John Stewart MacArthur
John Stewart MacArthur (born December 9, 1856 in Glasgow , † March 16, 1920 in Pollokshields , Glasgow) was a Scottish chemist.
In 1887 he and the brothers Robert and William Forrest (both doctors) developed the MacArthur-Forrest process for the enrichment of gold with potassium cyanide . At that time he was working for Charles Tennant's company in Glasgow. In 1871 he joined their Tharsis Sulfur and Copper Company as an apprentice. That chemically inert gold can be dissolved in cyanide solutions (it forms complexes) had already been discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in the 18th century. The process revolutionized gold mining and was successfully used in South Africa in 1890. The process was patented, but there was a long legal battle over the patents. South African mine owners who got rich with the invention obtained patents null and void, leaving MacArthur empty.
He later dealt with the extraction of vanadium from ores containing radium and with the extraction of radium. In 1911 he founded a radium factory in Halton and in 1915 moved to Balloch (Loch Lomond Radium Works).
literature
- David Harvie: John Stewart MacArthur: pioneer gold and radium refiner, Endeavor, Volume 13, 1989, pp. 179-184
- Derek Lowe: Das Chemiebuch, Librero 2017, p. 190
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lebensdaten Transactions of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, Volume 30, 1921, p. 478
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | MacArthur, John Stewart |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 9, 1856 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Glasgow |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 16, 1920 |
| Place of death | Pollokshields |