AbstractsChemistry

The roasting of zinc ores in the manufacture of sulphuric acid by the contact process

by Clarence Eugene Peterson




Institution: Missouri University of Science and Technology
Department:
Year: 1919
Record ID: 1577000
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10355/17874


Abstract

"The unprecedented demand for sulphuric acid of the higher strengths (98% and higher) in the manufacture of explosives, has stimulated the zinc smelters to increased efforts in the recovery of their Roaster gases in the form of Sulphuric Acid. The Lead-chamber process is unsuitable, however, in making "strong" acid and the smelters naturally turned to the contact mass or catalytic processes. In the roasting of zinc ores practically all of the sulphur is removed as sulphur dioxide, the disagreeable odor and unmistakable injury to surrounding localities, of which, first led to the adoption of sulphuric acid plants by most zinc smelters. This sulphur dioxide so formed has little value unless converted into sulphuric acid...In the contact process the dry, cleaned Sulphur dioxide is passed through a mass containing a substance which acts as a catalyzer converting the sulphur dioxide to sulphur trioxide" – Introduction, p. [1].