Lead poisoning and lead absorption : $b The symptoms, pathology and prevention, with special reference to their industrial origin, and an account of the principal processes involving riskLegge, Thomas Morison, Sir
Science
Lead poisoning and lead absorption : $b The symptoms, pathology and prevention, with special reference to their industrial origin, and an account of the principal processes involving risk
Legge, Thomas Morison, Sir
Lead poisoning
The dust is easily collected in dust chambers,
but the fume requires ducts of great length--sometimes a mile or
more--in which to deposit.
_Dangers and Prevention._--The risk from dust in general labouring
work, in depositing the ores in bins, in removing them to, and charging
them into, the furnace, can only be controlled by watering, preferably
by a spray. From the blast furnace lead fume and carbon monoxide may
escape at the point where charging is done, if there is back pressure
from blockage in the flues, or if the furnace blast is not working
perfectly. In tapping the lead and in manipulations such as charging,
drossing, and skimming, conducted through the doors of furnaces of all
descriptions, hoods, extending at the sides down to the floor level,
require to be arranged over the working doors, and connected either
with ducts passing vertically through the roof or directly with the
exhaust created in the furnace or flue itself. Dross and skimmings
removed through the working doors should be received into iron trolleys
capable of being covered, and not be allowed to fall on to the floors,
to be shovelled up later on to barrows. Before such dross or slag from
reverberatory furnaces is broken up for further treatment it should be
well watered.
Lead absorption among the men actually employed in the Pattinson
and Parkes’s processes is comparatively rare, as the temperature of
the molten metal does not exceed 450° to 500° C. When, however, the
zinc-silver-lead and gold alloy is removed for treatment in special
furnaces for distillation off of the zinc, prior to cupellation, the
lead from the Parkes’s pot, now free from silver, but containing traces
of zinc, antimony, and other impurities, is run in some works into
what are termed “market pots” for a final refining. Air and steam are
blown through to oxidize the impurities. The pot is skimmed twice,
the first dross containing antimony, etc., and the second a fine dust
consisting of lead (60 per cent.) and zinc. The risk of poisoning at
this point is considerable, although an exhaust fan connects up the
cover of the pot with a cyclone separator, to carry away the fume when
the steam is blown through. In other works this dezincing is done in
a refining furnace, the material being then in a slaggy state, thus
hindering development of fumes. After the condensation of the zinc in
the distillation of the silver-lead and zinc crust the cover of the
pot is raised, and the remaining metal, containing 80 per cent. of
lead at a temperature of about 2,000° F., is ladled out into moulds
for treatment in the cupelling furnace. The temperature at which this
ladling operation has to be done makes the work impossible for those
unaccustomed to it. Exhaust ventilation in the operation of emptying
the pot, and cutting off the heat by a water-cooled jacket, suggest
themselves as means to combat the undoubted risk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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