Potassium chlorate, which, as has been said, is now mostly obtained electrolytically, was formerly obtained by passing Deacon chlorine into milk of lime and decomposing the calcium chlorate formed by potassium chloride.
Chlorine and chloride of lime are used for bleaching; chlorine further is used in the manufacture of colours; chloride of lime as a mordant in cloth printing and in the preparation of chloroform; the chlorates are oxidising agents and used in making safety matches. The manufacture of organic chlorine products will be dealt with later.
Fig. 8.—Preparation of Bleaching Powder. Apparatus of Hasenclever (after Ost)
A Hopper for slaked lime; W Worm conveying lime; Z Toothed wheels; K Movable covers; C Entrance for chlorine gas; D Pipe for escape of chlorine-free gas; B Outlet shoot for bleaching powder
Effects on Health.—In these industries the possibility of injury to health and poisoning by inhalation of chlorine gas is prominent. Leymann has shown that persons employed in the manufacture of chlorine and bleaching powder suffer from diseases of the respiratory organs 17·8 per cent., as contrasted with 8·8 per cent. in other workers: and this is without doubt attributable to the injurious effect of chlorine gas, which it is hardly possible to avoid despite the fact that Leymann’s figures refer to a model factory. But the figures show also that as the industry became perfected the number of cases of sickness steadily diminished.
Most cases occur from unsatisfactory conditions in the production of chloride of lime, especially if the chloride of lime chambers leak, if the lime is turned over while the chlorine is being let in, by too early entrance into chambers insufficiently ventilated, and by careless and unsuitable methods of emptying the finished bleaching powder.
The possibility of injury is naturally greater from the concentrated gas prepared by the Weldon process than from the diluted gas of the Deacon process—the more so as in the latter the bleaching powder is made in the Hasenclever closed-in cylindrical apparatus in which the chlorine is completely taken up by the lime. The safest process of all is the electrolytic, as, if properly arranged, there should be no escape of chlorine gas. The chlorine developed in the cells (when carried out on the large scale) is drawn away by fans and conducted in closed pipes to the place where it is used.
Many researches have been published as to the character of the skin affection well known under the name of chlorine rash (chlorakne). Some maintain that it is not due to chlorine at all, but is an eczema set up by tar. Others maintain that it is due to a combined action of chlorine and tar. Support to this view is given by the observation that cases of chlorine rash, formerly of constant occurrence in a factory for electrolytic manufacture of chlorine, disappeared entirely on substitution of magnetite at the anode for carbon.[1] The conclusion seems justified that the constituents of the carbon or of the surrounding material set up the condition.