I wonder if it was attached to the gas works at Cattedown?-;

WILLIAM HARVEY,

Plymouth Tar & Chemical Works,

CATTEDOWN, PLYMOUTH.

Maker of Refined Anthracene, Naphtha (Crude and
Rectified), Creosote, Lubricating Oils, Grease, Disinfecting
Powder, Pitch and all Tar Products, Sulphate of Ammonia,
Crude Anthracene, &c., Purchased.

Sulphur was a by-product of the coking industry---

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Possibly, "Oil of Vitriol" referred to the 99+% stuff at SG1.84, anything more dilute being "Sulphuric Acid" of whatever strength.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid 

refers to acid being coloured brown as a warning

MARK

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There were, maybe still are various grades of Concentrated sulphuric acid.
The cheapest used to be B.O.V which is Brown oil of Vitriol.
It was made by the now defunct? lead chamber process.
Basically sulphur dioxide was oxidised to sulphur trioxide using nitrogen dioxide.
This was carried out in large lead chambers, to minimise corrosion.hence the name of the process. The resulting acid, usually contained insoluble lead sulphate, and was often brown due to residual traces of nitrogen dioxide.
It was only about 80% sulphuric acid, but was 'cheap to make'
since any impure sulphur dioxide could be used, for it, eg. the sulphur dioxide from the roasting of lead sulphide, etc.
Other processes for making, better concentrated acids, need a pure sulphur, feedstuff.
This Brown acid could be used to make phosphoric acid and or super phosphates, which are then sold in fertilisers.
The 'traditional' gas works, often had these plants attached to them. Since sulphur, had to be removed from the coal gas.

I understand that it is even possible for the public to get small quantities of hydrofluoric acid for etching glass. Well, that is a real killer, even in small quantities. Someone who went to school with me died after less than a year in his job due to a splash on his face.

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I once (briefly) worked in a factory producing high powered bulbs, they kept significant quantities of hydrofluoric acid. Seriously nasty stuff 😞

Well guys, many thanks for the info and feedback. The site location is also interesting.
Certainly the BOV option ticks all the boxes. The receipt mentions the tank, with contents, weighing 9 tons. I wonder if the tank was lead lined too. Going through my collection of petty receipts this order was repeated about every couple of months. Not too sure what they were using it for, but the mill at that time I believe was entirely gravity based, otherwise I would have thought it used in a floatation type process, pH buffering and whatnot.

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The B.O.V. tanks we had at Corby were just mild steel. I thought this was odd at the time, but was informed that B.O.V. isn't too bad in that state - it actually gets much more corrosive to steel when it's diluted - which was bourn out in practice when one of the tanks did become perforated. The hole appeared at a high level where there had been contact between condensation in the tank meeting the surface of the B.O.V.
Regards Andy

I understand that it is even possible for the public to get small quantities of hydrofluoric acid for etching glass. Well, that is a real killer, even in small quantities. Someone who went to school with me died after less than a year in his job due to a splash on his face.

.

I once (briefly) worked in a factory producing high powered bulbs, they kept significant quantities of hydrofluoric acid. Seriously nasty stuff :(

The glass etching stuff is in a paste but even so, I'm surprised you can get hold of it so easily, particularly knowing what it does and how you're supposed to treat a HF burn. Injections all around the burn site and underneath if possible to try and stop it getting to the bone....

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50 years ago when I first started in the labs, the warning was that if HF got below the skin, it would just go on dissolving flesh, the recommended emergency first aid was to open up the wound and get some neutralising agent in there PDQ. I can't remember the agent, luckily the situation never arose.

Apparently when it was first formulated it was thought to be the universal solvent, since it could not be kept in conventional stoneware or glass containers - it dissolved them!

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50 years ago when I first started in the labs, the warning was that if HF got below the skin, it would just go on dissolving flesh, the recommended emergency first aid was to open up the wound and get some neutralising agent in there PDQ. I can't remember the agent, luckily the situation never arose.

Calcium Gluconate solution IIRC

I avoided work with HF, but worked with cyanide and other nasties like TFA. I used to make up the cyanide antidote solutions (A & 😎 for the lab but fortunately never had to make use of it :)

Dave

50 years ago when I first started in the labs, the warning was that if HF got below the skin, it would just go on dissolving flesh, the recommended emergency first aid was to open up the wound and get some neutralising agent in there PDQ. I can't remember the agent, luckily the situation never arose.

Calcium Gluconate solution IIRC



Dave

That rings a bell.

The problem being it 'hunts' the calcium in your bones so you have to give it a more freely available source of calcium to distract it - I'm not a chemist..... 😞

Another real heavy-duty Nasty we used to work with was Toxic Waste. It was stored in one of the tanks at Seal Sands and was a lethal brew of chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceutical waste, weedkiller and any other crap that needed to be rid.

Every now and then they'd load it onto an incinerator barge called the Vulcanus, a squat, sooty, ugly thing with three big stacks. They'd then tootle off out to sea and burn the stuff.

We'd get the job of taking samples before loading; full BA and green suit job. The stuff was bright orange and would stain all the way through a pair of red double-dip gloves. Tellingly, guys with young families or expectant wives were excused Toxic Waste duties.

The storage contract ended in the early 90's and the tank was shotblasted, the pipework scrapped and replaced, and turned over to storage of Ethylene Dibromide instead. That wasn't much better, still requiring full BA, greens & wellies.

I could go on all day with my chemical war stories, but we're getting :offtopic:

MARK

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Curious, I Googled the Vulcanus.
First picture I saw was of a very efficient looking bit of floating kit.
The next picture was its sister ship in full chat :o:o:o:o:o:o:o

🔗103407[linkphoto]103407[/linkphoto][/link]

:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o

🔗103408[linkphoto]103408[/linkphoto][/link]

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I remember occasions in the 1980s when incinerator ships had been out in the North Sea and there were outbreaks of yellowed leaves on the seaward-facing sides of trees. "Salt burn" from wea winds was the official explanation for this, but curiously it never seemed to occur when the incinerator ship wasn't burning crap out at sea....

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no wonder leaves turned yellow in the 'wea winds' :o

MARK

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local legend has it that ICI turned up in the very last days of Redburn and (ahem) 'stored' a lot of drums way down in the bowels of the place in never to be revisited dead ends.

oh for those heady happy days of death and
destruction

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Exspelio wrote - Apparently when it was first formulated it was thought to be the universal solvent, since it could not be kept in conventional stoneware or glass containers - it dissolved them!

Sounds like just the sort of stuff that's needed to dissolve Parliament :devil::lol:

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Yea Gods, I can just imagine some MP's dissolving in HF--Happy dreams---::)

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Curious, I Googled the Vulcanus

I had a curry last night and this morning thought that the term referred to the condition of a fundamental orifice.

Apologies to anyone still eating.:offtopic:

Curious, I Googled the Vulcanus

I had a curry last night and this morning thought that the term referred to the condition of a fundamental orifice.

Apologies to anyone still eating.:offtopic:

Also known as fire in the hole

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50 years ago when I first started in the labs, the warning was that if HF got below the skin, it would just go on dissolving flesh, the recommended emergency first aid was to open up the wound and get some neutralising agent in there PDQ. I can't remember the agent, luckily the situation never arose.

Calcium Gluconate solution IIRC

I avoided work with HF, but worked with cyanide and other nasties like TFA. I used to make up the cyanide antidote solutions (A & 😎 for the lab but fortunately never had to make use of it :)

Dave

Just as an addition, I caught, just in time, an acquaintance about to 'clean' some Fluorite samples in HCl. :o
A short educational chat ensued. On previous visit, the same person was boiling quartz in Sulphuric in a galley kitchen :o:o with no ventilation to boot :o:o:o
Frightening? I could smell the fumes before I got to his door.

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