Lead chamber process for

Figure 10.5. The Lead Chamber process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid...

To date, the single most important commercial use of lead is in the manufacture of lead-acid storage batteries. However, for most of the twentieth century, the most important environmental source of Pb was gasoline combnstion. It is also used in alloys, such as fusible metals, antifriction metals, and solder. Lead foil is made with lead alloys. Lead is used for covering cables and as a lining for laboratory sinks, tanks, and the chambers in the lead-chamber process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. It is used extensively in plumbing. Because it has excellent vibration-dampening characteristics, lead is often used to support heavy machinery. 

Late 1800s The lead chamber process for manufacturing sulfuric acid was prevalent in this period. Arsenic was a common contaminant in the pyrites used as a source of sulfur for this process. Now the cleaner contact process is used and most of the raw material is elemental sulfur. 

It is fairly generally believed that nitrosulphonic acid plays an important part in the lead chamber process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid (see p. 153). The vapour pressures of mixtures of sulphuric acid with nitrous or nitric acid or with both these acids, within the range occurring in the chambers, increase with the nitrogen acid content and with rise in temperature, and the total pressure is always higher than the sum of the individual pressures, especially when the sulphuric acid is concentrated, for nitric acid - sulphuric acid mixtures this may be explained 1 by the occurrence of the following... 

Roebuck introduces the lead chamber process for H2SO4... 

FIG. 17-6. The lead-chamber process for making sulfuric acid. 

The Lead Chamber process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid was developed in the 1740s by John Roebuck, then based in Birmingham. Production of this key commodity rose steadily. By the 1820s, British annual production had reached 10,000 tons of 100% acid. By 1900, Britain was producing one quarter of the world s output with an annual production approaching one million tons. 

This is a classic area of inorganic chemistry dating back to the middle of the last century and only a brief outline will be possible. It will be convenient first to treat the sulfur nitrogen oxides and then the amides, imides and nitrides of sulfuric acid. Hydrazides and hydroxylamides of sulfuric acid will also be considered. Some of these compounds have remarkable properties and some are implicated in the lead-chamber process for the manufacture of H2SO4 (p. 708). The field is closely associated with the names of the great German chemists E. Fremy ( 1845),... 

In the lead chamber process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid, nitric oxide, oxygen (from the air), sulfur dioxide, and water (steam), interact. The nitric oxide acts as the catalyst, and is present at the end of the action, with the sulfuric acid. It acts as oxygen carrier. One of the intermediate compounds which is formed contains nitrogen peroxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide, and water. It may be obtained in crystalline form, known as chamber crystals which have the composition HSQ3NO2, nitro-sulfonic acid, under certain conditions. This substance is decomposed in the presence of an excess of steam or water vapor into sulfuric acid and nitric oxide, or better, nitrogen trioxide, N2O3. While the exact formulation of the intermediate compounds is not simple under the various conditions, the evidence at hand is sufficient to make the existence of at least one intermediate compound certain. 

The invention of the lead chamber process for the manufacture of sulphuric acid by John Roebuck in 1746 is regarded as one of the most significant developments of the Industrial Revolution. Over the next century... 

Figure 2.1. Lead chamber process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid. Reprinted with permission of the Science Museum, London.

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