolysis has also been established as a permanent and paying industry, but as the greatest secrecy is maintained in everything belonging to this domain, and as neither patent specifications nor the sanguine assertions and anticipations of interested persons throw much real See also:light on the actual facts of the case, nothing certain can be said either in regard to the date at which the profitable manufacture of caustic soda was first carried out by electrolysis, or as to what extent this is the case at the present moment. We shall here give merely an outline of those more important processes which are known to be at present working profitably on a large scale. (I) The See also:Diaphragm process is probably the only one employed at present for the decomposition of potassium chloride, and it is also used for sodium chloride. A hot, concentrated solution of the alkaline chloride is treated by the electric current in large iron tanks which at the same time serve as cathodes. The anodes are made of See also:retort-carbon or other chlorine-resisting material, and they are mounted in cells which serve as diaphragms. The material of these cells is usually See also:cement, mixed with certain soluble salts which impart sufficient porosity to the material. The electrolysis is carried on until about a See also:quarter of the chloride has been transformed; it must be stopped at this stage lest the formation of hypochlorite and chlorate should set in. The alkaline liquid is now transferred to vacuum pans, constructed in such a manner that the unchanged chloride, which " salts out " during the concentration, can be removed without disturbing the vacuum, and here at last a concentrated pure solution of KOH or NaOH is obtained which is sold in this state, or " finished " as solid caustic in the manner described in the section treating of the Leblanc soda. (2) The Castner-Kellner process employs no diaphragm, but a See also:mercurial cathode. The electrolysis takes place in the central compartment of a tripartite trough which can be made to See also:rock slightly either to one See also:side or the other. The bottom of the trough is covered with See also:mercury. The sodium as it is formed at the cathode at once dissolves in the mercury which protects it against the action of the water as long as the percentage of sodium in the mercury does not exceed, say, 0.02%. When this percentage has been reached, the See also:cell is rocked to the other side, so that the See also:amalgam flows into one of the See also:outer compartments where the sodium is converted by water into sodium hydrate. At the same time fresh mercury, from which the sodium had been previously extracted, flows from the other outside compartment into the central one. After a certain time the whole is rocked towards the other side, and the process is continued until the outer compartments contain a strong solution of caustic soda, free from chloride and hypochlorite. (3) _4ussig process.—Here the anode is fixed in a See also:bell, mounted in a larger iron tank where the cathodes are placed. The whole is filled with a solution of common salt. As the electrolysis goes on, NaOH is formed at the cathodes and remains at the bottom. The intermediate layer of the salt solution, floating over the caustic soda solution, plays the part of a diaphragm, by preventing the chlorine evolved in the bell from acting on the sodium hydrate formed outside, and this solution offers much less resistance to the electric current than the ordinary diaphragms. This process therefore consumes less See also:power than most others. (4) The Acker-See also:Douglas process electrolyses sodium chloride in the molten state, employing a cathode consisting of molten See also:lead. The latter dissolves the sodium as it is formed and carries it to an outer compartment where by the action of water the sodium is converted into caustic soda, while the lead returns to the inner compartment. This process is carried on at See also:Niagara Falls, but it is uncertain to what extent. (5) The Hargreaves-See also:Bird process avoids certain drawbacks attached to other processes, by employing a See also:Wire diaphragm and converting the caustic soda as it issues on the other side of this, by means of carbon dioxide, into a mixture of sodium carbonate and bicarbonate, which separates out in the solid state. This process is but little used. It stands to See also:reason that the electrolytic processes have been principally See also:developed in localities where the electric current can be produced in the cheapest possible manner by means of water power, but this is not the only See also:condition to be considered, as the question of See also:freight to a centre of See also:consumption and other circumstances may also play an important part. Where coal is very cheap indeed and the other conditions are favourable, it is possible to establish such an industry with a prospect of commercial success, even when the electric current is produced by means of steam-engines. Natural Soda.—This is the See also:term applied to certain deposits of alkaline salts, or their solutions, which occur, sometimes in very large quantities, in various parts of the world. The See also:oldest and best known of these are the Natron lakes in Lower See also:Egypt. The largest occurrence of natural soda hitherto known is that in See also:Owen's See also:Lake and other salt lakes situated in eastern See also:California. The soda in all of these is present as " sesquicarbonate," in reality 4'3 carbonate: NaHCO3•Na2CO3•H20, and is always mixed with large quantities of chloride and sulphate, which makes its extraction more difficult than would appear from the outset. Hence, although for many centuries (up to Leblanc's invention) hardly any soda was available except from this source, and although we now know that millions of tons of it exist, especially in the See also:west of the See also:United States, there is as yet very little of it practically employed, and that only locally. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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