Improvements in Process of Manufacturing Oxides.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 9th Dec., 1898-Accepted, 21st Jan., 1899
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Process of Manufacturing Oxides.
We, CHARLES SCHENCK BRADLEY, Electrical Engineer, and CHARLES BORROWS
JACOBS,, Chemist, residing respectively at Avon, in the County of Livingston,
State of New York, and at East Orange, in the County of Essex, State of New
Jersey, United States of America, 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 relates to the manufacture of oxides of the earths or metals, and
particularly such as do not occur in nature and which have an important use
in the arts. The object of the invention is to cheapen the manufacture and
simplify the method by which they are produced. The invention depends upon
a discovery made by us that when a metallic carbide is fused with a fusible
hydroxide a reaction takes place in which sufficient heat to start the reaction
only is required the heat disengaged by the reaction being sufficient to preserve
the continuity of the operation and maintain the bath in a state of fusion until
the reaction is completed. The invention is particularly applicable to barium
oxide. This substance does not occur in nature and has a large use in the arts
for the manufacture of peroxide of hydrogen, which is easily made from barium
peroxide, into which the oxide may be readily converted by forcing air into or
through it at a suitable temperature. In producing the barium oxide we fuse
together in a retort carbide of barium and barium hydrate in their molecular
equivalent proportions and ground and intimately mixed. The retort is raised
at the start to a temperature sufficient to produce fusion of the hydroxide, which
reacts upon the carbide forming barium oxide and acetylene C,H, or some of
its homologues, which passes off from the bath and may be collected for immediate
use or for further treatment. This part of the invention is herein referred to
only because it is an incidental product of the reactions involved in the process
to which this application is directed; it will be fully described and claimed in a
copending application filed by us. Other oxides may be similarly produced from
their carbides by causing them to react upon a hydroxide in general, whether
such hydroxide be one of the metals with which the carbon is combined into
carbide or of any other metal. The invention is of special value in the produc-
tion of barium oxide for the reason that the reaction leaves the product in a
porous or a honeycombed state of special advantage for the access of air or other
oxidising agent to all parts of the mass during the process of peroxidation into
the Ba0, which has a large and important use in the arts for the production
of peroxide of hydrogen as above referred to. The reaction for the production
of barium oxide may be stated thus:
Bac+Ba (OH). 2 Ba0+(CH) X

page_text: The oxides of other metals may be formed in the same way.
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:-
1. The hereindescribed process of producing an oxide consisting in fusing
together a carbide of the base whose oxide is to be made and a fusible hydroxide.
2. The process of making an oxide consisting in fusing together a carbide of
the base whose oxide is to be made and a hydroxide of the same base.
3. The hereindescribed process of making barium oxide consisting of fusing
together barium carbide and barium hydrate.
Dated this 8th day of December 1898.
WM. P. THOMPSON & Co.,
Of 6, Lord Street, Liverpool, Agents for the Applicantis.