Abstract
MY attention has lately been directed to your review of my book on “Practical Electrochemistry” (April 18, p. 582). I desire to thank you for noticing a modest effort at length. Your reviewer is in error in supposing that the series system of copper refining is now of any commercial importance. The process was founded on a delusion and is dead. The working up of anode sludge, mentioned by your reviewer, is a purely chemical question and does not fall within the scope of the book. I note with interest that a method has been devised for refining tin, but I do not anticipate its general adoption; gold and silver being absent from crude tin it is hardly to be expected that the anode sludge obtained in the process of refining will be worth exploitation. The electrolysis of chlorides to produce chlorates is an important branch of electro-chemical industry, and omissions of details in my book, quite fairly remarked by your reviewer, are due less to indolence on my part than to the impossibility of obtaining authentic information. Manufacturers, even in the United States, where a liberal spirit prevails, are chary of allowing entry to their works. A somewhat persevering inquiry at Niagara convinced me of this reluctance. But in spite of this difficulty I am well assured that the competent chemist, equipped with a sound knowledge of the principles of electrolysis, need not fear to engage in the practice of this the latest and most promising of industries.
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BLOUNT, B. Electro-Chemistry. Nature 64, 77 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/064077b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/064077b0
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