The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-09-07
WONDERS OF ELEcTRo-cHEMIs-
TRY.
Industry Still in It's Infancy Of Great
est Value to the
World.

Industry Still In It's Infancy Of Great
est Value to the
World.
Electricity was first produced In
large quantities by chemical action.
Volta an italian physician made the
first chemical battery more than a
hundred years ago and at that early
date began the study Of electro-cnem-
istry. The scientists OF that day noted
the effect Of electricity on chemicals,
metals and other materials.
Volta had no sooner perfected his
battery than huge voltaic cells were
assembled in every city in Europe.
Great volumes Of current were OBJ
tanned in this way, rising to pressures
which were extreme for those early
days OF electricity. This first steady
flow of electricity was used chiefly for
chemical experiments as no one
dreamed then OF the telegraph. the
telephone or the electric power
Nicholson parted water into hydrogen
and oxygen gases. Davy separated
sodium from soda, and potassium from
potash; electricity first fused each
salt then jostled is molecules into
atoms 1t was then that Davy passed
from chemistry into illumination and
perfected the first electric lamp.
The art Of plating inferior metals
with gold and silver was discovered
and commercialized long before the
first electrical generator was produc.
ed. In fact, it was the electroplating
factories, such as those of Providence
and Birmingham, demanding cheap
electricity in their wholesale deposit
ton OF metals from solutions that gave
the first stimulus to the invention Of
the electric dynamo.
The manufacture OF aluminium by
electricity began only about twenty
years ago and is now the largest cleo
tro-chemical industry. All of this val
liable metal. noted for great strength
and light weight, is separated from
clay by AN electrical process.
Within the twenty years since that
date great strides have been made; a
number OF chemical and metallurgical
processes having been converted into
electro-chemical and electro-metalIur-
gical ones in a very successful way,
and to the advantage of the Industrial
world, while at least five new ma.
terials, previously unknown, are now
sold in the worlds Misunderstanding
been made possible by electro-chemis-
try.
Electro chemistry is, in fact, Gre
ator, Transforming the cheap, and per-
chance, useless wastes into products
of value. It's works either with the
silent electric current or by the stress
of heat. 1t lends itself to the ready
adjustment Of temperatures from that
of the atmosphere to the highest at
tainable on earth, one in which the
metals, rocks and all things earthly
disappear In vapor. 1t tears asunder
the elements as joined by Nature and
rearranges them under mans guild
ance. Thus 1t has made ordinary sand
unite with carbon and form the we'll
known produce "carborundum In
another instance, 1t converts "culm"-
the waste material of the anthracite
coal mines-into valuable graphite.
In another case it has enabled us to
extract from sand metallic silicon, a
colored body. which has found a place
in our arts and manufacturers. AS
another example, 1t fuses In the cleo
tric furnace the soft amorphous baux-
lite into "alundum,' suitable for use as
an abrasive and refractory material
And in still another case, lime and car
bon are made to unite In the electric
furnace to form the valuable product
carbide OF calcium, now we'll known
as the source from which our familiar
acetylene light is obtained Electro.
chemists are now earnestly at work on
problems of even greater magnitude
than any OF these, as, for instance, the
OF iron and steel;
and all this without calling upon our
exhaustible natural resources, but by
the utilization of the energy of a wa.
terfall.
The first hydro-electric power plant
Of considerable magnI eude in this
country was put into operation at
Niagara Falls in the fall of 1895, since
which date quite an electro-chemical
center has sprung up at that point,
and there is now approximately 1885,
900 horsepower being utilized in the
work OF producing phosphorus. carbide
Of calcium, alundum, caustic alkalf.
bleaching powder, metallic sodium.
metallic silicon, carborun-
dunn. artificial graphite. chlorate OF
potash and other products, TIL, united
values Of their annual production to