Sources Of Energy
Sir, —The “Frontiers of Science” strips of June 7 and 9, “visualise” cheap power enabling hydrogen and oxygen to be made from water, and nitrates from these using nitrogen from the air. Seven years ago I visited a plant at Trail, British Columbia, which has been doing this for many years. Hydroelectric alternating current generated on the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers is converted to direct current by mercury arcs and supplied to electrodes in numerous tanks of acidified water from where hydrogen and oxygen are led off. Nitrogen is separated from liquified air and combined with hydrogen to form ammonia, some of which is subsequently oxidised to nitric acid. The combination of ammonia with nitric acid
forms the final product: ammonium nitrate. By using sulphuric acid, produced nearby as a by-product of the smelting of lead and zinc sulphides from the Sullivan Mine at Kimberley, ammonium sulphate is readily made instead.—Yours, etc., June 10, 1969. PAUL MALING.
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Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32011, 11 June 1969, Page 14
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160Sources Of Energy Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32011, 11 June 1969, Page 14
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