Bisbee daily review., 1915-05-23
.HYDRO- VACUUM FURNACE IS
 REALITY
Mining Student at the Uni versity of California Per fleets a Furnace which Will Revolutionize Industry.

BERKELEY, May 22-Tne pracucM operation of a hydro-vaccum furnace has been demonstrated i'm the mining engineering laboratory by Bruce Mar quad, a senior in the mining college og the University Mir. Marquad's graduation thesis just completed IS based on six months chemical and physical laboratory work undertaken Co establish the theory that crude oil. California product, can ye used in the ore smelting industry with great CT economy than English coke deyel- Oping a temperature of over 40O0 de- erees Fahrenheit; ria; tue smoke stalks are no longer necessary to high temperature furnaces. a-s --iac smo.;e containing sulphur gases can be pass ed through water and soId sulphur recovered. The entire success has been accomplished through the appli- cation of a centrifugal pump equipped with an oieCtor.
 Mir. Marquad's research work in. volved the task Of the actual construc- ton and operation of a furnace which was built on lines diametrically op- posed 10 the present socaiied blast furnace now commonly employed in the steel, iron and smelting industries. The result obtained are regarded as highly important contributions 10 the engineering world because of the ab- soute control of oxygen in the com bustion of fuel Modern mechanical apparatus through the rests made. has demonstrated that the blast furn- ace has served its purpose and is ob- selete
 The laboratory work proved that 3l2 barrels of fuel oil, costing ap- proNimately 65c per barrel, will gen crate British thermal un:,s oI hea, equal Go a ton ot coke costing $22.OO and that the type of furnace, which has no smoke stack allows the smelt- ing Of sulphurous ores (copper) with out generating s O 2, sulphuric acid gas, which has heretofore been the insurmountable problem to the copper and ore mining companies of this state, notably at Coram Keswick, Kennett and other localities on the Shasta copper lode
 A third item of importance, and one regarded as highly improbable until the laboratory work has been submit ted, was the recovery Of sulphurous gases as solid 92 per cent pure metal lie sulphur in the water tank unit of the furnace The chemical laboratory tests proved two fundamental chemi- cal reactions, heretofore never asso- ciated and which Mr Marquad thes- is contend for l. e.
 CD SOP plus 2H2O equals
 2H2O plus 3S @ H2O plus Fe S2 equals
 Fe o plus H2S plus s The first reaction proves that sul- phur dioXide gas and hydrogen sul- phide gas combined uncer neat give water and solid sulphur.
 The second reaction proves that water. in the form of steem and com bined with pyrite (iron sulphide) gives iron oxide, hydrogen sulphide and sulphur In the laboratory work the sulphur in both cases was con densed in a water tank.
 The chemical laboratory work es- tablishes the fact that if these chems- cal reactions could be controlled in a furnace, the so-called sulphur ume" pro nm would be solved for the smelters Mir Marquad was then
 
 sam, associate professor of metal lurgy under whose observations the thesis work was being done to con. struct a furnace whic- ,ne student contend would afford the proper con trol of oxygen. The construction was accomplished in the Hearst Memorial Mining Building physical laboratory The plant consisted of a seven-hun dred-pound capacity hre-bricked ore smelting cylinder mounted on con crete base and equipped with oil burners A syphon leading from the the top of the smeltiag cylinder con nected with a yaccum cnamDer at tached to a centrifugal pump. The pump was equipped with an ejectol discharging a stream of water at a rate of 1.125 gallons per minute into the vacuum chamber The vacuum created was of greater efficiency fol draft purpose than that of the pre- sent furnace chimney. Tns plant wat operated by a 30 h. h. electric motol attached to a 6-inch pump. Smoke and fumes drawn of the top of tho
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