Archibald Drummond Carmichael (born 24 February 1859) was an industrial chemist who made important advances in processing mine tailings to recover valuable metals.

History

Carmichael was born in

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotlan ...

, Scotland, and educated in Glasgow. He studied chemistry under Professor Dittmer at the Andersonian College ("The Place of Useful Learning"), and gained experience at city analysts Wallace, Tatlack, and Clarke. He worked at

Charles Tennant Charles Tennant (3 May 1768 – 1 October 1838) was a Scottish chemist and industrialist. He discovered bleaching powder and founded an industrial dynasty. Biography Charles Tennant was born at Laigh Corton, Alloway, Ayrshire, the sixth of thi ...

's " St Rollox" laboratories adjacent the

Monkland Canal The Monkland Canal was a canal designed to bring coal from the mining areas of Monklands to Glasgow in Scotland. In the course of a long and difficult construction process, it was opened progressively as short sections were completed, from 177 ...

for 14 years, rising to the level of chief technical chemist. In 1889 left for

Victoria, Australia Victoria is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state with a land area of , the second most populated state (after New South Wales) with a population of over 6.5 million, and the most densely populated state in Au ...

, where he found employment with Felton, Grimwade & Co and with the Australian Explosives and Chemical Company. He joined the Metals Extraction Company, and was sent to

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

with metallurgist Askin Nicholas to troubleshoot one of Junction North mine's processes. In 1894 he joined Broken Hill's Block 10 Company as assayer, then in October 1896 joined "The Proprietary" (

BHP BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...

). Around this time he began experimenting with ways of converting

refractory In materials science, a refractory material or refractory is a material that is resistant to decomposition by heat, pressure, or chemical attack, and retains strength and form at high temperatures. Refractories are polycrystalline, polyphase, ...

zinc sulphide to the oxide. In 1901 he worked with Leslie Bradford in developing the Carmichael–Bradford desulphurisation process for conversion of sulphide ores to their oxides prior to smelting, which enabled recovery of valuable metal from the great piles of

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

at the mines, and the manufacture of sulphuric acid, leading to the founding of the

Zinc Corporation Consolidated Zinc was an Australian mining company from 1905 to 1962. History The company's initial operations focused on extracting zinc from mine tailings of the Broken Hill Ore Deposit at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. The company ...

. They floated the Carmichael-Bradford Desulphurising Co. in 1908 to manage international patents; apart from

little interest was shown and the company was wound up in 1912. Carmichael's subsequent activities have not as yet come to light, and his date and place of death have not been found.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carmichael, Archibald 1859 births Date of death unknown Australian metallurgists Australian chemical engineers