ALUMINIUM DISCOVERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1921, Page 8

ALUMINIUM DISCOVERY.

WHAT A SCIENTIST HAS FOUND. A feat that scientists have been predicting for years and years has been accomplished—a method has been discovered. for separating aluminium from clay. It has long been known that many clay deposits were rich in aluminium, but for decades mineralogists have experimented in a vain attempt to discover some economical method of extracting these rich deposits of aluminium which were going to waste because of their inaccessibility. Up to this time bauxite has been the only available source of aluminium, and for every ton of bauxite in the earth there are a billion tons of kaolin or clay containing aluminium. Thus it is easy to sfce what it means suddenly to be able to use all this aluminium-filled clay, how it will revolutionise aluminium industry and various allied industries. The genius who has made this epochmaking discovery is, according to the Free Press of Detroit, Dr. G. L. Williams, an American born. He obtained much of his in Germany, and some of his experience, having been employed in large chemical plants in that country at one time. By trade- he is an electrochemical engineer. Well-known business men of Detroit have interested themselves in the discovery, and, having found the capital bought a large factory, belonging to the Government, which had been used for making powder. The plant has now been converted for the production of aluminium from kaolin. They have also bought up large tracts of land in Georgia, which are rich in the proper kind of clay. The company lias had to take out fifty-eight patents in all to cover each step of the process for separating aluminium from the clay. But aluminium is not to bo the only product jjf the astonishing process developed by Dr. Williams. In the very breaking of the bond between the aluminium and the clay, when Dr. Williams fixes the nitrogen of the air with the hydrogen of water, clay, and coal, ammonia is produced. Though this is merely a by-product, its value is inestimable. It . means cheaper ammonia, z for by this new pixn cess from every ten pounds of original i material Dr. Williams gets an equal ; amount of ammonia out of the free air, ■j while heretofore it used to take a ton of ' coal to produce thirty pounds of am- : monia. It is fully predicted here that | the doctor’s discovery will revolutionise metal world.