Billiter

The Siemens-Billiter electrolyzer is a notable representative of electrolyzers with a horizontal filtering diaphragm which is still used in some factories (see Fig. 90). 

Fig. 00. Sectional view of a Siemens-Billiter electrolyzer with a horizontal tillering diaphragm...

In spite of this, the Billiter electrolyzers still require much floor space for this reason they use to be gradually replaced by compact electrolyzers with vertical filtering diaphragms. 

The Gibbs-Vorce electrolyzer is one of these it is extremely simple and compact, so that for a current of 1000 A only some 1.4 sq. m of floor space is needed (in comparison with the horizontal Billiter electrolyzer which requires some 6.5 sq. m of floor space for every 1000 A). 

Billiter, J., Technische Elektrochemie, 4 vols., Wilhelm Knapp, Halle, Germany, 1923-8. 

Bronze bells had been cast in England as early as the eleventh century and by the twelfth century the industry had attained national importance in later years numerous bell foundries opened up in various parts of the country. The bell founder was known as a bellyeter , and Billiter Street, off Leadenhall Street, London, E.C. derives its name from this as it was once a centre of the industry. 

England,.—Hardy, Seligmann Co., Billiter Buildings, London,... 

FIGURE 2.4. Billiter cell. A flat cathode B corrugated cathode, a anode c cathode d diaphragm ac anode chamber cc cathode chamber bi brine inlet co chlorine outl no caustic outlet ho hydrogen outlet. 

J. Billiter, Die Technische Elektrolyse der Nichtmetalle, Springer-Veriag, Wien (1954), p. 358. 

An example of the horizontal cell is the Billiter cell, which employed a corrugated steel cathode covered with a mixture of long fiber asbestos and barium sulfate paste. These cells were used in Germany between the world wars and were completely replaced later by vertical diaphragm cells. 

The Siemens-Billiter cell was already in operation by the Griesheim interests in Germany. Roberts founded a company,... 

Castner had set the stage for the chlor-alkali industry in Europe with his invention of the mercury cell. The only competition then was the Billiter diaphragm cell. Unlike LeSueur s diaphragm, Billiter s was a poorer diaphragm in performance, being much less uniform than the asbestos paper used by LeSueur. So that in Europe the mercury cell reigned from the outset. 

Though Dow deserves credit for taking a stand at a crucial point in the history of industrial electrochemistry, his cells would not have won any prizes for engineering excellence. Nor did his cells produce recoverable alkali. Billiter, Bell, Castner and Kellner in Europe, and Roberts, LeSueur, Allen, Moore, Gibbs,... 

And what of the original LeSueur cells The Brown Company, successor to Burgess Fibre, operated them, and others like them, for more than fify years — in competition with later designs of diaphragm cells, such as, the Townsend-Hooker (first used in 1906), the Billiter (1907) and the Gibbs. Of the last named more anon. 

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