Diagram of Professor Kilburn Scott’s three-phase Electric Furnace and Accessories for obtaining Nitrogen from the Air. This furnace generates a temperature approximating 4000 degrees centigrade causing the nitrogen and oxygen of the air to combine forming nitric oxide. Ihe gas then passes through the tubes of a steam boiler and other devices to procure rapid cooling, as it is reversible at high temperatures. After being reinforced with oxygen from the oxidation tower to form nitrogen peroxide, it then circulates through the acid fixation tower. This tower is filled with quartz or granite gravel, and has fresh water continually percolating through the gravel. The rising nitrogen peroxide gas combines with some of the hydrogen of the water, forming a dilute nitric acid. This dilute acid is next fed into other towers until it reaches a strength of from 35 to 40 per cent, of pure acid, the required standard for combining with calcium (limestone) to form calcium nitrate.

Progress, Volume XIII, Issue 3, 1 November 1917, Page 63

Diagram of Professor Kilburn Scott’s three-phase Electric Furnace and Accessories for obtaining Nitrogen from the Air. This furnace generates a temperature approximating 4000 degrees centigrade causing the nitrogen and oxygen of the air to combine forming nitric oxide. Ihe gas then passes through the tubes of a steam boiler and other devices to procure rapid cooling, as it is reversible at high temperatures. After being reinforced with oxygen from the oxidation tower to form nitrogen peroxide, it then circulates through the acid fixation tower. This tower is filled with quartz or granite gravel, and has fresh water continually percolating through the gravel. The rising nitrogen peroxide gas combines with some of the hydrogen of the water, forming a dilute nitric acid. This dilute acid is next fed into other towers until it reaches a strength of from 35 to 40 per cent, of pure acid, the required standard for combining with calcium (limestone) to form calcium nitrate.