US743733A - Chemical compound. - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES Patented Novemher 10, 1903.

PATENT OFFICE.

WILLIAM JOHN KNOX, OF WEST FAIRLEE, VERMONT, ASSIGNOR TO GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, OF PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.

CHEMICAL COMPOUND.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 743,733, dated November 10, 1903. Application filed April 15, 1903. Serial No. 152,706. (ND specimens.)

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that 1, WILLIAM JOHN KNOX, acitizen of the United States, and a resident of West Fairlee, county of Orange, State of of Vermont, have invented a certain new and useful Chemical Compound, of which the following is a specification.

In the usual method of copper reduction the copper produced is what is known as blister-copper. This copper is remelted in a reverberatory furnace and is oxidized to burn out the traces of sulfur and iron in a silica-lined furnace. The iron unites with the silica and is skimmed ofi. At this stage the copper is overoxidized, and it is necessary to pole it by thrusting a small tree-trunk into the molten loath, so that the hydrocarbon gases bubbling through the copper will reduce the cuprous oxid to a metallic condition and produce What is known in the trade as tough pitch or refined copper.

In certain Letters Patent of the United States No. 710,588, No. 710,589, and No. 710,916, issued to me on the 7th day of October,1902, I show and describe a smelting process and apparatus for reducing copper in which thereduction takes place within a basiclined vessel. In carrying out this process also the copper is first produced in the form of blister-copper, containing a small amount of sulfur and iron. When the copper thus produced is slightly overblown or overcooked, it is no longer black and blistered in appearance, but is of a brighter cleaner color and is denser.

In the process descrihedin my patents there is developed a new compound known as oxysulfid of iron, containing a small percentage of sulfur with a separation or precipitation of copper sulfid. The oxysulfld may be poured off at this stage, leaving a bath of the heavier cuprous sulfid or white be found that this remaining oxysulfld will have had its sulfur removed almost to a trace when the cuprous sulfid has all been converted into blister-copper. The magnetic oxid thus remaining in the vessel then becomes so infuslble or refractory that it is solid even at the highest temperature of the converter. If repeated blows were made in this manner, it would result in the fouling of the converterlining and the twyers; but if in blowing to metallic copper the point at which blistercopper is produced is somewhat exceeded,so as to produce some oxid of copper, it is found that this copper oxid has a very rapid solvent action upon any magnetic oxid that may be present and leaves the converter in a clean condition and also removes any obstruction of magnetic oxid that may have stuck to the twyers.

The presentinvention relates to the process whereby a new compound is produced by the action of this cuprous oxid upon the mag netic oxid, and it also relates to the product itself.

The value of the product is that it cleans the vessel in the manner above described and hastens the Bessemerizing process, and while it is not an essential of the said process it is a valuable addition to it.

In regard to the exact composition of this compound it may be said thatby analysis and physical appearance it is the cuprous oxid carrying in homogeneous solution the magnetic oxid of iron. It seems to be, in fact, a cuprous magnetic oxid, a compound hitherto unknown to the art. Physically the cuprous magnetic oxid shows a reddish-brown color. As in all chemical compounds the mass naturally shows traces of other oxids and of some small amount of foreign and entrained matter.

The solubility of magnetic oxid in cuprous'.

oxid varies within wide limits, but the resulting compound is homogeneous.

In another application filed by me of even ICO