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Remains of the Pyrites Kilns
Remains of Pyrites kilns, constructed by John Hutchinson, these kilns were used to burn copper pyrites in the manufacture of Sulphuric Acid, pictures taken 1983.
Although Gay-Lussac invented his tower for recovering the nitrogen oxides as early as 1842, it was only in 1868-70, when there was an acute shortage of sodium nitrate, that the towers came into general use. Even today chemists have not entirely explained to their own satisfaction the function of nitrogen oxides in this oldest of industrial chemical reactions; at least a dozen theories have been advanced and from time to time have held the field. In the Glover tower, invented by John Glover in 1859, the hot gases from the pyrites burners remove the nitrogen oxides from the vitriol which has passed through the Gay-Lussac tower, at the same time effecting concentration of the acid. The first Glover tower in Lancashire was erected in 1868 at Gaskell-Deacon Works under the supervision of Ferdinand Hurter.
The Glover Tower, Widnes, 1870.
Febuary 1, 1871
THE LONDON READER.
Men worked round the clock for very little pay, shovelling the Spanish Pyrites into the furnaces, 1870's. (AI generated image)
Pyrites burners for the manufacture of sulphuric acid extract precious metals from the molten ore 1870's.
Industrial Widnes showing the remains
of the Pyrites Kilns, 1950.
The factories, though spacious, are mean and dirty. The approaches seem to be the railway sidings. 1897.
The remains of John Hutchinson's No.1 Works, with Widnes laboratory, from Spike Island, 1983.
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