US784885A - Method of extracting metals from ore by electricity. - Google Patents

Description

PATENTED MAR. 14, 1905.

E. L. PRIEST. METHOD OF EXTRAGTING METALS FROM ORE BY ELECTRICITY.

APPLICATION FILED APR. 5, 1904.

UNITED STATES Patented March 14, 1905.

PATENT OEEIcE.

EDIVARD L. PRIEST, OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 784,885, dated March 14, 1905.

Application filed April 5, 1904. Serial No- 201,631.

To all whrmt it may concern:

. the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

My invention relates to methods of ore extracting by electricity in which the electric currentis closed through the ore and a liquid body by the contact of the two and the formation of an intervening are, fusing the ore.

The difiiculty heretofore has been to properly complete the electric current through orebodies when the latter are used in any considerable quantity to make the process commercially available.

My invention has for its object the utilization of these methods with ore in any quantity; and to this end my invention consists in the novel process or method which I shall hereinafter fully describe.

In order to illustrate my method, I refer to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 represents a means for carrying out my method in which the ore to be fused is prepared and associatad with an electric conductor in one way. Fig. 2 is a similar view showing the ore prepared and associated with the conductor in another shape, but involving the same idea. In this figure the arcregulator is omitted. Fig. 3 is a similar view illustrating a third way of the same idea.

I prepare the ore by first comminuting it by any suitable means and adding to it or utilizing, if already present, any binding agent which will enable it to remain in or' to be pressed into a coherent mass. In some cases water will serve as such agent, or flour or many other pasty or gummy materials may be used. With this coherent comminuted ore mass I associate by incorporation or otherwise, so as to be reduced therewith, aconductor of electricity, which passes through or permeates the mass or otherwise lies in intimate contact with it. This conductor in its best form is carbon in any shape, such as coke or prepared carbon, which serves the further purpose of a heating medium. The association of this consumable conductor with the comminuted ore mass may be done in various ways. For example, in Fig. 1 I show the ore mass A as having the conductorB passing through its axis. In Fig. 2 I show the conductor B encircling the ore mass A, and in Fig. 3 I show the conductor B incorporated throughout the ore mass A. These will serve to illustrate many forms of association, all of which are rendered possible and practicable by the previous reduction of the ore to a comminuted coherent mass.

In the several figures C is a tank containing a body of liquid, (represented by I),) which liquid may be of any suitable conducting character, such as acidulated or salted water. With this liquid, as by means of the zinc plate (Z or otherwise, one of the wires, (Z, of the electric circuit is connected. The other wire, (Z is connected with the conductor B of Figs. 1 and 2 and with a through-wire (Z in Fig. 3, which wire forms a connection for all the conductor material of that form of ore presentation. There the prepared-ore masses touch the water, the current is completed through them, and as the arc is established the conductor is consumed, while the ore is reduced and drops into the water. The carbon conductors, as before stated, serve also to heat the ore.

These ore masses, with their consumable con-.

ductors, may be prepared in any suitable manner, sizes, and numbers, and a plurality of them may be connected in multiple arc. By such initial preparation of the ore the electric current is completed through them and large quantities may be handled with practicability. The metal cannot volatilize as it is precipitated into the water, which also purifies the metal, divesting it of sulfur, the latter forming sulfureted hydrogen, which passes off.

Having thus described my invention, what I I claim as new, and desire to secureby Letters Patent, is

1. The method of extracting metals from ores by electricity, consisting in forming a body of comminuted ore into a coherent mass, associating an electric conductor with the same, and positioning the mass with its conductor in contact with a liquid electrode and reducible comminuted coherent ore mass, second, connectlng with said mass a consumable electric conductor, and third, contacting said 5 body With a liquid electrode, thereby creating an electric arc therebetween to reduce said body and consume sa d conductor.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand.

EDWARD L. PRIEST. Witnesses:

WALTER F. VANE, D. B. RICHARDS.

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