Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1880 — Utilizing Tin Cans. [ARTICLE]

Utilizing Tin Cans.

As. correspondent of The English Mechanic says: Since the introduction on the present extensive scale ol canned provisions, the number of inventions fer separating toe tin from the iron of the plates, and utilising both metals, has considerably increased; but whether any of the processes at present prices for the two metals can pay remains to be seen. The aid “tins” can be had for the mere cost of collecting, and it is possible, therefore, to invent a paying method. One inventor has obtained a patent for a process which is thus described: He bests or roasts the tin-plate scrap or waste tins In r suitable furnace at a dull red best, allowing free aooeaa to the oxygen of the atmosphere. The temperature which has been found to give good results in practice is a temperature slightly above the melting point of lead. The whole of the tin and part oi the iron are thus oxidized, forming a thin brittle coating upon the surface of the metallic iron, whicn constitutes the bulk of the tinner’s pi ate, or other tinned-iron waste. This coating, which consists of a mixture of ferric ana stannic oxides, is separated from _ the knetallic iron remaining unoxidiked by passing the roasted scrap through edge runners, rollers, or other suitable apparatus. The mixed ferric and stannic oxides are thus detached and converted into a powder, wbich is separated by means of sieves, or in any other suitable manner, from the metallic iron which has not been oxidized. After this operation the metallic iron will be found to be clean and fit for the market. The tin is recovered from the mixture of ferric and stannic oxides by any of the usual adopted for reducing tin from its ores, or the two metals are reduced in combination at a temperature not sufficient to fuse the iron, and toe tin is extracted in the wet way by means of acid or alkaline solutions.