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By R. B. Schluter, M. M. Fine

Processes for manufacturing prereduced pellets have heretofore required temperatures of 2100°F or higher. Sulfides will accelerate the liquid-phase sintering of metallic iron, yet do not deter the reduction of iron oxides. The sulfides may be introduced as gases to the kiln atmosphere or as solids in the re-ductants. The net result is that well metallized iron pellets with good crushing strength can now be produced at a little over 1800°F. One of the most persistent topics at technical gatherings and in the recent scientific press has been the reduction of iron ore. In May 1960, a symposium on the subject was sponsored by the Electrochemical Society. The proceedings, comprising two dozen papers, were later published.' More recently, in November 1966, a similar gathering took place at Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Mich. The latest meeting was the International Congress on Production and Utilization of Reduced Materials at Evian, France, in May 1967. If the volume of literature, symposia and conferences is a measure of industry concern, then the current interest in reduction must be at a high level. Barrett,2 one of the early pioneers, stated some years ago that "The history of sponge iron has been so discouraging that many men in the iron and steel industry are violently opposed to giving it any further consideration." In spite of the "violent opposition" noted by Barrett, research people in and out of the industry continue to be attracted by the elusive prospect of uncovering a simple, viable means of direct reduction. Wild,3 one of the speakers at Evian, listed no less than 48 direct reduction processes (laboratory, pilot plant and commercial). Some of these were of historical interest only, but many others had resulted from developments within this decade. The previous big thrust into direct reduction occurred under the artificial impetus of a wartime economy (World War 11) and was largely an effort to provide more melting stock without coke ovens and blast furnaces. The present-day inquiry is proceeding at a more leisurely pace and the emphasis is different. For one thing, there is much less anxiety to circumvent the blast furnace. On the contrary, a whole new research endeavor has grown from the discovery that metallized burdens are exceptionally productive.4 Although the search for a melting stock

Jan 1, 1970

The plans involve about ten technical sessions, a day spent in Cripple Creek and in Pueblo, where there will he optional visits devoted to steel, non-ferrous metals, etc.; half-a-day each to mills in Colorado Springs district and an auto trip to the top of Pike's Peak. Finally, a day at Leadville devoted to visits, including the molybdenum works.

Jan 4, 1918

By William R. Chedsey

IN the last two years the E.C.P.D. committees having to do with the inspection of engineering schools for possible accrediting have been concerned with the engineering content of some of the mineral industries courses. Originally the discussion arose with regard to engineering geology, or geological engineering, afterward broadening to metallurgical engineering, ceramic engineering, agricultural engineering, and other branches not pertinent to this discussion. Some members of visiting committees took the attitude that they probably would have to accredit these types of training as included in the engineering group if they met the average standard set by the mining schools, though they questioned -whether they were really engineering.

Jan 1, 1939

By V. F. STANLEY

THERE is not the slightest doubt that the present recoveries of valuable minerals by the Broken Hill mills could be improved, and that further machinery would be installed for the purpose if it could be assured that a high price of metals would be maintained; but concentration, like all other com¬mercial propositions, is a question of profit and loss, and no sensible metallurgist would carry out his work in such a manner as to obtain high recoveries at a financial loss to his company. There is a point in all concentration at which the added money obtained from the higher recovery of minerals is balanced by the extra cost of obtaining the last part of the recovery; a wise metallurgist will be content with his work before his working-expenditure reaches this point. To a casual observer, the work being done by the various Broken Hill mills is identically the same. A closer investigation will show that this is far from being the case, for it is a remarkable fact that, although the larger mines extend over a length of approximately only 2 miles, such a difference in the physical and chemical properties of the ores exists that, from the first reduction downwards, special treatment is necessary in each case, and hardly any two mills are identical in operation. The details of this paper refer directly- to the work of one . particular mill in Broken Hill, for the reason that the ore from each mine presents special difficulties and requires its own special treatment. I have selected the mill referred to because it has been constructed and modified under my supervision.

Sep 1, 1909

By Walter C, Smith

Metallic bismuth was known in the Middle Ages and the name is supposed to come from the German Wismut. The origin of the German name is uncertain. References to bismuth are found in the writings of Valentine, Paracelsus, and Agricola between 1450 and 1550. Early specimens of bismuth were very impure and often were confused with antimony, tin, and zinc. About the middle of the eighteenth century, J. H. Pott, C. J. Geoffroy, and Torbern Bergman succeeded in producing fairly pure bismuth and showed it to be an elementary metal similar in many respects to lead.

Jan 1, 1953

Discussion of the paper of PAUL BILLINGSLEY, presented at the New York meeting February, 1915, and printed in Bulletin No. 97, January, 1915, pp. 31 to 47. JAMES F. KEMP, New York, N. Y.-Mr. Billingsley has spoken so concisely that we may not realize the many important topics which he has passed in review and upon which lie has thrown much illumination. The exact determination of the age of the granite, itself, is one. If we were to look over a geological map containing the region of Butte and 25 years old, we would find this coarsely crystalline mass assigned, as were others of its kind, to the pre-Cambrian, or as we used to say, to the Archean. In the course of time it was found to be later. The Butte Special Folio, 1907, described it as post-Carboniferous and possibly post-Laramie. Mr. Weed in Professional Paper No. 74 of the U. S. Geological Survey (1912) placed it as probably Niocene because of its relations with the andesite, which was believed to be Eocene. Mr. Billingsley now by a very neat demonstration circumscribes it more definitely and we recognize that it must be latest Cretaceous or earliest Eocene. We see, however, that extensive field observations, ably correlated, were necessary to establish the conclusion. For some years all familiar with Butte have known that there was a central area the veins of which carried copper ores in a quartz gangue; and that outside this area there were veins carrying silver ores in a gangue of manganese minerals. Mr. Sales's able and detailed paper, read at the Montana meeting, August, 1913, not only corroborated these relations, but emphasized the transitional character of the intermediate or passage zone. Mr. Billingsley is now able to show from observations at increasing depths, the tendency of the copper ores to appear deep down in the veins

Jan 5, 1915

By GEORGE ROBERT DE BEQUE

WHAT is wrong with oil shale? The answer is of interest to the public, to the oil refiner, and to the engineer. Many people have invested in shale land or shale securities, and others would invest if early development of the industry were certain. In the face of increasing demands for oil products, oil refiners are threatened with inability to maintain present output unless the supply of domestic petroleum is supplemented. Development of the oil shale industry would open a new field for engineering services. The object of this paper is to suggest reasons why there is but one shale plant in operation in the United States, and to discuss the probable time when the business will be firmly established in Colorado. As the Colorado deposits are the richest and largest in the world, ample supply of material is assured, consequently, this discussion will be confined principally to technical problems and economic problems affecting shale development.

Jan 1, 1924

By D. W. McGlashan, K. N. Mcleod

IN the use of free bubbles with precise temperature control and continuous pH measurement, the contact angle apparatus differs from all previous equipment. Experimental procedures differ sharply from the captive bubble method1,2 of introducing the gaseous phase in the three-phase system. When freed from the tube and captured by a solid surface, a bubble more closely conforms to the spherical ideal set up by the usual mathematical analysis of surface free energy or surface tensional relationships of the forces involved. The assembled equipment, Fig. 1, departs from the usual contact angle apparatus in providing: 1) water circulation for fixing temperature, 2) instruments to measure and record pH during testing, and 3) a system for producing and using free bubbles. The apparatus allows testing over a broad range of closely controlled conditions, and the use of free bubbles gives contact angles independent of operator manipulation, which was unavoidable in the older captive bubble method. A bubble released below the specimen rises through the liquid and contacts the mineral. If the mineral is gas-avid the bubble adheres, developing a finite contact angle. Reaction cells (1), 2x33/8x5 3/16 in. ID, are of pyrex glass 5 mm thick. To prevent optical distortion, the sides are optical flats and are planed parallel to within five wave lengths of light over the entire surface. Special cement is required to withstand chemical attack and thermal shock. The cell is placed in a thermal jacket (2) made of welded aluminum. A water seal for the optical ports is made by using O-rings tightened against the flats of the cell by fine-threaded and adjustable ports, Fig. 2. In-flow water is discharged downward from a manifold located near the bottom of the cell jacket. Water overflows the weirs at each end of the cell jacket, discharging from both sides to a collecting manifold (24). A hose (26) leads the overflow water to the thermal-conditioner well (4), which is recessed to accommodate a reaction cell and two beakers (150 ml). Both the thermal jacket and the thermal-conditioner well are insulated to minimize the effects of temperature differentials. Water, discharging from the thermal-conditioner well, returns to a thermostat bath and pump (3), from which it is pumped to the thermal jacket. The thermostat bath permits temperatures to be adjusted from 1" or 2°C to 80°C and will maintain the selected temperature within 0.2ºC. An electrode support (22) groups the four electrodes (8) so that they fit conveniently into the reaction cell, Fig. 2. This assembly holds the glass electrode, the calomel electrode, the temperature-

Jan 1, 1957

By L. T. Larson

The spectral reflectivity of zirconium in light of 441 to 668 nanometers (nm) wavelengths and air immersion has been determined. Bireflectance and apparent-angle -of-rotation measurements show zirconium to be optically isotropic when examined in light of approximately 484 nm wavelength. There is a direct relationship between bireflectance and the tilt of the basal pole of zirconium from the surface normal. This relationship allows the determination of the spatial orientation of the basal pole of an individual single crystal within a coarse-grained poly crystalline section to within± 2 to 3 deg for angles of basal pole tilt from 0 to 90 deg. In recent years considerable attention has been given to the quantitative determination of optical properties of opaque minerals by use of vertically incident, plane-polarized light. In particular, Cameron' and Cameron et a1.2 have developed criteria for the identification of a large number of anisotropic ore minerals based upon measurement of the apparent angle of rotation and the ellipticity or phase difference of the reflected light. It was shown by Larson and Pickle-simer3 that apparent-angle-of-rotation measurements may also be used to determine crystallographic orientations of grains of noncubic metals. In particular, it was shown that the basa.1 pole orientation in space of zirconium grains can be determined to ±3 deg for those grains with basal pole tilts of 10 to 90 deg from the plane of the section. Another, even more widely studied, optical property is reflectivity. cameron4 has commented upon measurement of the reflectance of plane-polarized, vertically incident light and Bowie and Taylor5 have made such measurements an integral part of their system of ore-mineral identification. Leow6 has reported on the spectral reflectivity of molybdenite and has used reflectivity values to calculate refractive indices and absorption coefficients. Cameron7 has made use of reflectivity values to ascertain aniso-tropic ore mineral symmetry and Piller and v. Gehlen8 have evaluated sources and importance of errors in reflectivity measurements as applied to calculation of optical constants. cambon9 has shown that reflectivity measurements using vertically incident, plane-polarized light are useful in the investigation of metals and in the identification of phases present in alloys. Bronson10 has made preliminary measurements on the optical anisotropy of beryIlium and Mott and Haines11 have published qualitative data on the intensity of light reflected from sections of bismuth, tin, and aluminum when these metals are microscopically examined under crossed polarizing plates. Koritnig12 has correlated the reflectivity of homogeneous solid solutions with their chemical compositions. From the above work and investigations in progress by this author, it is apparent that accurately determined values for the reflectance of vertically incident, plane-polarized monochromatic light from carefully polished surfaces of noncubic metals can prove useful in identification, composition determinations, and crystallographic orientation applications. Finally, reflectivity values, when measured in two media of differing refraction index and related to standards whose spectral reflectivities in these media are known, can be used to calculate optical constants such as refractive index and absorption coefficient. These constants may prove of use to those concerned with problems of electron band configuration. This paper reports the spectral reflectivity of zirconium measured in light of 441 to 668 nanometers (nm) wavelengths and air immersion. It also gives maximum bireflectance values for a prism section of zirconium in these wavelengths and shows how bire-flectance may be used to determine the crystallographic orientation of zirconium single crystals. Because of the lack of information on the reflectivities of the standards in oil immersion, no attempt is made to calculate the refractive indices or absorption coefficients although it is recognized that such values may be of fundamental importance. METHOD Single crystals of zirconium were cut by electro-discharge machining from a single-crystal rod grown from iodide bar by an electron-beam zone-melting process.13 The crystal sections were mounted in cold-setting epoxy resin and mechanically polished to a plane, uniform, bright surface. Each crystal was then chemically polished in a 26/26/43/5 mixture (by vol) of water, nitric, lactic, and hydrofluoric acids to remove the mechanically damaged and smeared surface layer. Final polish was obtained by electropolishing at 30 v in a bath of methyl alcohol and perchloric acid (98/2 by vol) at -70oc.14 Reflectivity measurements were made using a photometer system designed and developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and described in detail by Larson.15 Briefly, the reflectivity measuring system consists of a reflecting microscope; a double-beam, null-balancing photometer array; a mechanically driven microscope stage; and a direct X-Y readout of the reflectivity of the specimen relative to its orientation on the microscope stage. The measuring photometer receives its signal from the specimen through a slotted Wright occular placed on top of the photovisual head of the microscope. The reference photometer receives light through a flexible glass "light pipe" from a mirror in the reflecting system of the microscope. Monochromatic light is attained through use of interference filters (15-nm half-peak width pass bands) placed in front of a stabilized Vickers 12 v, 100 w, tungsten-filament, quartz-iodide lamp.

Jan 1, 1970

By William P. Blake

In directing attention to the newly-opened zinc-ore region in Southwestern New Mexico, I adopt a suggestion made at the Engi neering Congress last summer in Chicago by Prof. Le Neve Foster, who commended the indication of the geographical position of a district under description by means of an outline-map. Such a map is the more important in this instance, inasmuch as the region to be described is remote and little known even in the United States. Until within a few years it has been infested by the savage Apaches, has not been often visited by mining engineers, and could not be

Jan 1, 1895

TO THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING AND METALLURGICAL ENGINEERS GENTLEMEN Submitted herewith are the report of the Treasurer for the year 1937 and the reports for the same year of the following standing committees: Admissions, Membership, Papers and Publications, Library, Student .Relations, Speakers for Local. Sections and Student Societies, and Mining and Metallurgy. To these reports members are referred for further details. Finances.-Income for the year was the largest since 1930, the figure being $189,394, an increase of $18,803 compared with income for 1936, exclusive of a special Rocky Mountain Fund appropriation of $2500 in that year for visits to western schools and Local Sections. Major items of increase were: $8,000 from current dues and arrears; $7,700 from advertising in MINING AND METALLURGY and the two periodical "Technologies"; and $4,800 from sales of TECHNICAL PUBLICATIONS (pamphlets) and TRANSACTIONS volumes for both current and former years. Initiation fees and clues from new members declined $2,300, principally because of the larger 'proportion of Junior Members to Members among the new enrollments. Junior Members pay no initiation fee and dues are $10 compared with $15 for Members.

Jan 1, 1938

By John Birkinbine

THE favor with which the members of the Institute received Mr. Fernow's paper upon the use of charbon roux in the manufacture of iron has encouraged me to present this paper, in the hope of having the discussion upon the manufacture and use of the oldest and undoubtedly the best fuel for producing pig iron continued. Owing to the advances made in employing anthracite coal, bituminous coal, or coke, or mixtures of them, we are apt to forget how much of our present development is due to the pioneers in iron manufacture and the fuel which they employed in the production of pig iron. In Mr. Swank's last compilation of the iron and steel works of the United States, the furnace capacity of the country is given as 5,868,000 tons, of which 1,000,000 tons can be made in the 264 charcoal furnaces. In other words, over one-third of the furnaces now in existence use charcoal for fuel, and produce more than one-sixth of the iron made. If to this is added the 130,000 tons of blooms and billets turned out by the 122 forges and bloomaries, the importance of the charcoal industries will be appreciated.

Jan 1, 1879

By Howard J. Smith

For several years this Institute has recorded in its Transactions the various discoveries of potash‡ in America, and the successive stages in the development of an independent domestic potash industry. This paper is intended primarily to continue the record through the year 1935. In retrospect it is not inappropriate to note that public interest aroused in 1910 resulted in the production of some 1090 tons of pure potash in 1915, as a small beginning in the domestic inorganic potash industry, and that the infant industry thus begun reaches its majority this year, following a record production in 1935 of about 600,000 tons of potash salts and exports to no less than 22 foreign countries, including six countries in Europe. This production, with an estimated 200,000 tons of pure potash, may be compared with a production in 1934 of 430,157 tons of salts with an equivalent of 144,342 tons of pure potash. Mine and Plant Improvement During 1935, the American Potash & Chemical Co., at Searles Lake, Calif., began to reap the benefits of its previously enlarged plant facilities, which increased its productive capacity to 180,000 tons of muriate annually. The United States Potash Co., at Carlsbad, N. Mex., improved its operations by installing trolley locomotives and other haulage facilities and is maintaining its development headings two years in advance of operations, with projected plans for orderly mining for years to come. The hoisting shaft at its mine is now equipped to hoist at the rate of 1,000,000 tons annually, and the refinery to produce 150,000 tons of muriate containing less than one per cent of impurities. The Potash Co. of America, at Carlsbad, N. Mex., completed the conversion of its plant from a prospecting to an operating basis late in 1935. The coarse-crushing plant, with a capacity of 150 tons an hour, formerly on the surface, was installed underground, with ore pockets

Jan 1, 1938

By Howard J. Smith

For several years this Institute has recorded in its Transactions the various discoveries of potash‡ in America, and the successive stages in the development of an independent domestic potash industry. This paper is intended primarily to continue the record through the year 1935. In retrospect it is not inappropriate to note that public interest aroused in 1910 resulted in the production of some 1090 tons of pure potash in 1915, as a small beginning in the domestic inorganic potash industry, and that the infant industry thus begun reaches its majority this year, following a record production in 1935 of about 600,000 tons of potash salts and exports to no less than 22 foreign countries, including six countries in Europe. This production, with an estimated 200,000 tons of pure potash, may be compared with a production in 1934 of 430,157 tons of salts with an equivalent of 144,342 tons of pure potash. Mine and Plant Improvement During 1935, the American Potash & Chemical Co., at Searles Lake, Calif., began to reap the benefits of its previously enlarged plant facilities, which increased its productive capacity to 180,000 tons of muriate annually. The United States Potash Co., at Carlsbad, N. Mex., improved its operations by installing trolley locomotives and other haulage facilities and is maintaining its development headings two years in advance of operations, with projected plans for orderly mining for years to come. The hoisting shaft at its mine is now equipped to hoist at the rate of 1,000,000 tons annually, and the refinery to produce 150,000 tons of muriate containing less than one per cent of impurities. The Potash Co. of America, at Carlsbad, N. Mex., completed the conversion of its plant from a prospecting to an operating basis late in 1935. The coarse-crushing plant, with a capacity of 150 tons an hour, formerly on the surface, was installed underground, with ore pockets

Jan 1, 1938

By T. F. Witherbee

It is proposed to give, first, a description of the works; second, a report of the first six months of the present blast; and third, such improvements as have been suggested by the practical working. The site selected for this furnace was, at the time of commencing work, October, 1872, entirely covered by the navigable waters of Lake Champlain. A coffer-dam was first built of cribs of round timber filled with stone, forming three sides, while the shore answered for the fourth. Considerable excavating was done with a steam-dredge, a hole being left for it to pass out. The opening was then built up, and the cribbing banked up with blue clay from the bottom of the lake, to render it water-tight and the dam pumped out; the remainder of the excavating being done by hand. All of the foundations, with the exception of the elevator-tower, and fifteen feet of the east side of hot blast, rest on the Potsdam sandstone, which forms the shore line, dipping into the lake at an angle of fifteen degrees. Owing to jogs in the formation, a much greater depth was found necessary than was at first anticipated, the foundation under the stack

P. H. Dudley, Yew York, N. Y. (communication to the Secretary*) :—The characteristics of Professor Home's metallurgical papers are, that he is able, from the mass of confusing evidence on the subject, to make an analysis and present hypothetical and essential principles in concrete form for consideration and discussion. I can appreciate, from the practical side of the subject, the labor of collecting and investigating the data which was essential to prepare the paper. Much of it necessarily came from material of preceding years of manufacture in which time was allowed for chemical reactions of the re-carburizer, and for the elimination of the oxidation-products before teeming the ingots. This practice gave a favorable time-element to free the metal from slag and other impurities— a requisite condition for the production of sound steel in the ingots. But, in allowing them to become cold before they were charged into the furnace, a subsequent time-element entered as a detrimental factor in the development of the pipe or shrinkage-cavities, which gave an ingot-structure deficient in soundness, at least in the upper portion. (The term slag is used in a general rather than in a strictly technical sense.) Traces of manganese sulphide are often associated with manganese silicates in the same thread or seam, and at other places they are separate and distinct. Interpretations from material thus manufactured must be made with due allowances for the methods of fabrication and the requirements of service. The only way we now have to estimate what the degree of soundness of the ingot-structure was, in the early foreign and American manufacture of steel rails, is by examination of the worn and failed material after years of service. We must remember also that the poorest material was long since consigned to the scrap-heap without any full record of its history. The rails from a given ingot cannot now be identified ; and in many

Jan 1, 1909

By George Rice

THE A.I.M.E. Ground Movement and Subsidence Committee, pro-posed in 1920, held its first technical meeting in February 1923, under the able chairmanship of Mr. H. G. Moulton. The following list of papers and discussions, indicating the scope of the problems and relation to various conditions and method of mining, were given at that meeting by the distinguished mining engineers: J. Parke Channing, on Subsidence at Miami, Arizona; Howard N. Eavenson, on Mining an Upper Bitu-minous Seam after a Lower Seam Has Been Extracted; J. J. Rutledge, on Subsidence in Two Oklahoma Coal Mines; Benjamin F. Tillson, on Caving Cracks at the Franklin Mine, New Jersey; Dr. F. W. McNair, on the Dome Theory; William Kelly, on disadvantageous effects in Mining and Back-filling Working Upward a Steep-Pitching Iron-ore Bed; Eli T. Conner, on the good results of Back-Filling by Hydraulic Means in Preventing Destructive Subsidence in the Anthracite District; Thomas H. Claggett, on the merit of Systematic Pillar Drawing in Preventing Cracks in an Upper Seam; Henry H. Otto, successful results in the anthracite district in Mining Lower Seams before Upper Seams; Douglas Bunting, on Leading Factors Incident to Successful Mining of an Overlying Seam; Edwin Ludlow, on there being "less damage to buildings when there was complete removal of coal with complete packing than when room and pillar is used without extracting the pillars"; Edward O'Toole on "bumps" in eastern Kentucky mines, which he thought were the result of geologic stresses: H. A. Buehler, on Upheaval of Surface in an Illinois Case in Advance of the Face; and R. Dawson Hall, on The Mechanics of Subsidence from Mining. The author of this paper discussed various kinds of problems of ground movement and subsidence in both metal mining and coal mining; the production of great landslides by workings near an outcrop, as at Turtle Mountain, Alberta, Canada; and general

Jan 1, 1939

By T. C. Desollar

The group of iron-ore mines known as the Red Ore Mines, owned and operated by the Woodward Iron Co., is on Red Mountain approximately ten miles southwest of Birmingham, Ala. At the present time NO. 1 and No. 3 mines are active, No. 2 mines having been abandoned in 1928. Ore from this group of mines was first mined in 1882, and originally came from open cuts along the outcrop, but, when the "soft ore" (weathered hematite) was mined out and the harder ore was encountered, it became necessary to develop the orebody by means of slopes driven in the ore formation. The three mines to date have produced more than 22,000,000 tons, and the two operating mines now have a capacity of over 1,000,000 tons per year. Geology The U. S. Geological Survey has described the features of the district. It places the hematite of Red Mountain, commonly called "red ore," in the Clinton formation of the Silurian system. This formation varies from 200 to 300 ft. in thickness, and is composed largely of shale (slate) and sandstone. There are four iron orebeds in the formation, known as the Hickory Nut, Ida, Big Seam and the Irondale seams. The strike of the orebeds is northeast and southwest, and the dip is southeast, the outcrops being on the west side of the mountain. The two seams that have been worked at the Red Ore mines are the Big Seam and the Ida. The Big Seam, which is and has been the principal source of the ore mined, is approximately 20 ft. thick and consists of hematite and ferruginous bands of sandstone. It is separated into "upper" and "lower bench" ore by a slate parting that is about 30 in. thick. All present mining is confined to the "upper bench" ore, which is uniform in texture and drills and breaks fairly easily when the holes are placed so as to take full advantage of the face of the ore. Typical analyses are shown in Table 1. The presence of two water-bearing formations, the Fort Payne chert and the Hartselle sandstone, lying respectively 160 and 300 ft. above the Big Seam, make it essential that in mining the ore any movement of

Jan 1, 1934

By Glenn A. Marsh, George Bernard

It is often assumed that aerated oil field brines which are to be injected underground contain dissolved oxygen in amounts which will cause appreciable corrosion. Through the use of a new portable dissolved oxygen meter, accurate determinations were made at three brine conditioning plants. At two older plants, dissolved oxygen concentration in the final treated brine was found to he almost zero In spite of aeration during the conditioning process. At a new plant, dissolved oxygen was initially present but disappeared soon after the brine was "inoculated" with oxygen-free brine from one of the other plants. Corrosion tests at the two older plants have substantiated predictions that the brines would lint be corrosive. These results show that mechanical deaeration may not always be required in brine treating plants. INTRODUCTION The present work was undertaken to add to our knowledge of aeration and deaeration of oil field brines in brine conditioning plants. It is commonly assumed that brines which are exposed to the air soon become more or less saturated with dissolved oxygen. Since oxygen-containing brines are known to be corrosive, precautions are often taken to keep air out of brine through the use of closed systems or mechanical deaeration. The study of oxygen in brine has been seriously hampered in the past because of the lack of a suitable analytical tool. The standard Winkler method for the determination of dis-solved oxygen is satisfactory for use in fresh water, but not in many oil field brines. Corrections have to be made for a number of reducing substances such as ferrous iron and hydrogen sulfide which are commonly present in natural brines. Very often the correction factors are much greater in magnitude than the amounts of oxygen which are to be determined, and consequently erroneous results are obtained. Also. erratic Winkler data are obtained when appreciable concentrations of calcium and magnesium salts are present. The first step in carrying out a systematic study involved designing a portable dissolved oxygen apparatus which would operate in natural brines. Subsequently, this apparatus was used in three brine conditioning plants. Dissolved oxygen data obtained here, and certain corrosion rate data, illustrate the interesting behavior of oxygen in these oil field brines. APPARATUS A portable dissolved oxygen meter described in detail elsewhere,' was developed specifically for use with oil field brines. It is a polarographic apparatus employing a small rotating platinum electrode (cathode) and calomel reference electrode (anode). A potential of 0.7 volts is applied across the electrodes while they are immersed in the brine to be tested. 4References given at end of paper.

Jan 1, 1952

By T. F. Witherbee

IT is proposed to give, first, a description of the works ; second, a report of the first six months of the present blast; and third, such improvements as have been suggested by the practical working. The site selected for this furnace was, at the time of commencing work, October, 1872, entirely covered by the navigable waters of Lake Champlain. A coffer-dam was first built of cribs of round timber filled with stone, forming three sides, while the shore answered for the fourth. Considerable excavating was done with a steam-dredge, a hole being left for it to pass out. The opening was then built up, and the cribbing banked up with blue clay from the bottom of the lake, to render it water-tight and the dam pumped out; the remainder of the excavating being done by hand. All of the foundations, with the exception of the elevator-tower, and fifteen feet of the east side of hot blast, rest on the Potsdam sandstone, which forms the shore line, dipping into the lake at an angle of fifteen degrees. Owing to jogs in the formation, a much greater depth was found necessary than was at first anticipated, the foundation under the stack

Jan 1, 1876