AN IMPROVED METHOD OF TREATING IRON ORE OR IRON STONE DURING ITS MANUFACTURE INTO PIG IRON, THE SAME BEING ALSO APPLICABLE TO THE TREATMENT OF PIG IRON
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Edward Jones at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 7th March 1879.
THOMAS EDWARD JONES, of Albion Place, Lightburne Park, in the County of
Lancastor. "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF TREATING IRON ORE OR IRON STONE
DURING ITS MANUFACTURE INTO PIG IRON, THE SAME BEING ALSO APPLICABLE TO
THE TREATMENT OF PIG IRON."
Iron stone or iron ore, such as for instance, that found in the district of
Cleveland, frequently contains a percentage of phosphorus and other injurious
elements, which by the existing methods are not removed in the process of smelting,
and the present Invention consists in an improved method of treating such iron ore
or iron stone in such a manner as to prevent the phosphorus or other injurious
matters contained in such iron ore or iron stone from entering into combination
with the pig iron, and also to free pig iron from phosphorus.
To the iron stone or iron ore, or the fuel used in the blast or other furnace,
either before the fuel is put into such furnace or afterwards, or at the same time, or
during the manufacture of coke when that substance (as is generally the case) is
the fuel employed is added a quantity of either rock salt as obtained from the salt
mines, and kelp (incinerated sea weed), the seaweed itself, or either of them, or by
preference, when it is desired to obtain a superior kind of iron, a mixture of rock
salt and kelp or seaweed is employed. The rock salt and kelp or sea-weed supply
the metals sodium and potassium to the contents of the blast or other furnace,
which metals entering into chemical combination with the phosphorus contained in
the iron ore or iron stone, or pig iron under treatment, form phosphides or
phosphates. The other injurious elements are withdrawn in a similar manner, as
sulphides, sulphates, or silicates, as the case may be. The quantity of rock salt and
kelp if used together should be about a quarter of a hundred weight of each to
each ton of iron stone smelted. If the rock salt alone, or the kelp alone be
employed then from half a hundred weight to three quarters of a hundred weight
of that which is selected should be put into the blast or other furnace to each ton
of iron stone. These quantities will vary according to the percentage of metallic
iron in the iron stone or iron ore. If sea weed is employed instead of kelp it
must be used in quantities from six to twelve times greater than those of kelp as
previously mentioned.
The more rock salt, or kelp, or scaweed employed the less lime stone (now
generally used as a flux) will be needed. The rock salt and kelp or sea weed

page_text: should be introduced into the furnace with the ore and the fuel, and the blast
furnace worked in the ordinary way. If it is desired to purify pig iron contaminated,
by the presence of phosphorus or other deleterious substances the iron can be
remelted in contact with the rocksalt and kelp or seaweed or either of them, when
the phosphorus or other deleterious substances will be withdrawn or sufficiently
removed, so as to render the iron available for general purposes, and for its
manufacture into steel.
Instead of rock salt, salt cake can in certain cases be advantageously employed
in the same manner and proportion as rock sält, but the latter is on account of its
inexpensive character preferred.