Chromium and Nicrosil - practical limitations

[killersquirrel59]

Because the technology to contain that kind of heat does not exist at this technological level. 19th century style furnaces and forges were never made to withstand that heat, because quite simply, they didn't have to. The highest temperature that ever had to be reached for anything they were doing was around 1500 degrees Celsius, so they made their forges with that specification in mind.

[Moogle]

I like the idea of a human forge, but I don't think it is very practical.

 

Twinborn are rare, very rare, and getting a Compounder like that has a 1/256 chance of happening. Then, the Twinborn would be the only one (or heck, maybe one of ten - if there's 25600 Twinborn, we can expect ten Brass Compounders, though I doubt there's even a thousand Twinborn on Scadrial), then they have to spend all day in harsh conditions, doing boring, dangerous work (just because you're protected from heat does not suddenly mean you're protected from poisonous fumes and smoke). 

 

Also, any protective equipment they wear is going to melt, and at those heats they'll probably melt their own metalminds.

 

Scadrial is more advanved metallurgically, though, so it wouldn't surprise me to learn they got thermite already in AoL. It'd just probably be super hard to get, which relegates chromium and nicrosil to mostly theory.

[king of nowhere]

I think you are reading too much in one single technical advancement on our planeet, and at the same time not reading enough into it.

for once, progress on scadrial is ddifferent from our, to the point that they have automobiles but they do not have telegraph nor the heroult proccess for the extraction of aluminium, both of which were invented several decades before automobiles on our planet. so I would be careful in assuming that just because something was invented after 1900 scadrians don't have it, or viceversa.

 

but second, and most important, just by reading the introduction in wikipedia,

Louis Nicolas Vauquelin first isolated chromium metal from this mineral in 1797

 

"Isolated" means that he got it pure, and that was 100 years before they had the right furnaces. I don't know how he did it, but metallurgy is definitely not the only way to get a metal pure. he probably used a more chemical route. so, that means it is perfectly possible to get chromium without furnaces. it certainly costs a lot more, but allomancers don't need much and can pay a lot for it. furthermore,

small amounts of native (free) chromium metal have been discovered in rare minerals

 

While we do not use them commercially because they are too little, scadrial may well have, simply because allomancers needed it and they had no other source. Again, they don't need much, so that would be enough for them.

[Dahak]

Because the technology to contain that kind of heat does not exist at this technological level. 19th century style furnaces and forges were never made to withstand that heat, because quite simply, they didn't have to. The highest temperature that ever had to be reached for anything they were doing was around 1500 degrees Celsius, so they made their forges with that specification in mind.

 

According to Britannica Chromium metal was first produced by electrolysis in 1854, 1898 Hans Goldschmidt demonstrated using the aluminium technique you are calling Thermite.

 

So late 19th century / early 20th Century tech is fine.

 

Which is what we see. Miles has electric furnaces in his new lair, so they are sufficiently common he isn't worried about someone wondering what became of one of the few around. Either Induction or Arc will do for the temperatures we are talking about.

[killersquirrel59]

Chromium was first IDENTIFIED in 1854, but not correctly produced in its pure form. Thermite was first used to do so in 1898 by Goldschmidt. The issue here is the ability to refine pure Chromium, which is needed for allomancy. Most uses of Chromium in our world do not require the pure metal. 

 

The reason I say they don't have Thermite is because aluminum is still considered extremely rare and expensive. Thermite uses up valuable aluminum. It isn't until widespread use of electricity that aluminum becomes simple to refine, and thus thermite becomes viable. Even if they had the theory of it correct in AoL, no one is wasting the amount of aluminum necessary for the process on an unfounded experiment with no concrete benefits in mind. 

 

As to your assertion that the electrical furnaces described in Miles' lair would suffice, even most modern induction furnaces cannot reach beyond 1800 degrees Celsius and the same goes for the early industrial models of the Electric Arc Furnace c. 1907 (though modern laboratory Electric Arc Furnaces can reach up to 3000 degrees Celsius). 

 

 

But all of this is really moot as we have found the WoB that confirms the state of Chromium and Nicrosil in AoL and it was posted earlier in this topic. Read above and on page 1. I think it's pretty clear that while the top level scientists of Elendel University might know something about the Allomantic potential of Chromium (I really doubt Nicrosil though, but it follows that they at least know Chromium HAS an allomantic alloy), it's pretty much theoretical.

 

We've already established the extreme difficulty and expense (if not impossibility) to produce pure Chromium with the level of technology present in AoL. Even those of you disagreeing with my assertion seem to accept this is a difficult, dangerous, and expensive process, whatever the means. Now take into account the difficulty of FINDING a Leecher when no one is burning Chromium. How would they possibly go about it? They could never test their theories. Maybe if there were still Mistborn who could burn all metals, they could justify a test of their expensive new compound, but imagine trying to find a Leecher when there has never been one recorded before, then justifying to whatever funding committee backs the metallurgic research department of the university that you want to take this incredibly expensive (not to mention rather poisonous) new metal and feed it to a set of random people in the vague hope that one of them might be able to burn it? It's just not a viable experiment to run until Chromium is cheap enough to produce that it comes into wider use by the population. Once that happens, Seekers can be set to finding people unconsciously burning this new metal from trace elements (perhaps one of the reasons Chromium will be proposed for use in antioxidation on silverware on Scadrial).

[king of nowhere]

Chromium was first IDENTIFIED in 1854, but not correctly produced in its pure form.

Dude, I think you missed my first answer to that.

, just by reading the introduction in wikipedia,

Louis Nicolas Vauquelin first isolated chromium metal from this mineral in 1797

"Isolated" means that he got it pure, and that was 100 years before they had the right furnaces.

 

I don't know where that thing about chromium being identified in 1854 come from, but to the best of my knowledge wikipedia is almost as good as a primary source for stuff like that. Chromium was identified as an element back in 1761, not from thermite but from crocoite. Just because for us it is now more convenient to use a process requiring 2000 degrees, it do not mean that is the only process available.

Plus, even disregarding all that, they had arc furnaces in alloy of law. with those you can go well over 2000.

[killersquirrel59]

The wikipedia article was updated 14 days ago. It's a rather drastic change from the article I was basing my assertions on. I'll post a response when I have gone through the new article.

EDIT: Yeah, we need to do some primary source research. This article is COMPLETELY different from the one that was up 14 days ago. All the dates are different, as is the complete history of the metal's discovery and method of production and refinement. It may as well be talking about something entirely different.

GRRARRAGH! I hate it when this happens with wikipedia. You never know which article is the one you can trust, the old one or the replacement.

Edited September 10, 2014 by killersquirrel59

[king of nowhere]

I don't have my chemistry books here (albeit, if i will remember, I can maybe look in the university library tomorrow) and the wiki articles all have books as references, but I checked the pages in italian, french and spanish and they all agree that it was made in 1797 by Vauguelin, and they are all much older. The french one hasn't been modified since april. The page on Vauguelin further confirms that he isolated chromium in 1797.

The italian, french and spanish pages also explain how he did it: he took natually occurring mineral crocoite, which is lead chromate, and treated it with hydrochloric acid, obtaining chromium trioxide. He then got the pure metal by heating the oxide over a bed of coal. As I specialized in organic chemistry this is not strictly my field, but it's a pretty reasonable way to get it, and I would definitely guess that it would work. There is a slight discrepancy on the dates, as they saidd that he isolated the metal in 1797, but then they explain that he isolated the oxide in 1797 and got the metal the next year, but anyway, close enough. The page on chromium oxide further says that it is industrially formed by treating chromate with an acid, even if the industry uses sodium chromate and sulphuric acid, but the reaction is the same.

 

So, that should clear all doubts on which is the correct version. And the chromate+acid+coal reaction wouldn't even be that expensive to perform. That's the most significant mistake I ever found on wiki so far.

 

EDIT: I checked the chronology of the english article as well, and as far back as june they all agreed with the current version.

Edited September 10, 2014 by king of nowhere

[killersquirrel59]

The article I was reading was a very different article. This one doesn't even mention the dates or temperatures I was seeing.

 

Oh well. Somewhere along the road I was basing this conjecture on faulty data it seems.