Improved Means for the Recovery of Tin and Iron from Tin Plate Scrap or other Waste Material from Tinned Goods.
Year: 1892

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Mar., 1892
Complete Specification Left, 15th Dec., 1892-Accepted, 4th Feb., 1893
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improved Means for the Recovery of Tin and Iron from Tin Plate
Scrap or other Waste Material from Tinned Goods.
We, JOHN GEORGE HERBERT BATCHELOR of Penarth Glamorganshire,
Electrical Engineer, and CYRIL TALWORTH BATCHELOR of Bank Buildings
Cardiff, Civil Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
This invention has for its object the complete separation of the tin from the
iron or steel of tin plate scrap.
This we find can be most effectually and cheaply done by means of the electric
current in a suitable bath, provided the solution is rich in tin, and a low voltage is
employed.
In order that it may be possible to force a sufficiently large current of electricity
through the bath or baths while at the same time the voltage of the current is
sufficiently low we form the scrap tin into anodes by compressing it in a mold and
to such a density that it retains its form when removed and at the same time not so
dense that the action of the electricity in the acid stannic chloride or other solution
employed, in which it is afterwards placed, hung alternately with cathode plates,
shall be impeded.
These anode slabs are prefferably made from 3 inches to 6 inches thick so that
the voltage used in the bath shall not rise (owing to the distance of the centre of
the scrap anode from the cathode) much to more than the counter electro-motivé
force gradually produced by the baring of the iron at the points nearest the cathode
plates, thus preventing the iron becoming desolved before that portion of the tin
which is furthest from the cathode.
In order that these compressed slabs of waste tin plate may be more conveniently
handled and electrically connected in the baths, and at the same time to stiffen &
keep them in true form, they are made by placing in the mold a wooden or other
foot plate to which metal rods are attached, so shaped as to allow of hanging &
electrically connecting them.
As by the use of our compressed anodes the power required is so much reduced,
we find that the galvanic battery in which the cleaned iron of the scrap in a
compressed form may be used as the desolving plate, becomes a cheap source of the
electric current required..
Dated this Sixteenth day of March 1899
J. G. HERBERT BATCHELOR.
CYRIL T. BATCHELOR.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improved Means for the Recovery of Tin and Iron from Tin Plate
Scrap or other Waste Material from Tinned Goods.
We, JOHN GEORGE HERBERT BATCHELOR of Penarth Glamorganshire,
Mechanical Engineer, & CYRIL TALWORTH BATCHELOR of Penarth Glamorgan-
shire, Civil Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in
and by the following statement:—
This invention has for its object the complete.separation of the tin from the iron
or steel of the tin plate scrap.
This we find can be most effectually and cheaply done by means of the electric

page_text: current in a suitable bath provided the solution is rich in tin and a low voltage is
employed.
In order that it may be possible to force a sufficiently large current of electricity
through the bath or baths while at the same time the voltage of the current is
sufficiently low, we form the scrap tin into anodes by compressing it in a mold and
to such a density that it retains its form when removed and at the same time not so
dense that the action of the electricity in the acid stannic chloride or other solution
employed, in which it is afterwards placed, between kathode plates, shall be
impeded.
These anode slabs are prefferably made from 3 inches to 6 inches thick so that
the voltage used in the bath shall not rise (owing to the distance of the centre of
the scrap anode from the kathode) to much more than the counter electro-motive
force gradually produced by the bareing of the iron at the points nearest to the
kathode plates, thus preventing the iron becoming dissolved before that portion of
the tin which is furthest from the kathode.
The compressed slabs having been made by ramming a sufficient quantity of the
scrap into a mold of the required shape & size, prefferably 2 feet long 18 inches deep
and about 6 inches wide, and open at the top and bottom: the mold is opened and
the rough compressed slab taken out and placed with several others in the depositing
vats or baths, and connected electrically in any convenient manner, but prefferably
by stout copper wire slings, with the positive pole of the generator of the electric
current, a kathode plate being placed between each two slabs and connected to the
pagative pole of the generator or to the compressed anode slabs in the next bath
or vat.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim is,
The improved means of applying the electric current to the scrap, according to
which, the scrap is first compressed in a mold to the form of a rough slab, of such
a density that it retains its shape when removed, and is then hung in any convenient
imanner in a suitable bath between kathode plates and connected with the source of
the electric current.
Dated this 12th dow of November 1800