Archibald Drummond Carmichael (24 February 1859 – 14 November 1915) was a Scottish industrial chemist and mining engineer 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 (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...

, 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 Calcium hypochlorite, bleaching powder and founded an industrial dynasty. Biography Charles Tennant was born at Laigh Corton, Alloway, Ayrs ...

'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, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

, 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 a city in the Far West (New South Wales), far west region of outback New South Wales, Australia. An inland mining city, it is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Hi ...

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, founded as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, is an Australian multinational mining and metals corporation. BHP was established in August 1885 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. As of 2024, BHP was the world� ...

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

refractory In materials science, a refractory (or refractory material) is a material that is resistant to decomposition by heat or chemical attack and that retains its strength and rigidity at high temperatures. They are inorganic, non-metallic compound ...

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

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 w ...

. 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 immigrated to the United States in 1914 with his wife, Rosa. He died the following year at his home in New York City after a sudden bout of acute indigestion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carmichael, Archibald 1859 births 1915 deaths British metallurgists Australian metallurgists Australian chemical engineers Scottish emigrants to Australia Scottish emigrants to the United States