(091) Red Side

I got out on the road bike again today but no pictures as it was too windy to stop to admire any views.

Today's blip is another view from the Alcan factory that was a major source of employment in Burntisland from 1918 - 2003. The base images for this shot were taken in March 2003 but only stitched together in Lighroom to give a panoramic view today. The picture shows a view from the Superfine plant, looking west over the decomposer house and the Dorr plant, towards the ore shed and the chimneys of the boiler house. The Bayer circuit/process began in the ore shed where bauxite ore was crushed and sent to the ball mills to be mixed with caustic soda. From there the slurry was passed to kiers for high temperature and pressure treatment before being pumped into tanks in the decomposer house where the aluminium trihydrate was precipitated. On the right of the picture the by-product of the process, a red mud, can be seen in the collection area beneath the Paxman rotary mud filters. 

The extra shot shows the installation of the mud filters, probably in the 1950/60s. This image was taken from a glass plate negative produced by the works photographer and stored along with hundreds of others in wooden drawers in the factory laboratory. In the last few weeks before the factory closed down I found these negatives and in the months after the plant closed I scanned and catalogued them as a visual record of how the plant developed and expanded over the years.