WHAT ELECTROCHEMISTRY IS 

 ACCOMPLISHING 1 



BY PKOFESSOE JOSEPH W. EICHAKDS 



MY theme is to depict for you, as clearly as I may be 

 able, the part which electrochemistry is playing in modern 

 industrial processes. I have no exhaustive catalog of 

 electrochemical processes to present, nor columns of statis- 

 tics of these industries; but my object will be to classify 

 the various activities of electrochemists and to analyze the 

 scope of the electrochemical industries. 



Electrochemistry is the art of applying electrical energy 

 co facilitating the work of the chemist. It is chemistry 

 helped by electricity. It is the use of a new agency in 

 accomplishing chemical operations, and it has not only 

 succeeded in facilitating many of the most difficult and 

 costly of chemical reactions, but it has in many cases sup- 

 planted them by quick, simple and direct methods; it has 

 even, in many cases, developed new reactions and produced 

 new materials which are not otherwise capable of being 

 made. A few examples will illustrate these points : Caustic 

 soda and bleaching powder are made from common salt by 

 a series of operations, but the electrical method does this 

 neatly and cheaply in practically one operation ; lime and 

 carbon do not react by ordinary chemical processes, but 

 in the electric furnace they react at once to form the valu- 

 able and familiar calcium carbid; carbon stays carbon ex- 

 cept when the intense heat of the electric furnace converts 

 it into artificial graphite. The list of such operations is a 

 long one, and it may be said that the chemist has become a 



1 An address before the American Electrochemical Society, in 

 Pittsbnrg. Published in vol. xvii (1910) of the Transactions of that 

 society. 



148 



