Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company
Encyclopedia
The Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company, founded as Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company, and Cowles Syndicate Company, Limited formed in the United States
and England
during the mid-1880s to extract and supply valuable metals. Founded by two brothers from Ohio
, the Cowles companies are remembered for producing alloy
s in quantity sufficient for commerce. Their furnace
s were electric arc
smelter
s, one of the first viable methods for extracting metals.
The businesses of the era dramatically increased the supply of aluminium
, a plentiful resource not found in nature in pure form, and reduced its price. The Cowles process was the immediate predecessor to the Hall-Héroult process
—today in nearly universal use more than a century after it was discovered by Charles Martin Hall
and Paul Héroult
and adapted by others including Karl Bayer
. Because of the patent landscape, the Cowles companies found themselves in court. Judges eventually acknowledged their innovations many years after the companies formed, and one brother received two separate settlements.
Eugene H. Cowles and Alfred H. Cowles, sons of newspaper publisher Edwin Cowles
of Cleveland, Ohio
built high temperature furnace
s during the late 1880s in Lockport, New York and in Stoke-upon-Trent
in England based on the furnace of Carl Wilhelm Siemens
. Charles F. Mabery, at the time of what is today the Case School of Engineering
, contributed expertise in chemistry.
The family had purchased a copper
zinc
mine on the Pecos River
in New Mexico
in 1883. Eugene that year designed a furnace to extract zinc from the mine's ores. Two young employees were testing four furnaces in a Cleveland laboratory by 1885. Their first plant was built to extract aluminium
, in 1886 using hydropower
from a tailrace of Niagara Falls
on the Niagara River
.
Adolphe Minet wrote a sympathetic assessment twenty years later in 1905 from the perspective of Paris
. The Cowles furnace was electrochemical, one of two kinds of processes applied to producing aluminum during the 19th century, and belonged to the electrothermic group that includes Héroult (alloys), Brin, Bessemer, Stephanite and Moissan (carbide). Minet thought Cowles was the first great advance in electrometallurgy
at least for many years, calling it a "practical" furnace yielding alloy up to 20 percent aluminum. The first was begun in 1884 and the best was tested in Cleveland in 1886. Minet gave the real credit though to other chemist
s who saw how to produce "pure aluminum".
William Frishmuth
, who as the sole aluminium supplier in the United States built the Washington Monument
's aluminum cap in 1884, was one among those who worried that "foreign capitalists" were about to control the world aluminium market.
Charles Martin Hall
was a graduate of Oberlin College
in Ohio who had discovered in February 1886 an electrolytic process for aluminum extraction. His patent application in July collided with Paul Héroult
's application for the same idea, "electrolysis of alumina in cryolite" and for which Héroult had received the patent in France
in April. Hall proved his February date and was awarded the patent in the U.S. Hall made a licensing agreement and worked with the Cowles at the facility in Lockport with the hopes of moving his ideas from the laboratory into production.
Cowles did not choose to use the Hall patent. Their reason is unclear—some in Lockport remember it as disagreement about "external heat and copper electrodes" and "internally heated furnace and carbon electrodes", and Alcoa
culture remembers it as an attempt to "suppress his new process by buying him out". Hall left after one year, in July 1888, to found the Pittsburgh Reduction Company which today is named Alcoa.
1.35 million payment in settlement. The appeal said the patent application of Charles S. Bradley
which Cowles had acquired in 1885 and Alcoa had acquired from Cowles in 1904 hinted at an internally rather than externally heated furnace.
The Cowles facility in England became part of British Aluminium
in the late 1880s. In 1893, after Eugene's death, Maybery questioned a presentation that to him indicated the Cowles patents were infringed by the carborundum
process of Edward Acheson
. In 1900 Cowles received a $300,000 payment from the carborundum company. The judges' decision gave "priority broadly to the Messrs. Cowles for reducing ores and other substances by the incandescent method".
, and their influence on aluminum companies, some through Héroult's Société Electrometallurgique Française, have been called one of the greatest events in metallurgy. Over ten years, aluminum output in the U.S. increased by 100,000 times and its price dropped to about 2% of its cost before their discovery. Cowles engineered a separate venture and did not share that glory, but sometimes the brothers are credited with envisioning and promoting what was the beginning of electrical smelting on a large scale.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
during the mid-1880s to extract and supply valuable metals. Founded by two brothers from Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, the Cowles companies are remembered for producing alloy
Alloy
An alloy is a mixture or metallic solid solution composed of two or more elements. Complete solid solution alloys give single solid phase microstructure, while partial solutions give two or more phases that may or may not be homogeneous in distribution, depending on thermal history...
s in quantity sufficient for commerce. Their furnace
Furnace
A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven.In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace , and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the...
s were electric arc
Electric arc
An electric arc is an electrical breakdown of a gas which produces an ongoing plasma discharge, resulting from a current flowing through normally nonconductive media such as air. A synonym is arc discharge. An arc discharge is characterized by a lower voltage than a glow discharge, and relies on...
smelter
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
s, one of the first viable methods for extracting metals.
The businesses of the era dramatically increased the supply of aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
, a plentiful resource not found in nature in pure form, and reduced its price. The Cowles process was the immediate predecessor to the Hall-Héroult process
Hall-Héroult process
The Hall–Héroult process is the major industrial process for the production of aluminium. It involves dissolving alumina in molten cryolite, and electrolysing the molten salt bath to obtain pure aluminium metal.-Process:...
—today in nearly universal use more than a century after it was discovered by Charles Martin Hall
Charles Martin Hall
Charles Martin Hall was an American inventor, music enthusiast, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminium, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron.-Early years:Charles Martin Hall...
and Paul Héroult
Paul Héroult
The French scientist Paul Héroult was the inventor of the aluminium electrolysis and of the electric steel furnace. He lived in Thury-Harcourt, Normandy.Christian Bickert said of him...
and adapted by others including Karl Bayer
Karl Bayer
Karl Josef Bayer was an Austrian chemist who invented the Bayer process of extracting alumina from bauxite, essential to this day to the economical production of aluminium....
. Because of the patent landscape, the Cowles companies found themselves in court. Judges eventually acknowledged their innovations many years after the companies formed, and one brother received two separate settlements.
Early years
Edwin Cowles
Edwin Cowles , born in Austinburg, was the publisher of The Cleveland Leader, Vice-President of the 1884 Republican National Convention, postmaster of Cleveland, April 4, 1861 - July 11, 1865, and elder brother of Alfred Cowles, Sr., also a newspaper publisher.-References:...
of Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
built high temperature furnace
Smelting
Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy; its main use is to produce a metal from its ore. This includes iron extraction from iron ore, and copper extraction and other base metals from their ores...
s during the late 1880s in Lockport, New York and in Stoke-upon-Trent
Stoke-upon-Trent
Stoke-upon-Trent, commonly called Stoke or Stoke town, is a component town of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, in the ceremonial county of Staffordshire, England....
in England based on the furnace of Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Carl Wilhelm Siemens was a German born engineer who for most of his life worked in Britain and later became a British subject.-Biography:...
. Charles F. Mabery, at the time of what is today the Case School of Engineering
Case School of Engineering
The Case School of Engineering is the engineering school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. It traces its roots to the 1880 founding of the Case School of Applied Science. The school became the Case Institute of Technology in 1947 until merging with Western Reserve University in...
, contributed expertise in chemistry.
The family had purchased a copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
zinc
Zinc
Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
mine on the Pecos River
Pecos River
The headwaters of the Pecos River are located north of Pecos, New Mexico, United States, at an elevation of over 12,000 feet on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County. The river flows for through the eastern portion of that state and neighboring Texas before it...
in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
in 1883. Eugene that year designed a furnace to extract zinc from the mine's ores. Two young employees were testing four furnaces in a Cleveland laboratory by 1885. Their first plant was built to extract aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
, in 1886 using hydropower
Hydropower
Hydropower, hydraulic power, hydrokinetic power or water power is power that is derived from the force or energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as...
from a tailrace of Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...
on the Niagara River
Niagara River
The Niagara River flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the Province of Ontario in Canada and New York State in the United States. There are differing theories as to the origin of the name of the river...
.
Adolphe Minet wrote a sympathetic assessment twenty years later in 1905 from the perspective of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The Cowles furnace was electrochemical, one of two kinds of processes applied to producing aluminum during the 19th century, and belonged to the electrothermic group that includes Héroult (alloys), Brin, Bessemer, Stephanite and Moissan (carbide). Minet thought Cowles was the first great advance in electrometallurgy
Metallurgy
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
at least for many years, calling it a "practical" furnace yielding alloy up to 20 percent aluminum. The first was begun in 1884 and the best was tested in Cleveland in 1886. Minet gave the real credit though to other chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
s who saw how to produce "pure aluminum".
William Frishmuth
William Frishmuth was a German-born American architect and metallurgist.William Frishmuth was born Johan Wilhelm Gottfreid Frishmuth in Coburg, Germany in 1830. Aluminum is a metal not found in a pure state in nature. The first patent for refining aluminum by electrolysis was granted to...
, who as the sole aluminium supplier in the United States built the Washington Monument
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...
's aluminum cap in 1884, was one among those who worried that "foreign capitalists" were about to control the world aluminium market.
Charles Martin Hall
Charles Martin Hall
Charles Martin Hall was an American inventor, music enthusiast, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminium, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron.-Early years:Charles Martin Hall...
was a graduate of Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
in Ohio who had discovered in February 1886 an electrolytic process for aluminum extraction. His patent application in July collided with Paul Héroult
Paul Héroult
The French scientist Paul Héroult was the inventor of the aluminium electrolysis and of the electric steel furnace. He lived in Thury-Harcourt, Normandy.Christian Bickert said of him...
's application for the same idea, "electrolysis of alumina in cryolite" and for which Héroult had received the patent in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in April. Hall proved his February date and was awarded the patent in the U.S. Hall made a licensing agreement and worked with the Cowles at the facility in Lockport with the hopes of moving his ideas from the laboratory into production.
Cowles did not choose to use the Hall patent. Their reason is unclear—some in Lockport remember it as disagreement about "external heat and copper electrodes" and "internally heated furnace and carbon electrodes", and Alcoa
Alcoa
Alcoa Inc. is the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal. From its operational headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries...
culture remembers it as an attempt to "suppress his new process by buying him out". Hall left after one year, in July 1888, to found the Pittsburgh Reduction Company which today is named Alcoa.
Later years
In 1891 after Cowles began to advertise "pure aluminum" they were sued by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company. The judge announced his decision in January 1893, finding them to be infringing the patent of Hall and having gained knowledge of his process by hiring away a chemist named Hobbs who was the foreman in Pittsburgh. In 1903 the Cowles won a countersuit. The surviving brother Alfred chose to stop work on aluminum and Cowles received royalties and a US$United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1.35 million payment in settlement. The appeal said the patent application of Charles S. Bradley
Charles S. Bradley
Charles Smith Bradley was a lawyer and legal scholar. He served as chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court between 1866 and 1868.-Biography:...
which Cowles had acquired in 1885 and Alcoa had acquired from Cowles in 1904 hinted at an internally rather than externally heated furnace.
The Cowles facility in England became part of British Aluminium
British Aluminium
The aluminium producer British Aluminium Ltd was originally formed as the British Aluminium Company Ltd on 7 May 1894 and was subsequently known as British Alcan Aluminium Plc...
in the late 1880s. In 1893, after Eugene's death, Maybery questioned a presentation that to him indicated the Cowles patents were infringed by the carborundum
Silicon carbide
Silicon carbide , also known as carborundum, is a compound of silicon and carbon with chemical formula SiC. It occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite. Silicon carbide powder has been mass-produced since 1893 for use as an abrasive...
process of Edward Acheson
Edward Goodrich Acheson
Edward Goodrich Acheson was an American chemist. Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, he was the inventor of carborundum, and later a manufacturer of carborundum and graphite. Thomas Edison put him to work on September 12, 1880 at his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory under John Kruesi...
. In 1900 Cowles received a $300,000 payment from the carborundum company. The judges' decision gave "priority broadly to the Messrs. Cowles for reducing ores and other substances by the incandescent method".
Influence
The achievements of Hall in the U.S. and of Héroult in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and their influence on aluminum companies, some through Héroult's Société Electrometallurgique Française, have been called one of the greatest events in metallurgy. Over ten years, aluminum output in the U.S. increased by 100,000 times and its price dropped to about 2% of its cost before their discovery. Cowles engineered a separate venture and did not share that glory, but sometimes the brothers are credited with envisioning and promoting what was the beginning of electrical smelting on a large scale.