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NATIONAL EXPOSITION OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES 25 T O 30, 1916 NEW YO=-SEPTEMBER The many favorable comments received on the showing of the motion picture films a t the 1915 Exposition of Chemical Industries led the management of the coming Second National Exposition of Chemical Industries to be held a t the Grand Central Palace, h-ew York City, Sept. 2 j to 30, to arrange a motion picture program broader in scope than that prepared for the former exposition. Among the films secured during the past six months from large industrial corporations throughout the
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country through the Bureau of Commercial Economics a t Washington, are included the following: The M a t c h Industry Mining a n d Manufacturing of Iron T h e Ruhber Industry Making of Blotting Paper Manufacture oi Explosives Accident and Fire Prevention Varnish Manufacture iManufacture a n d Use of Fertilizers Silver Mining Manufacture of Steel Memhers of t h e American Chemical Society in Danville during their Spring hIeeting in April
The managers report that they have a t this time twice the number of exhibitors they had a t the Exposition last year, and that much new apparatus and many processes will be exhibited for the first time a t the coming Exposition.
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE ON THE EXTRACTION OF RADIUM, ETC., BY THE U. S. BUREAU OF MINES
Editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: The remarks of Dr. Charles I,. Parsons, of the Bureau of Mines, THISJOURNAL, 8 (1316), 469-473, go to show that he cannot refute the statements which I have made in a previous letter with regard to the production of radium by the Bureau of Mines. A great deal that he brings forward has little or nothing to do with the question under discussion : however, some of the points I feel require a further statement, for which I trust you will allow me the space. Since the whole of this argument grows out of a disinclination on my part to accept unreservedly as facts the statements about radium emanating from Dr. Parsons and the Bureau, it is not remarkable that I have declined to reprint these statements. The repeated misstatements in the public press with regard to the work of the Bureau of Mines in the production of radium, etc., have, as far as I know, brought forth no call for correction from Dr. Parsons or any of the others concerned with the propaganda of publicity. These misstatements have not been made once, but repeatedly on each occasion of the issue of a news bulletin from Washington, and their effect on the radium market has been disastrous, especially as the foreign market has been practically closed to producers from the outbreak of the war. But it is not only the newspaper misrepresentations that are to be criticized, but the official utterances coming from the Bureau of Mines, as, for example, the report of the director of the Bureau of Mines for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, page 19, where we read (the italics are mine) : “Chemists and engineers of the bureau have demonstrated that a process they have devised for the extraction of radium from its ores can be successfully used on a large scale and will prove more efficient than that used by the largest foreign producers of radium. Through this process i t i s possible that the cost of radium to the consumer will be reduced to one-tlaird of the present price. The process is to be patented and dedicated to the public.” Oddly enough nothing whatever is said in this report of the cooperative agreement entered into with the IYational Radium Institute, Inc., although the arrangement was made during the year covered by this report and this company mas to receive the radium produced. It is true, as Dr. Parsons says, that the agreement with the National Radium Institute, Inc., was printed on page 195 of a report of the Hearing before the House Committee on Mines and Mining, which took place in January, 1914. The letter in question is sandwiched in with a number of letters to the Secretary of the Interior, commending his course in trying to withdraw from entry the public radium lands, and in this way was overlooked by the writer in preparing the article which was printed over a year ago. The Committee report in which this agreement was published is not for general distribution, and to my knowledge in neither the hearing before the House Committee nor the Senate Committee was the agreement read. The difference between the cost of production of radium from
high-grade ore and the selling price of radium seems to have dawned upon some one in the Bureau of Mines, for in the next annual report of the director of the Bureau of Mines (1915, pages 12-13) we read (the italics are mine) : “Probably, however, the most striking of the mineral-technology investigations have been that dealing with radium. In 1912 the bureau showed that large quantities of ore wrere being mined in Colorado and shipped abroad for the production of radium, some of which was sold back to this country a t a price far in excess of any just proportion of that received by the American miner for his raw material. “Through the cooperation of the National Radium Institute 1,000 tons of ore are being mined in the Paradox Valley of Colorado and a plant was built at Denver for producing radium. This plant has now been in successful operation for several months, and nearly 4 grams of radium have been extracted, which will be used in the treatment of cancer and malignant tumors. The bureau’s work has shown that the price formerly paid the miners for the carnotite ore was entirely out of proportion to the value of the mineral contained, and that the cost of producing radium by the methods developed by the bureau i s so low that from Government-owned ore, at least, radium can be supplied to the hospitals of the A r m y , Navy and Public Health Service at a cost not exceeding $36,500 per gram, or one-third of prices that have been obtained by foreign producers. “One of the most important features of the radium investigations has been the development of methods whereby the large wastes of low-grade carnotite ore heretofore common m a y be prevented, and the main part of the valuable minerals they carry may be readily shipped to market and utilized as a source of radium. This result will add greatly to the radium resources of the country, for heretofore probably five tons of low-grade ore have been mined and wasted for each ton of marketable ore shipped. “Incident to this work several new methods for the determination of radium and the extraction of uranium and vanadium from radium ores have been developed. Application has been made for patents, which, if granted, will be dedicated to the public.” In a preliminary report (Eureau of Mines, Bull. 7 0 ) and in other statements coming from the bureau (see report of Director just quoted) a great deal was said about the conservation of the low-grade carnotite ore which must be mined in taking out the high-grade ore. This very important matter from the standpoint of large scale radium production has been accorded scant attention by the Bureau of Mines in the frantic endeavor to produce cheaply a few grams of radium for the National Radium Institute, from high-grade ore. Concentration of lowgrade carnotite has been talked of by the Bureau and apparently given some thought, with the result that Dr. Parsons admits that they have adopted the air-separator method that has been in use by the Standard Chemical Company for several years, and a method which certainly differs from the dry concentration method described on page 38 of Bulletin 70, and as mentioned on pages 111-112 in the appendix to the revised edition of that bulletin, a method that has since apparently proven a failure. The concentration figures given by Dr. Parsons in answer to a question by the writer, after his lecture a t the Chemists’ Club in New York, on Dec. I j , 1915~were not quoted in my previous letter, owing to the fact that Dr. Parsons, in giving the figures, asked his hearers not to remember them, presumably
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as they were but preliminary figures which might need to be altered. It was in the course of this same general discussion that the output of the Standard Chemical Company was given by the writer as 5,000 tons of ore averaging about 1.7 per cent U308. Dr. Parsons in later taking me to task for changing this figure in my letter to 1.6 per cent has conveniently forgotten my u5e of the word about, for in December I did not have accurate statistics. Dr. Parsons seems to be supremely contented with the airseparator concentration process and the efficiency which it gives. The figures he gave in December he has since cited in .the course of a lecture in Pittsburgh, on March 16, 1916, so that these results are presumably the best obtained up to that time. A little thought will show that if this method of concentration were applied, the efficiency of extraction of radium from Colorado carnotite would not be the 85 per cent, which the bureau attained on unconcentrated high-grade ore, but would be from 60 to 75 per cent, depending upon the proportion of low-grade ore concentrated. It is difficult to state with any degree of approximation the proportion of low-grade carnotite ore to high-grade. Certainly there is enormously more low-grade than high-grade, and if, as Dr. Parsons formerly felt, there is not enough radium in the carnotite field to satisfy the world’s requirements, he can hardly countenance as satisfactory a process which applied t o concentrates would yield him an extraction of about 53 per cent of the radium, for he says that six tons of carnotite ore containing 0.8 per cent uranium oxide would give one ton of concentrates approximating 3 per cent of uranium oxide. This concentrate contains 3 out of the 4.8 parts of uranium oxide and the extraction efficiency to concentrates is about 62.5 per cent. A subsequent extraction of 85 per cent of the radium from the concentrates makes the extraction efficiency 53.1 per cent, a result which is hardly satisfactory. Depending upon the proportion of concentrates to raw high-grade ore, the extraction of radium will vary between 53 and 8j per cent, and the tendency, as far as workable ore is concerned, will be towards the lower efficiency, as the high-grade ore is worked out. It is for this reason, and not the ingenious reasons which Dr. Parsons kindly supplies, that the Standard Chemical Company acknowledges that its air-concentrating plant, constructed a t a considerable expense in the Colorado field, is not a success when this method is applied to ore containing about I per cent of uranium oxide. Had Dr. Parsons given the context, where he quotes me as saying that radium could be extracted from ordinary soil, it would alter the sense of his quotation, as he well knows, for I qualified the statement by saying this would be possible if the price justified the extraction. Dr. Parsons will be pleased to learn that in the several years elapsing since the Congressional Hearing a market has developed for the vanadium from carnotite ore, and a metallurgical use for uranium which will no doubt insure a sufficient market for all of the uranium which may be produced. As regards the form in which the uranium was recovered by the Bureau of Mines it is difficult for one not acquainted with the actual facts to draw definite conclusions from statements made in Bull. 104,since on page 107 we find: “The recovery of uranium as sodium uranate has, of course, varied with the losses, the extremes being between 75 and 94 per cent. The average on the last Io-carload lots treated has been 84.4 per cent ” while on page I 16 we read: “All the uranium and vanadium has been recovered by the National Radium Institute plant as sodium uranate or uranium oxide and iron vanadate, the whole plant being designed with this object in view ” Further, on page 1 1 7 , occurs the statement: “also there have been extracted 31,650 pounds of uranium oxide and 11,528 pounds of vanadium oxide.” If Dr. Parsons will indicate how one may ascertain from these
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statements that 8 j per cent of the uranium in the ore has been recovered in the form of a high-grade black oxide of uranium, he will no doubt favor a circle of puzzled readers of Bull. 104. As regards the prices offered to miners for ore by the Standard Chemical Company, it must be remembered that the Standard Chemical Company is itself the largest individual producer of carnotite ore in Colorado, and would, under the circumstances, mine all necessary ore from its own properties, unless able to secure the ore a t a lower price from an independent producer. The Standard Chemical Company, unlike the Bureau of Mines and the IVational Radium Institute, is a corporation in business for other than philanthropic and altruistic purposes, and must make endeavors to pay dividends to its stockholders. The telegram signed “Carroll,” was quoted in good faith in my former letter, Mr. Carroll’s denial in the Norwood Post, which Dr. Parsons mentions, not having come to my attention. In conclusion I would summarize a few of the many objections to the work of the Bureau of Mines and the National Radium Institute, with radium, objections which Dr. Parsons has not met in his letter. If we believe the statements of Dr. Parsons, this work was to be primarily a work of conservation (see preface to Bureau of Mines, Bull. 70). It was also “ * * * * * * to enable the miner and prospector to obtain a just return for the ores, and to convince the public that the radium ores on the public lands of the United States should be mined and treated under Government supervision and the radium placed in the hospitals of the Army, Navy, and Public Health Service for the benefit of the people of this country * * * * * *” (see Bull. 104,p. 13); and “* * * * * * it was the desire of the Bureau to show beyond doubt that, if authorized by Congress, the radium could be procured from ores now owned by the people a t a cost approximating one-third the market price, and that it was a much better policy for the Government to obtain the radium so greatly needed in the hospitals of the Army, Navy and Public Health Service a t a cost not exceeding onethird the present market price, than to give these ores to large corporations and then purchase as radium salts material that had belonged to the people, a t a price insuring large profits to the possessors.” (Bull. 104,pp. 13-14.) What the bureau has accomplished according to Bull. 104, and to Dr. Parsons’ statements, falls far short of the original aims. Being most important, the conservation work, apparently, has been left for the last. We have analyzed Dr. Parsons’ ore concentration figures above, and it is evident that the process will not be satisfactory, neither was it original with the Bureau. The miners and prospectors are engaged in a hazardous calling and they have fared little better in selling their ore to the National Radium Institute than they did in selling their ore abroad. With the foreign ore market closed, and with the domestic market for radium adversely influenced by the Bureau’s propaganda, the ore producers have little to do but sit tight and await the time when there is a demand for their ore, or else to sell their claims for what they can get. Dr. Parsons seems to have hypnotized himself into the belief that if radium were sold a t a lower price the miner would somehow receive a price more commensurate with the value of the material in the ore. Certainly cheaper radium will not incline producers to pay more for their ore. As regards the cost of production of radium by the Bureau we may read between the lines in the introduction to Bull. 104,where we find the statement: “With ore obtained from Government land or purchased a t a cost as low as that maintained in the operations of the bureau, it has been shown that the cost of producing radium need not exceed $40,000 per gram and that the extraction of a t least 90 per cent of the radium present may be obtained from good quality ore, such as the bureau has been able to Drocure.” One of the “jokers” in this statement is the “good quality ore.” In the Congressional hearing it was testified that it was difficult for miners to supply quantities of z per cent ore, and certainly it would be only fair for the Bureau of Mines to base its figures
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on average ore, rather than on the exceptional ore which cannot be available to large scale producers. Taking the average ore as it is now mined, unquestionably it must be concentrated, to be treated economically. Why then base efficiency and the cost of production figures on high-grade unconcentrated ore? The answer is that the public had to be convinced of the truth of the statements made by the officials of the Bureau of Mines before they had a process of extraction and before they had produced a milligram of radium in the form of a high-grade salt. Reading between the lines in BdZ. 104, i t is possible to note some of the inconsistencies. Hoi~ever,the average physician who plans to use radium does not consult an abstruse technological bulletin. He reads in the newspapers stories about government production of radium which are based on press notices from the Bureau of Mines and Secretary of the Interior such as: “The Bureau of Mines .+* * * * * devised methods for the production of radium from the carnotite ores of Colorado and Utah a t an average cost of $36,500 a gram, two-thirds cheaper than the market price of $120,000 asked by foreign producers, the new, cheaper methods making it much more certain that medical institutions will be able to procure a sufficient quantity of radium for the treatment of cancer and other malignant growths. With an adequate supply of radium for therapeutic use, it is intimated that the progress in the future in curing cancer will rival that made in wiping out diseases that once were prevalent. Physicians who have been enabled to make cures by reason of obtaining a greater quantity of the radium through Bureau of Mines methods say that radium in cancer will prove an inestimable boon to man.”
Is it fair and honest for the Bureau of Mines to countenance such chicanery? In spite of all of the publicity by the Bureau of Mines, which includes official bulletins, newspaper statements, Dr. Parsons’ moving picture lectures, etc., the Bureau admits that it does not necessarily follow that the price of radium will be reduced as a result of the development of “cheaper methods of production” (Bull. 104,p. IZ), and it is the writer’s conviction that the condition of free competition wilI soonest result in the establishing of a competitive market price for radium; and in the establishing of this market price the work of the Bureau of Mines can play no more important part than it has in supplying the immediate requirements of the world’s radium market. I n this discussion of the work of the Bureau of Mines on radium production, etc., the writer has tried to confine his remarks to the subject. Dr. Parsons in his letter has clouded the issue by discussing the Standard Chemical Company, the efficiency of its processes, etc., in part on the basis of testimony given several years ago, and in part on the basis of data given in connection with my previous letter, etc. The writer, unlike Dr. Parsons, is not a t liberty to discuss publicly the processes, efficiency, etc., relating to the treatment of carnotite ore by the Standard Chemical Cpmpany. Suffice it to say that in two years it is possible to effect considerable changes in process methods and efficiency. Our failure to discuss these matters in no way weakens what we have said about the work of the Bureau of Mines, since they have stated what they proposed to do and have later published a statement of what has been done, and a little consideration, even hy one not familiar with the technology of radium extraction, shows how far the results have fallen short of that which was to be accomplished. In the meanwhile the sick must continue to suffer, the radium industry must bear the set-back as best it can, and the progress of radium therapy is hindered so that the National Radium Institute, Inc., may secure a few grams of radium through the work of the Bureau of Mines. CHARLESH. VIOL STANDARD CHEMICAL COMPANY PITTSBURGH, May 22, 1916
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LABORATORY PROBLEMS IN INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY Editor of the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry: I have read with considerable interest Dr. H. K. Benson’s article on “Laboratory Problems in Industrial Chemistry,” which appeared in the June number of THISJOURNAL and believe that he struck the right note in suggesting an interchange of views on the subject by those teaching industrial chemistry, I believe with Dr. Benson that previous personal experience has considerable to do with the courses in industrial chemistry which are offered in our colleges and I also think that another factor which has a strong influence in shaping a course is local manufacturing, especially if there happens to be a predominating industry in the neighborhood. This is only natural, perhaps, but it is likely to cause the course to lean a bit toward that one industry since the instructor will probably be more or less interested in it. I t seems to me that considerable effort should be made to evolve a course as well balanced as possible so that the student who has been able to work out only one or two problems in the laboratory may get a good idea of other lines of work in the class conferences. The laboratory course in industrial chemistry a t this university is offered in the first term of the senior year to students in chemistry and chemical engineering; they have a t this time covered inorganic chemistry, qualitative and quantitative analysis, organic chemistry and some physical chemistry and have reached a point when they can be given a course of work in which they can apply not only the chemistry but also the engineering which they have been absorbing for three years. To this end the students are given problems in commercial chemical manufacturing which involve such general operations as solution, filtration, evaporation, etc., and the use of suitable apparatus for the carrying on of these and other operations which are commonly met with in manufacturing processes. The work is carried out on fairly large quantities of material so that the student comes to realize that there are other measures of weight than the gram, and the course of the work is followed by chemical analyses t o ascertain where the losses occur, all the operations being carried out quantitatively. When the laboratory work on the problem is complete the student turns in a report, written from his notes, taking up a consideration of the process as a whole, the relation of the various steps to each other, the reasoiis for carrying out the various operations and finally cost sheets for each step of the process. Toward the end of the term each student is required to prepare drawings showing the layout of a plant for the manufacture of some material based on work done in the laboratory, giving also rough specifications. The accomplishment of this work requires that the student shall do considerable outside reading, thus becoming acquainted with chemical and engineering literature and his attention is particularly directed toward the use of trade catologues of the various manufacturers of chemical and metallurgical appliances and machinery. Some of the problems which we have been handling in this laboratory in regular class work as outlined above, are: I-Production, from bauxite, of newspaper alum complying with the tentative specifications of the Alum Committee of the Diaision o f Industrial Chemists end Chemical Engineers of the American Chemical Society. a-Production of beta-naphthol from commercial naphthalene. of fusel oil with special reference to the 3-Fractionation recovery of the propyl alcohol and the subsequent conversion of the amyl alcohol into amyl acetate. i$ 4-Production of ultramarine from china clay. j-Production of dichromates of soda or potash from chrome iron ore or chrome cobbing with special reference to the proportions ofisoda ash and lime as affecting not only the yield of di~
