Word: ferrosilicon
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Several of the new magnesium makers (Ford among them) use the little-known ferrosilicon process developed by Canada's Lloyd Montgomery Pidgeon. Requiring minimum plant-construction time, the Pidgeon process has been recommended by the National Academy of Sciences as promising the quickest yield with the least risk. Unlike electrolytic methods, it does not require great power. Since it uses dolomite (magnesium-calcium carbonate, one of the most plentiful limestones), plants can be almost anywhere...
...Ford, dolomite is powdered, calcined (burned in a kiln) and mixed with ferrosilicon-an electric-furnace product of silicon and iron long used in steelmaking. The mixture is pressed into briquettes and charged into furnaces. When these are heated under vacuum, magnesium vapor is given off, and it crystallizes as on removable steel sleeves...
...Advantages. Now on its way, Permanente may some day have advantages over other magnesium producers: its raw material costs average 4? a Ib. v. 14? for the ferrosilicon process used by Union Carbide & Carbon; its power costs are below those for the "sea water" process used by No. 1 U.S. magnesium-maker Dow Chemical. In the head-to-head battle of metals (steel v. aluminum v. magnesium, etc.) which will surely follow the Armistice, this will mean easy going for Permanente, tougher sledding for its competitors...
...magnesium program was to enlist a new process that uses less power than present electrolytic methods: ferrosilicon. Pulverized and mixed with calcined dolomite (a common magnesium ore), the ferrosilicon reduces the ore in a vacuum, and magnesium of high purity results. Henry Ford, Union Carbide & Carbon and Canada's Dominion Magnesium Co. have been experimenting with the process for three years. All three will share in the new manufacturing program. So, using this or their own process, will American Metal Co., National Lead Co., Permanente Metals Corp., Dow Chemical (at present the only volume producer of magnesium), Mathieson Alkali...
Plants for the ferrosilicon process can be built in jigtime (six months to a year). The power economy is no less an advantage, since power is getting scarce. Last week WPB authorized a big new aluminum plant for Brooklyn, a city whose power rates are among the highest in the U.S. Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia also got new aluminum plants. Reason: these cities all have excess kilowatt capacity, and capacity, not price, is the important thing...