Oldbury plants

The detoluation method was developed as a continuous method of manufacturing TNT in the Oldbury plant which came into operation in 1917. 

Castner, Hamilton Young — (Sep. 11, 1858, Brooklyn, New York, USA - Oct. 11,1899, Saranac Lake, New York, USA) Castner studied at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and at the School of Mines of Columbia University. He started as an analytical chemist, however, later he devoted himself to the design and the improvement of industrial chemical processes. He worked on the production of charcoal, and it led him to investigate the Devilles aluminum process. He discovered an efficient way to produce sodium in 1886 which made also the production of aluminum much cheaper. He could make aluminum on a substantial industrial scale at the Oldbury plant of The Aluminium Company Limited founded in England. However, - Hall and - Heroult invented their electrochemical process which could manufacture aluminum at an even lower price, and the chemical process became obsolete. Castner also started to use electricity, which became available and cheap after the invention of the dynamo by - Siemens in 1866, and elaborated the - chlor-alkali electrolysis process by using a mercury cathode. Since Karl Kellner (1851-1905) also patented an almost identical procedure, the process became known as Castner-Kellner process. Cast-... 

There was no experience in Britain of the production of TNT from toluol petroT. Accordingly, De Kok, head of the Royal Dutch research laboratory and just back from France, went to Britain to assist in the manufacture of TNT from Borneo oil. In London, he joined the American explosives expert Kenneth B. Quinan (1878-1948), who had been brought from South Africa to begin TNT production. De Kok erected a MNT plant at Oldbury, on the basis of experience that Royal Dutch had gained in the Reisholz nitration plant. Whereas the Reisholz factory never produced more than 100 metric tons MTN a week, the Oldbury plant was designed for 450 tons a week. In a second plant, built according to a comparable design at Sandycroft by De Kok and his Dutch assistant V. Henny, an even more remarkable 700 tons a week were produced. ... 

In America, phosgene was made from combination of carbon monoxide and dichlorine in graphite tubes. Daily production at the Federal site, known as the Edgewood Arsenal [819,954], was 40 tons at the beginning of America s late involvement in the war. The works were eventually extended to a capacity of 80 tons per day (although the plant was closed, shortly after the signing of the Armistice, and the extended production was never fully realised [1019]) [954], with a further 10 tons per day provided by the Oldbury Electrochemical Co. 

For example, the first small plant at Niagara Falls produced 83,070 pounds of phosgene and only 24,800 pounds made it overseas. Likewise, the Bound Brook plant and Oldbury s main plant each made five tons of phosgene daily. Oldbury s plant loaded 18,768 Livens drums. 

Continental expertise was also drawn upon to build the smaller raw materials plants, which were also critical to production. In early 1915, a distillation plant owned by Shell, which was capable of producing toluene from Borneo petroleum, was brought from Rotterdam and re-erected at Portishead, near Bristol. Soon afterwards, an almost identical plant was constructed at Barrow-in-Fumess in Cumbria. During the war, these two factories produced almost the same amount of toluene as the entire British coal-gas industry. Under Shell s chief engineer, W.R. Aveline, company chemists, who included Dutch citizens, also assisted in the construction of the nitration and TNT plants at Oldbury and Queensferry. ... 

Historical Sketch of Experimental Plant Leased by the Government from Oldbury Electro Chemical Co. [fragment] enclosed in McPherson, op. cit. note 70 NARA, RG 175, Entry 8, Box 14, Engineering Bureau to Control Bureau, Experimental Plant of Oldbury Electro-Chemical Co., Niagara Falls, NY, for Temporary and Immediate Manufacture of L-3 , 20 February 1918. op. cit. notes 64 and 65. 

The first operating membrane cell was the rocking cell, largely developed by Baker, who was Castner s chief chemist, at Oldbury, and later at Runcorn. The history of the Castner Kellner plant at Runcorn gives the history of the development of the mercury cell, and indicates the way in which a technology has developed in the drive to increase production quantities and efficiencies while minimizing capital costs. 

The 300 MW(e) plant, proposed by the National Nuclear Corp, (NNC), UK, Incorporates a natural uranium magnox reactor. The design is based upon that used for two magnox reactors at the Oldbury Station which have given continuous satisfactory service to the CEGB since they were commissioned in 1967. During 1980-81 the station achieved a load factor of 90.2 and the availability is now 90%. 

REFEI NCE PLANT Oldbury on Seven, twin units of 300 MW(e) each PROTOTYPE PLANT Not applicable... 

Shunned by industrialists in the U.S. he sailed to England in late 86, obtaining the support of the Webster Crown Metal Co. to establish a new venture The Aluminium Co., Ltd. By 1888 Castner had built a plant at Oldbury in Britain to produce 100,000 pounds per year of aluminum. He enjoyed a short-lived monopoly. Hall-Heroult shut him down. In a classic case of necessity spawning invention, he doggedly pursued other uses for sodium. 

William McPherson, Report of the Director of Outside Plants, Enclosure 7 (Niagara Falls), pp. 1-7, NARA, RG 175, entry 8, box 14. Amos Fries later testified that Oldbury received initial technical help from the British Fries notes that Lidbury, the general manager was British. Fries testimony in Senate Committee on Finance, Hearings, Dyestuffs (1920), 30. 

---