USES OF MOLYBDENUM
Molybdenum is used in the manufacture of ferro-alloys for making steel. As wire, it is used for supporting the filament in incandescent electric lamps. The wire is also employed for winding electric resistance furnaces and for this use has proved cheaper and better than platinum because of the quicker heating and higher temperatures attainable. The metal has been successfully substituted for platinum and for platinum-iridium in electric contact-making devices. Molybdenum compounds are used in chemistry, particularly ammonium molybdate for the determination of phosphorus. Fast colors in a variety of shades may be produced on leather by employing molybdenum tannate in conjunction with logwood extracts. It has been employed for color glazes in porcelain and in coloring silks and rubber.
The addition of molybdenum to steel increases the elastic limit without diminishing the ductility. Molybdenum can be substituted for a certain percentage of tungsten in high-speed steel, as a rule one part of molybdenum taking the place of two to three parts of tungsten.
GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
Up to about 1916, practically all of the molybdenite concentrates produced came from Queensland, New South Wales, and Norway. Shortly after the opening of the war, interest was shown in the production of molybdenite in Canada, principally in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. During 1917 and 1918 there was a great deal of interest in the United States in molybdenum ores, and at the present time this country can probably produce molybdenite concentrates in quantity equaling if not exceeding the rest of the world put together. Some molybdenum is produced by Spain and Peru.
Australia and Norway.
—The first official record of a production of molybdenite in Queensland was in 1900, when the output amounted to 12.3 short tons of high-grade material. The production gradually rose to 119 tons in 1906, and has not varied materially since that date, although the selling prices for concentrates increased considerably. The bulk of the material was mined at Wolfram Camp, in the Chillagoe field, 120 miles southwest of Cairns, in Northern Queensland. The mines at Bamford, in the same field, are credited with a small output. With the molybdenite ores are bismuth-tungsten ores, so that all three metals are produced.
The production of molybdenite was first reported in New South Wales in 1902; in that year the output was 17 short tons. The total output to the end of 1914 was 498 short tons, valued at $264,000. The chief producing molybdenite mines are at Whipstick, in the Pambula division, at Kingsgate, in the Glenn Innes division, and near Deepwater, in the Deepwater division. Molybdenite is also being produced at Rocky River, in the Tantafield division, and in the Bathhurst division. The production at all of these localities has not been large—in no one year exceeding 100 tons of concentrates.
In Norway, the production of high-grade molybdenite concentrates has averaged about 30 tons per annum since 1902. In 1906, an output of 1,129 short tons was reported. This probably refers to ore mined and not to concentrates produced.
The chief molybdenite districts in Norway are the provinces of Lister, Mandal, and Nedenes, on the extreme southern end of the peninsula. The district of Fjotland, in the former province, is probably richer in molybdenite than any yet discovered in Norway. A mine at Knaben, in this district, has been the largest and probably the only successful producer in Norway. This mine, owned by George G. Blackwell & Sons, of Liverpool, England,[94] has made an average output of about 25 short tons per annum.