•INDUSTRY
Approximate best truck routes (all roads not shown) .+|-r-f.f H j - H Approximate route of Denver & Rio Grande Western R. R. (all tracks not shown)
oming
Axiomatic Acid
.(TJ) Maybell
Denver
Colorado
Geography is big factor to sulfuric acid makers serving
Rico Argentine Mining
Colorado Plateau uranium mills
N e w Mexico ®
Grants
XT'S ALMOST AXIOMATIC that a sulfuric
acid plant's customers should be right in its back yard. Several years ago, Rico Argentine Mining at Salt Lake City saw a customer, the Colorado Plateau uranium industry, moving into t h e back yard of its lead-zinc-silver concentrates operation near Rico, Colo. T h e result was Rico's $1.4 million Leonard-Monsanto contact plant which started u p last September. Capacity is 200 tons a day ( 1 0 0 % acid) and d e sign is such that capacity could b e doubled with minimum difficulty. Raw materials are no problem. Water is plentiful, a n d tailings ponds at Rico hold some 250,000 tons of pyrites, containing 5 0 % sulfur, enough to run the plant for several years. And about 1500 tons a month of these pyrites (flotation tailings) are produced in the lead-zinc-silver operation which turns out some 1000 tons of concentrates a month. Besides this, Rico owns about 15 million tons of mineable iron pyrites which average 5 0 % sulfur and 4 5 % iron. (Most iron pyrites run 3 0 % sulfur and 2 5 % iron.) It plans eventually to mine these deposits to feed t h e acid plant. The plant itself is believed to b e t h e second highest in the world—8835 feet —which h a d a noticeable effect on its design. ( L o w pressure affects reactor volume, for instance. ) It consists briefly of a Dorr Fluosolids^ roaster, a Peabody scrubber, Cottreli mist precipitators, and heat exchangers. It's operated by five men per shift, some of whom are busied trucking mill tailings to t h e Fluosolids roaster. 672
C&EN
FEB. 13.
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• Freight's a Problem. Before Rico's advent, the Colorado Plateau uranium mills got almost all of their sulfuric acid from Garfield. Chemical & Mfg. at Garfield, Utah, just outside Salt Lake City. (Garfield, a joint venture of Kennecott Copper and American Smelting & R e fining, processes ofî-gases from the b i g AS&R c o p p e r smelter next door. ) Garfield h a d to ship as far a s 4 0 0 miles, however, and with freight about 6 cents per ton-mile, acid came high on t h e Plateau- Freight economics were fur-
ther complicated by the fact t h a t m a n y of the mills were not served by rail (see map). Rico, however, will b e able to sell most of its output within a 100-mile radius of its plant a n d deliver by truck. It t h u s has an ideal m a r k e t itself a n d relieves Garfield of at least p a r t of a market that could not have remained economically sound b e c a u s e of t h e distances involved. Garfield is apparently not suffering. I n fact, it's currently expanding capac-
Rico Argentine Mining's new sulfuric acid plant near Rico, Colo.* is believed to be second highest in t h e world a t 8835 feet. A Leonard-Monsanto contact plant, £t turns out 200 tons daily from pyrites for use in uranium milling
H2S
