Biography
Acheson attended the Bellefonte Academy for three years, 1870-72; this being the totality of his formal education. Acheson began his career as a surveying assistant for the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad.
In 1884, Acheson left Edison and became supervisor at a plant competing to manufacture electric lamps. He began working on the development of methods to produce artificial diamond in an electric furnace. After heating a mixture of clay and coke in an iron bowl with a carbon arc light he found shiny, hexagonal crystals (silicon carbide) attached to the carbon electrode. He called it carborundum.
In 1891 Acheson built an electricity plant in Port Huron at the suggestion of Edison, and used the electricity to experiment with carborundum.
On February 28, 1893, he received a patent on this highly effective abrasive although a 1900 decision gave "priority broadly" to the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company "for reducing ores and other substances by the incandescent method".
Acheson received 70 patents relating to abrasives, graphite products, reduction of oxides, and refractories.
He died on July 6, 1931, in New York City.
Read more about this topic: Edward Goodrich Acheson
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