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Rhenium-plated acid containers
700
CURRENT
TOPICS.
[J. F. I.
Rhenium-Plated Acid Containers.--(Science Service.) Rhenium, a rare element, was discovered as early as I925 by Naddack, a German chemist, who named this new metal after the river Rhine. It has been known, almost from the time of its discovery, that rhenium is very resistant to hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. On the other hand, it was only at the last meeting of the Electrochemical Society that PROF. CALIN G. FINK and P. D~REN of Columbia University announced the discovery of how to plate rhenium on brass, copper and other metals. Such a discovery may prove of the greatest importance to industry. Unlike nitric and sulphuric acids, which can be shipped and stored in suitable metal containers, hydrochloric acid has necessitated the more costly method of transporting and storing in glass bottles protected by heavy wooden containers. Now it would appear that the acid can be shipped cheaply in tank cars lined with rhenium and stored in rhenium-plated tanks. While rhenium is widely distributed in the earth's crust, no deposits have so far been located which yield more than a trace of the metal. Even in the richest ores it is there only in from 2 to 20 parts per million. Present in the slime waste products from copper refining plants in about one part per million, rhenium may be classed as a by-product up to that point. From there on, pure rhenium may be obtained from such copper wastes at a cost which makes its price nominal. C.
CURRENT
TOPICS.
[J. F. I.
Rhenium-Plated Acid Containers.--(Science Service.) Rhenium, a rare element, was discovered as early as I925 by Naddack, a German chemist, who named this new metal after the river Rhine. It has been known, almost from the time of its discovery, that rhenium is very resistant to hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. On the other hand, it was only at the last meeting of the Electrochemical Society that PROF. CALIN G. FINK and P. D~REN of Columbia University announced the discovery of how to plate rhenium on brass, copper and other metals. Such a discovery may prove of the greatest importance to industry. Unlike nitric and sulphuric acids, which can be shipped and stored in suitable metal containers, hydrochloric acid has necessitated the more costly method of transporting and storing in glass bottles protected by heavy wooden containers. Now it would appear that the acid can be shipped cheaply in tank cars lined with rhenium and stored in rhenium-plated tanks. While rhenium is widely distributed in the earth's crust, no deposits have so far been located which yield more than a trace of the metal. Even in the richest ores it is there only in from 2 to 20 parts per million. Present in the slime waste products from copper refining plants in about one part per million, rhenium may be classed as a by-product up to that point. From there on, pure rhenium may be obtained from such copper wastes at a cost which makes its price nominal. C.