File:Official proceedings (1921) (14761279395).jpg

Identifier: officialproceedi21rail (find matches)
Title: Official proceedings
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Railway Club of Pittsburgh
Subjects: Railway Club of Pittsburgh Railroads
Publisher: Pittsburgh, Pa. : The Club
Contributing Library: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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tion matters, the chemical engineeringfeatures of the Radium extraction equipment have been verydifficult, as the processes in general are destructive to equip-ment causing expensive repairs and replacement. The extrac-tion of carnotite ore is undoubtedly more complex and costlythan the extraction of any other ore. and the production ofRadium is costly almost beyond belief. To produce a gram of Radium element with recovery ofthe by-products, vanadium and uranium in oxide form, it maybe stated broadly requires the following: About five hundredtons of original average ore mined at high cost and transportedlong distances at large expense; approximately two hundredand eighty tons of chemicals, five hundred tons of coal;fifteen hundred tons of distilled and treated water among otheritems. The tonnage of ore and chemicals and coal alone wouldload a train of thirty freight cars, forty tons to the car, andtlie gram of Radium produced therefrom may be easily con-tained in a sewing thimble. 151
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From the time the ore is first mined to the time theRadium is turned over finished to the U. S. Bureau of Stand-ards for referee measurement, nearly six months has elapsed.It is necessary to age it for thirty days after it is finished andbefore measuring, so that it may become of normal activity.All Radium is thus sold and guaranteed on the Bureaus meas-urements, to avoid disagreements and to safeguard the pur-chaser. When the crude radium barium chloride is brought toa concentration of approximately six thousand M. I, or sixthousand milligrams per metric ton, the process becomes alaboratory operation of further fractionating out the bariumuntil the Radium is up to the desired strength, and this is donein our Pittsburgh laboratory. Many have been burned by Radium through ignorance orcarelessness. In the early days, before the power of Radiumwas understod, a messenger carried a considerable amount fromParis to London in a vest pocket and was unconscious of anyill effects at the time. A

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