IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING ORE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS THERE- FROM
Year: 1857

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Christopher Binks, of the City of London, in the
County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING
ORE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS THERE-
FROM."
Sealed the 23rd June 1857, and dated the 3rd January 1857.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Christopher Binks at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
3rd January 1857.
I, CHRISTOPHER BINKS, of the City of London, in the County of Middlesex,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
TREATING ORE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS THERE-
FROM," to be as follows:-
My improvements consist in mixing with iron ore, or with the fuel used to
smelt and reduce iron ore, or in adding along with the ore the fuel and other
materials employed in blast furnaces in the reduction of iron ores for the pro-
duction of iron or pig iron, an alkali, or an alkaline carbonate, or alkaline
carburet, such as carbonate of sola, or materials that under the conjoint action

page_text: of the temperature of and the materials present in a blast furnace, for manu-
facturing iron, are capable of producing soda, or its carbonate, or its carburet.
The materials for this purpose may be ground up or otherwise intimately
nixed with the iron ore, or with the fuel, or. all together; or thrown into the
furnace without any previous operation for intimately mixing together the ore,
the alkali, or its elements, and other materials employed in the manufacture of
iron, after the manner of throwing into or feeding the furnace with the ore,
the fuel and the flux, as is practised under the present system. By the re-
actions of the alkali in contact with the metal at or about the moment of its
reduction, the purification of the metal from sulphur, phosphorus, silica, and
other impurities is facilitated; and, concurrently with this act of purification
of the metal, combinations of the alkali, and other elements present, produce
compounds as products of the operations of the furnace, that constitute, as well
as does the iron, valuable articles of manufacture, namely, an alkaline cyanide
or cyanuret mixed with sulphur, phosphorus, and other elements in several
forms of chymical combination, and having important industrial applications,
and available for the preparation from such mixture of other valuable
compounds.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Christopher Binks in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
3rd July 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHRISTOPHER
BINKS, of the City of London, in the County of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Third day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, in the twentieth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Christopher Binks, Her special licence that I, the said Christopher Binks,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Christopher
Binks,
executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during
the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
TREATING ORE IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON, AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS THERE-

page_text: FROM, upon the condition (amongst others) that 1, the said Christopher Dinks,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or
their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and
ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same
was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal
Patent Office within six calendar months next and immediately after 'tho
date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Christopher Binks, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following state-
ment:-
The objects of my Invention are to effect, among the materials present, in
and through the operations of the blast furnace (when those operations are
applied to the reduction of iron ores), the production of certain cyanogen
compounds simultaneously or conjointly with the reduction of the ore, and the
purification of the metal and of the fuel; in other words, to effect the removal
from the metal of certain impurities that may be or that are commonly
contained in the ore itself, or to prevent certain impurities that may be con-
tained in the fuel, or that are peculiar to some kinds of fuel, from being taken
up by the metal in the process of reduction, and so to conduct those reducing
and purifying operations that there shall be obtained concurrently, and as
special products of the operations of the furnaces, certain cyanogen compounds,
to be applied to other industrial purposes.
And my Invention consists in the employment, in the manner and in the
relative proportions, as herein-after specified, of alkaline matter, in addition in
some instances but in others in place of lime, or of silica, or of other fluxing
materials that are commonly used, to aid the reduction of the ore and the
purification of the metal.
The kinds of iron ore with which I prefer to operate are those that are the
freest from alumina and from silica, such as good hematite, magnetic and
specular iron ore, and other peroxides of iron, spathose iron ore, or carbonate
of iron, black band, &c. &c. ; but I do not confine the operations to the use of
these only. When operating upon tolerably pure or rich ores the usual
addition of lime as the fluxing agent may be dispensed with, and the alkaline
matter only be employed as the flux. But these processes can with advantage
be carried on by superadding the alkaline matter to the materials ordinarily
used in the blast furnace operations, namely, to the ore, the limestone, and fuel,
or to mixtures of different kinds of ores and the fuel.

page_text: The kind of alkaline matter that I prefer to use is soda, in form preferably
of carbonate of soda, but potash or the potash carbonate may also be employed;
or there may be used any other convenient materials that under the conditions
of the operations of a blast furnace will yield an alkali, an alkaline carbonate;
or a carburet. The quantity of carbonate of soda (when that is the alkaline
compound employed) that I prefer to use is relatively to the quantity of fuel,
jn proportions varying from two to. ten per cent. of the fuel, such proportions
varying according to the kind of fuel, and to the greater or less purity both of
it and of the ore; the intention in respect of proportions being that there
shall be present as much alkaline base as, on the one hand, shall not interfere
with the free combustion of the fuel or the heat activity of the furnace, and,
on the other, shall be sufficient fully to combine with and retain the impurities
of the orc, or of the fuel, or of both, and with such impurities shall form
compounds that are readily fusible, and consequently easily separable from the
refined and fluid metal. I do not confine my operations to the use of pro-
portions within these limits, for a larger proportion of alkali may in some cases
be used with advantage; for with regard to the relative proportion of alkali in
any case, it is, as just stated, chiefly to be kept in view, that that quantity shall
not be so great as to interfere with the active combustion of the fuel, and
consequent heat-giving and reducing action of the furnace, and that there
shall also be always present the requisite quantity of fuel or of carbonaceous
matter to subserve these purposes, and also to contribute to and secure the
formation of cyanogen, and thence of a cyanide. But the relative proportions
above given are those found to subserve these purposes conveniently and
generally. But bearing in mind these provisions and precautions, it is desirable
so to apportion the quantity of alkali as to make the operations of the furnaces
yield as large a proportion of cyanogen products as possible: first, because the
larger the proportion of this reagent present, and in contact with the ore or
the reduced metal during the operations, the more complete is the final
purification of the metal; and, secondly, because of the value of the mixed
cyanogen product these operations result in producing; the larger such produce
is, the more profitable is the entire working of the furnace. As to the mixing
of the materials, or the order of making their addition to the furnace, I prefer
to mix the alkali or alkaline materials direct with the fuel, and to charge the
furnace with alternate batches of the broken or the roasted ore and this
alkalized fuel; but I do not confine myself to this order, as the whole may by
ony convenient method be intimately mixed together before being thrown into
the furnace; or the ore and the alkaline matter may be mixed together and

page_text: the fuel added separately. When charcoal or raw coal is the fuel used, the
dry alkali may be mixed with it, or the charcoal or coal be impregnated with
or have.thrown upon it a solution of the alkali. When coke is used it may be
treated in the same manner; or the original coal before being coked may
be mixed with the dry alkali, or be impregnated with or have thrown upon it
a solution of the alkali, and so on. But for most practical purposes the
throwing in of the dry alkali or the alkali-giving materials along with
the ore and the fuel (after the manner now practised, when, for example, lime
is the flux used,) will be found both convenient and effective.
The operations of a blast furnace so charged, and which in other respects is
worked in the usual manner, result in the abstraction from the metal (through
the formation of compounds with the alkaline matter) of the sulphur, the
phosphorous, the silicon, or the silica, and of some other impurities in the ore,
and of like impurities from the fuel, in the complete or better reduction to
the metallic state of the iron oxides present, together with the concurrent
formation of an alkaline cyanide, holding combined or mixed with it the
impurities of the fuel and of the ore. This alkaline compound, or mixture of
compounds, so produced, accumulates in the well of the furnace, along with or
floating upon the surface of the molten metal, and in their fluid or semi-fluid state
may from time to time be run off, or be otherwise removed from the furnace.
This alkaline product consists, finally and generally, of a mixture, in varying
proportions, of some still unreduced carbonate of soda (when a soda compound
is the alkaline matter used), some silicate of soda, some carburet, cyanide, and
sulphrocyanide of sodium along with phosphorus, &c., and the whole is
valuable (for example) in its application as manures, or as a crude cyanized
material out of which to manufacture other and well-known compounds of
cyanogen.
It is well known that alkaline matters have been proposed to be used in the
operations of the blast furnace, or have incidentally been conveyed along with
the other materials into that operation, but such appliances have hitherto been
made only in such comparatively minute proportions as not to be effective as
purifying agents, and have never previously been so applied or operated with
as to produce cyanogen compounds as special objects of manufacture.
What I claim as my Invention is, the addition, in the manner and in the
relative proportions above specified, of alkaline matters along with ordinary
fluxing materials.
And I claim the substitution of alkaline matters in place of lime and other
ordinary fluxing agents for the special and concurrent purposes of reducing

page_text: the ore and of purifying the metal, and of producing simultaneously valuable
cyanogen and other compounds, in the manner as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Christopher Binks, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Third day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
Witness,
CHRISTOPHER BINKS. (L.S.)
HENRY FLETCHER, Patent Agent,
123, Chancery Lane, London,