Alfred Hutchinson Cowles

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Alfred Hutchinson Cowles (born December 8, 1858 in Cleveland (Ohio) , † August 13, 1929 in Sewaren ) was an American chemist and entrepreneur.

Cowles was the son of publisher Edwin Cowles Jr. (1825-1890, publisher of the Cleveland Leader) and nephew of the Chicago Tribune Alfred Cowles Sr. (1832-1888).

Cowles studied from 1875 at the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College (the later Ohio State University ) and from 1877 at Cornell University electrical and chemical engineering.

In 1882 he joined his brother's mining company in Santa Fe and developed a processing method for ores that were difficult to separate in an electric furnace (the ores there contained gold, copper, lead, zinc, and antimony). He received a patent on the process and founded his own company (Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company) in Cleveland in 1884, with which he produced aluminum. When this was displaced by fused- salt electrolysis , it produced silicon carbide , graphite, phosphorus and calcium carbide.

He last discovered the effect of sodium metasilicate as a detergent in 1923 and founded the Cowles Detergent Company.

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personal data
SURNAME Cowles, Alfred Hutchinson
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Cleveland (Ohio)
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1929
Place of death Sewaren