IMPROVEMENTS IN EXTRACTING COBALT,
Year: 1883

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Burgess Readman, Manager to The New
Caledonia Mines Company, Limited of Glasgow in the County of Lanark,.
North Britain for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN EXTRACTING COBALT,
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Burgess Readman.
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 13th November 1883.
JAMES BURGESS READMAN, Manager to The New Caledonia Mines Company,
Limited, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, "IMPROVEMENTS
IN EXTRACTING COBALT, NICKEL, AND MANGANESE FROM THEIR ORES
"
This Invention has for its object the extraction of cobalt, nickel, and manganese
from their ores in a simple, convenient and economical manner, and it consists
principally in treating the ores in a pulverised condition with one or more of the
chlorides of iron, calcium, strontium, or magnesium, or with any other chloride
which is soluble and otherwise suitable and convenient.
The operation is effected either by furnacing the ore and chloride, or by making
them up into an emulsion with water and thoroughly agitating the mixture for
some time, with or without the application of heat.
After treating the ore with the chloride according to either mode the soluble
chlorides are washed out from the insoluble residues, and the cobalt, nickel, and
manganese, will be found in the solutions and can be separated therefrom by
various well known processes.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said James Burgess Readman in the Patent Office on the 10th May
1884.
JAMES BURGESS READMAN, Manager to The New Caledonia Mines Company
Limited, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain "IMPROVEMENTS IN
EXTRACTING COBALT, NICKEL AND MANGANESE FROM THEIR ORES
"
My said Invention has for its object the extraction of cobalt, nickel, and
manganese from their ores in a simple, convenient and economical manner, and it
consists principally in treating the ores in a pulverised condition with one or more
of the chlorides of iron, calcium, strontium, or magnesium, or with any other chloride
which is soluble and otherwise suitable and convenient.
The operation is effected either by furnacing the ore and chloride, or by making
them up into an emulsion with water and thoroughly agitating the mixture for
some time, with or without the application of heat.
In carrying out my Invention I take the cobalt ore and having ground it to a
very fine powder I add it to a solution of, by preference, chloride of iron in the
proportion of one part by weight of ore to one and a quarter parts of (anhydrous)
chloride of iron; I do not however limit myself to these proportions. The whole
mixture is well stirred and mixed either in the bed of a reverberatory furnace or
in a preliminary mixing tank. The mixture is next evaporated to dryness in a
suitable furnace or other apparatus and the dry mass is heated to a temperature
sufficient to decompose the chloride of iron, but by preference not exceeding
700 degrees Fahrenheit and when the proper stage is attained the contents of the
apparatus are drawn out and lixiviated with water in suitable vessels. The resulting
liquid contains the chlorides of cobalt, nickel and manganese with only a small
proportion of iron. The separation of these metals can then be effected by any of
the well known methods.
Having thus particularly described my said Invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed I have to state that what I believe to be novel and original
and claim as the Invention secured to me by and in terms of the hereinbefore in
part recited Letters Patent is :—
The treatment of ores containing cobalt, nickel, and manganese with chloride of
iron or other suitable chloride substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore
described.
In Witness whereof I, the said James Burgess Readman, have hereunto set my
hand and seal this ninth day of May in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and eighty-four.