There is one electro-metallurgical process that has made possible the production in commercial form and for ordinary use of a metal that once was little more than a chemical curiosity. In 1885 there were produced 3.12 tons of aluminum, and its value was roughly estimated at about $12 a pound. By 1908 America alone produced over 9,000 tons valued at over $500,000,000, while European manufacturers were also large producers. In 1888 the electrolytic manufacture of aluminum was commenced in America and in the following year it was begun in Switzerland. Aluminum is formed by the electrolysis of the aluminum oxide in a fused bath of cryolite and fluorspar. The aluminum may be obtained in the form of bauxite, and is produced in large rectangular iron pots with a thick carbon lining. The pot itself is the cathode, while large graphite rods suspended in the bath serve as the anodes. After the arc is formed and the heat of the bath rises to a sufficient degree the material is decomposed and the metal is separated out so that it can be removed by ladling or with a siphon. The application of heat to obtain this metal previous to the invention of the electric furnace could only be considered a laboratory problem and the expense involved did not permit of commercial application. Now, however, aluminum is universally available and with the expiration of certain patents, the material has sold as low as 25 cents a pound.
Electrolytic methods serve also for the refining of nickel and for the production of lead, and as in other fields of metallurgy, these processes are attracting the attention of chemists and of engineers. While tin as yet has not yielded to electrolytic or electro-thermal methods with any success, the removal of tin from tin scraps and cuttings has been carried on with considerable success. With zinc the electrolytic and electro-thermal processes have not been able yet to compete with the older metallurgical method of distillation, but an important industry is electro- galvanizing, where a solution of zinc sulphate is deposited on iron and gives a protective coating. Experimental methods with the use of electricity in extracting zinc from its ores are being tested at various European plants, but the matter has not yet reached a commercial scale.
One of the earliest notable uses of the electric furnace in a large electro-chemical industry was for the production of carborundum, a carbide of silicon, which is remarkably useful as an abrasive, being available in the manufacture of grinding stones and other like purposes to replace emery and corundum. It is produced by the use of a simple electric furnace of the resistance type, where coke, sand, and sawdust are heated to a temperature of between 2000 degrees and 3000 degrees C. The chemical reaction involves the production of carbon monoxide, and gives a carbide of silicon, a crystalline solid which has the excellent abrasive properties mentioned. The manufacture was first started by its inventor, E. G. Acheson, about 1891 on a small scale, and in the following year 1,000 pounds of the material were produced at the Niagara Falls works. Within fifteen years its output had increased to well over six million pounds.
The electric furnaces at Niagara Falls have supplied many interesting electro-chemical processes. After making a carbide in the electric furnace it was found possible to decompose it by further increasing the heat to a point where the second element is volatilized and the pure carbon in the form of artificial graphite remains. In more recent work the carbide containing the silicon has been done away with and ordinary anthracite coal used as a charge from which the pure graphite is obtained. This graphite has been found especially useful in electrical work as for electrodes, while a more recent process enables a soft variety of graphite to be obtained which becomes a competitor of the natural material.
One of the most interesting of the many electro-chemical processes is the heating of lime and coke in the electric furnace so as to obtain a product in the form of calcium carbide, which, on solution in water, forms acetylene gas, a useful and valuable illuminant. This process dates from 1893 when T. L. Willson in the United States first started its manufacture on a large scale, and the great electrochemist, Henri Moissin, about the same time independently invented a similar process as a result of his notable work with the electric furnace. The process involves merely a transformation at a high temperature, a portion of the carbon in the form of coke, uniting with pulverized lime to give the calcium carbide or CaC2. Now this material, when water is added to it, decomposes, and acetylene or C2H2 is formed, which is a gas of high illuminating value as the carbon separates and glows brightly after being heated to incandescence in the flame.
The electric furnace at Niagara Falls has been able to produce still another combination in the form of siloxicon by heating carbon and silicon to a temperature slightly below that required to produce carborundum. This product is a highly refractory material and is valuable for the manufacture of crucibles, muffles, bricks, etc., for work where extreme temperatures are employed. The electric furnace enables various elements to be isolated, such. as silicon, sodium, and phosphorus, and when obtained in their pure state they find wide application.
The most important electro-chemical work of the future is to devise some means of obtaining nitrogen from the air. It is stated by scientists that the nitrogen of the soil is being exhausted and that at some future time the Earth may not be able to bear crops sufficient for the sustenance of man, unless some artificial means be found to replenish the nitrogen. Unlimited supplies of nitrogen exist in the air, but to fix it with other materials in such form that it will be useful as a fertilizer has been one of the problems to which the electro-chemists have recently devoted much attention. By the use of the electric arc and passing air through a furnace, various substances have been tried to take up the nitrogen of the air. Thus when calcium carbide is heated and brought into contact with nitrogen one atom of carbon is given up and two atoms of nitrogen take its place, resulting in the production of cyanamide.
Other important electro-chemical processes are involved in the electrolysis of the various alkaline salts to obtain metallic sodium and such products as chlorates. Thus by the electrolysis of sodium chloride metallic sodium and chlorine is obtained. From the metallic sodium solid caustic soda is then derived by a secondary reaction, while the chlorine is combined with lime to form chloride of lime or bleaching powder. In some processes the electrolysis affords directly an alkaline hypochlorite or a chlorate, the former being of wide commercial use as a bleaching agent in textile works and in the paper industry. The same process employed in the electrolysis of sodium salts is used in the case of magnesium and calcium.
Electrolysis is also made use of in the manufacture of chloroform and iodoform, as the chlorine or iodine which is produced in the electrolytic cell is allowed to act upon the alcohol or acetone under such conditions that chloroform or iodoform is produced.
Electro-chemistry plays an important part in many other industries whose omission from our description must not be considered as indicating any lack of their importance. New processes constantly are being discovered which may range all the way from the production of artificial gems to the wholesale production of the most common chemicals used in the arts. In many branches of chemical industry manufacturing processes have been completely changed, and from the research laboratories, which all large progressive manufacturers now maintain, as well as from workers in universities and scientific schools, new methods and discoveries are constantly forthcoming.