Statewide County, SD History - Books .....Aluminum 1925
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Book Title: Doane Robinson's Encyclopedia Of South Dakota

  Aluminum. All clays and shales have varying percentages of aluminum. The
Pierre shales, which cover an area of more than 30,000 square miles in South
Dakota to an average depth of 1000 feet have an average of 21 percent of alumina
(Al2O3) or more than 400 pounds of the oxide to the ton. These shales are
exposed all along the valley of the Missouri River, above Big Bend, in South
Dakota, located where they may be handled directly into refineries situated
along the stream.

  An average of numerous analyses of the Fort Pierre shale gives the following
results:

Silica           61.53
Alumina          20.74
Iron oxide        4.01
Lime              1.72
Magnesia          1.26
Water            12.08

  Great difficulty has been encountered by chemists in separating the alumina
from the silica these elements having affinity for each other. The Bureau of
Mines announces the development of a process for the separation of alumina from
clays and shales by which "it should be possible to manufacture aluminum oxide
at a cost to compete with the usual Bayer process for treating bauxite."

  The Bureau of Mines process is as follows:

  1. The shale is decomposed with sulphuric acid.

  2. The sulfated material is dissolved in water.

  3. The water solution of aluminum sulfate is filtered.

  4. The aluminum sulfate is purified.

  5. The purified solution is evaporated and crystalized.

  6. The crystalline hydrate is dried.

  7. The aluminum sulfate is calcined and the oxides of sulfur
     recovered for re-use.

  The essentials for this process are-

  Shales in quantity where they may be inexpensively handled.

  Great power.

  Cheap electric current.

  Abundant sulphides.

  This combination of essentials is found upon the Missouri in South Dakota as
it is not elsewhere. Shales of high alumina content, in inexhaustible quantity;
vast power to be developed from the stream; electric current from such power;
sulphides now wasted, readily accessible from the copper mines of Montana.
Aluminum in quantity is regarded as the most hopeful outlook for a substitute
for lumber as our forests become exhausted.

  A by-product of aluminum manufacture from shales would be 1200 pounds of
coarse glass building blocks per ton.

  Report of Oliver C. Ralston upon results of experiments of Bureau of Mines
Research Laboratory at Berkeley, dated Sent. 30, 1924, in files Department of
History.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

DOANE ROBINSON'S
Encyclopedia of South Dakota
FIRST EDITION

Published by the Author
PIERRE
1925

COPYRIGHT BY DOANE ROBINSON. 1925

WILL A. BEACH PRINTING COMPANY
PRINTERS AND BINDERS
SIOUX FALLS


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