Gossage - The Gossage Tower

The Gossage Tower

The acid gas emitted by the Leblanc Process was a considerable nuisance. The first successful user of the process, James Muspratt in Liverpool, was forced from Everton due to complaints by neighbours. This was one reason why the early alkali makers set up in then remote spots such as Widnes, which they thought would be distant from litigious neighbours.

To absorb the waste gas, an apparatus was needed. Muriatic acid gas (HCl) was known to be soluble in water, but at that time it was thought that volume was the crucial variable and no known process could deliver the enormous quantities of water thought to be necessary. In experiments at Stoke Prior, Gossage discovered that surface area, not volume, was the key to absorption. He filled an old windmill with twigs and brushwood, and ran a trickle of water over the twigs. This made for a great surface area of water, able to absorb over 90% of the noxious gas. The dissolved gas created liquid hydrochloric acid. The liquid acid was poured into the local rivers and canals, replacing the vast amounts of air pollution with vast amounts of water pollution.

However, not all makers used the Gossage Tower, even Gossage himself may not have used it at his Widnes plant until all alkali makers were forced to use it by the Alkali Act of 1863. In the 1880s chlorine became a valuable resource, used in bleaching powder and other products. Inventors such as Henry Deacon and Walter Weldon devised ways to extract chlorine from the hydrochloric acid, thereby ending the water pollution problem caused by the acid.