A New or Improved Process for Obtaining Aluminium and other Metals from their Ores alone, or as Alloys with Copper or other Metals.
Year: 1885

page_text: A New or Improved Process for Obtaining Aluminium and
other Metals from their Ores alone, or as Alloys with
Copper or other Metals.
OBTAINING ALUMINIUM
I, WILLIAM PHILLIPS THOMPSON,. Fel. Inst. P.A. of the Agency for Foreign
Patent Solicitors 6, Lord Street Liverpool in the County of Lancaster and
323 High Holborn in the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer do hereby declare
the nature of the said invention for "A NEW OR IMPROVED PROCESS FOR
AND OTHER METALS FROM THEIR ORES, ALONE, OR AS
ALLOYS WITH COPPER OR OTHER METALS (a communication "from abroad by
Engene. H. Cowles and Alfred H. Cowles both of Cleveland, Cuyhoga County,
State of Ohio, United States of America, Inventors), and in what inanner 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 reduction of aluminium from its ores by
electricity, and the production of the same in a pure state or as an alloy, with the
other inetals. The process is also applicable to the manufacture of alloys and
bronzes, and especially the combination of the rarer metals and metalloids; for
example, aluminium, silicium, boron and others with copper, or such other cheap
inetal as it may be proposed to use as the base of the alloy.
In a prior application for Letters Patent dated June 9th 1885, No: 6994 an
improved process of smelting ores and reducing the salts of refractory metals hy
means of electricity is described consisting briefly in the use of a body of broken
or pulverized carbon made incandescent by the passage of an electric current
through the same, and in carrying out the present invention said process is
preferably used, as being best adapted for the purpose. Ores of alumina are
reduced in said furnace by mixing them with broken or granular carbon and
passing an electric current through a charge of the mixed ore and carbon but
the product: thereby obtained, when an ore of aluminium is reduced, contains
a: considérable percentage of carbon which is taken up both chemically and
mechanically by the aluminium.
•
If however the ore of aluminium be reduced in company with tin, copper,
manganese, or other metal, which will alloy with the aluminium very little, if any,

page_text: of the carbon is taken up whereas pure aluminium will, as above stated, absorb
a very considerable percentage of carbon, more even than iron or any of the other
metals. The alloying metal may be subsequently separated from the aluminium
by almalgamation, lixiviation or equivalent process, leaving the residue aluminium
in the form of an amorphous powder or state which can be melted down into an
ingot.
To produce aluminium according to this process, a charge of the pulverized ore
of aluminium and carbon nixed is reduced by means of an electric current in
company with the alloying metal, as hereinafter described. The product thereby
obtained is an alloy of aluminium with tin, manganese, or such other metal as may
be preferred, but either tin or manganese are preferably used, and the alloy is
substantially free from carbon chemically combined therewith.
The alloy as it comes from the furnace has pieces of the carbon attached to and
embedded in it, and the carbon thus mechanically united with the alloy is easily
removed by crushing the mass and washing.
When the aluminium is alloyed with tin, silver, copper, or other easily amalga-
mated metal, the two metals are easily separated by amalgamation in the same
manner that gold or silver ores are amalgamated, the mercury takes up the
alloying metal and leaves the aluminium untouched, and the amalgamation may
be effected either with or without the use of sodium amalgam, acid, electricity or
heat, to assist and quicken the amalgamation. If manganese or some other readily
soluble metal, as zinc, or copper, is used, then any lixiviation process may be
employed that will leach out the alloying metal. The alloy may be broken into
small pieces and placed in a suitable vessel through which a lixiviating liquid such
as nitric acid and water, is caused to flow and leach out the manganese from the
alloy, the aluminium not being touched by the lixiviation process and the said
lixiviation may be assisted by other acids, heat or electricity as the case may
require.
In both cases the residue is aluminium in the form of an amorphous powder and
thus is easily melted into an ingot.
The same method may be followed to obtain other like metals, and also metalloids
such as silicium and boron.
The method of carrying the invention into effect for the production of alloys
consists in mixing with or embedding in the body of broken carbon, pieces of the
metal which is to constitute the base of the alloy, whereby it melted by the
incandescent carbon and takes up the other metal, whatever it may be, that is
being smelted or reduced. This produces an alloy rich in the rare metal, some-
times to the point of saturation, and the alloy is afterwards brought down to the
proper percentage by the smelting of the alloy, and the addition of the necessary
amount of base metal by any ordinary process.
In this manner aluminium bronze, silicium bronze, boron bronze, and many
other copper alloys can be cheaply manufactured as well as similar alloys with
iron, zinc lead, tin, and other metals as desired. .
In the accompanying drawings which illustrate a method of practising this
invention―
Figure 1 is a longitudinal section through a furnace, constructed and operated in
the manner described in application No 6994 of 1885.
Figure 2 is a horizontal section of the same.
Assuming that aluminium bronze is to be made. The corundum, cryolite, clay
or other suitable ore of aluminium is pulverized and mixed with broken carbon
along with a pulverized ore of copper, for instance an oxide, and a charge A, of the
mixed aluminium and copper ores and carbon is packed in between the carbon
plates B, B.
Or metallic copper may be used instead of copper ore in which case,
the core has metallic copper distributed through it, in such a manner that it cannot
short circuit the current and this is accomplished in the following manner:
Wires or rods of copper, C, are inserted into the core at right angles to the axis
of the core. These are distributed at uniformn distances apart throughout the core,

page_text: and they may run vertically or horizontally, or at an inclination, provided they lie
in planes transverse to the axis of the core.
They may, of course, be laid in as the core is built up, instead of being inserted
afterwards.
When the current is passed through the core. the heat generated thereby melts
the metallic copper or reduces the copper or other ore to metal, and the metallic
copper takes up the aluminium as it is reduced from the corundum or other
aluminous ore. The product obtained at the close of the operation, is an aluminium
copper alloy, or aluminium bronze, in the same way that the simple reduced metal
is found as described in the prior application above referred to.
When using metallic copper, instead of distributing it through the core in the
form of wires or rods, as above described, it may be done by mixing granulated
copper with the mixed alumina and carbon, in the same manner that the copper ore
is nixed, and if the metallic copper is uniformly distributed the result will be the
same, but it is not so easy in that way to secure a perfectly uniform distribution,
and short circuiting will take place through parts of the core if a number of the
grains of metallic copper happen to be in contact, or nearer each other than in
other parts of the core.
When an alloy is to be made with some other metal than copper as the base,
rods of the metal or pulverized ore of the same are inserted in the core or mixed
therewith as the case may be in the same manner as described.
While the above description relates to the process as used and practised in the
incandescent furnace described in the above cited specification this application is
not limited to the aforesaid incandescent furnace, for the same process may be
practised in other electric furnaces, as for example in the Siemen's Electric Are
Furnace. For example, in that case, the ores or metals to be reduced may be
inixed together, or alloyed in the arc furnace or crucible, an electrode of copper, tin,
nickel, iron, or other metal may be used as the case may be, depending on the heat
and force of the current at the are to smelt and carry over to the mixture of ore,
carbon or metals, the metal of the electrode, and thus incorporating the same
together into an alloy, carbide silicide, or boride, as desired, the operation being
performed entirely by electrical energy, and the reducing effect of carbon, and it is
further asserted that results in alloying and compounding may be obtained that
cannot otherwise be performed on account of the intensity of the temperature
attainable by this means, and above all the intermixing, incorporating and merging
power of the current. In proof of this, the absorption of boron by copper forming
a boride of copper, when compounded in this furnace, may be cited, a result not
before obtained, as well as the saturation of copper and iron with aluminium,
or silicium, and manganese with aluminium to a higher degree than heretofore
known.
I am aware that it has been heretofore proposed to reduce aluminium ores by
smelting them with zinc ores and then separating the two metals, and that the
alkaline earths have been reduced by electrolysis in contact with an alloying metal
and plates of carbon or platinum, and the alloyed inetals thus produced subsequently
separated.
I am also aware that alloys have been produced by electrolysis, the current being
made to pass through plates of platinum and carbon placed in contact with a base
inetal and with the compound to be reduced, and therefore I do not claim the same
broadly.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention, and in what manner the same is to be perforined, as communicated to
me by my foreign correspondent, I declare that what I claim is
1. The method of producing aluminium, which consists in reducing an ore or
compound of aluminiuin in company with an amalgamating metal, by means of
electricity and in the presence of carbon, substantially as described, and then
separating the two metals of the alloy by amalgamation.

page_text: 2. The method of producing aluminium which consists of mixing the aluminium
ore with carbon and with a metal, reducing the said ore by means of electricity, so
that the aluminium forms an alloy with the said metal, and finally separating the
two metals of the alloy, substantially as set forth.
3. The method of producing aluminium, which consists of mixing the aluminium
ore with broken carbon and with a metal, reducing the said ore by means of
electricity so that the aluminium forms an alloy with the metal and finally
separating the aluminium from the alloy by amalgamating the said metal,
substantially as set forth.
4. The process of producing alloys, which consists in passing an electric current
through a mixture of broken resistance material, ore to be reduced, and pieces of
the base metal of the alloy, so that said mixture is rendered incandescent and the
alloy formed substantially as herein before described and set forth.
5. The process of producing alloys which consists in passing an electric current
through a mixture of broken resistance material and ore to be reduced, into which
wires or rods of the base metal of the alloy have been inserted transversely to the
path of the current, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.
6. The process of producing alloys, which consists in mixing together ore of one
of the metals of the alloy, broken or pulverized carbon, inserting wires or rods of
the other metal of the alloy into the said mixture, and then passing an electric
current through the mixture in a transverse direction to the wires or rods, so that
the said mixture is rendered incandescent and an alloy formed, substantially as set
forth.
T
1
W. P. THOMPSON & Co.,
Agents for the Applicants.