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1900s and Beyond: Cement: A Success Built on Failure:
"The only way to keep ahead of the procession is to experiment. If you don't, the other fellow will. When there's no experimenting, there's no progress. ... If anything goes wrong, experiment until you get to the very bottom of the trouble."
-- Thomas A Edison to William Mason, chief engineer of the Cement Works, Stewartsville, NJ. (Mason later applied some of the lessons he learned in the development of masonite.)
For much of the 1890s, Edison had practically lived at his innovative Ogden ore-milling plant. Its most successful product wasn't iron ore but a by-product of rock-crushing -- sand. Edison's sand was finer and dryer than others, and cement companies bought all he could produce.
Edison decided to apply his ore-milling technology to making portland cement. More durable and uniform than natural cement, it was becoming a major building material.
In 1899, Edison formed the Edison Portland Cement Company. The West Orange staff redesigned the ore-crushing machinery to make a product finer than the industry standard.
The key to good cement, however, was properly roasting the mixture of ground limestone and cement rock. Edison and his staff designed a 150-foot-long rotary kiln, larger and more efficient than available kilns.
By 1907, the company was producing fine cement and competitors were adopting Edison's efficient, high-production kiln. The company became one of the nation's largest, although -- in part because of the huge sums spent in development -- it wasn't profitable until 1922.
Portland cement isn't a brand name. It's a type of artificial cement developed in England in 1824, so named because it resembled a building stone from the Isle of Portland. Natural cement is produced by burning a naturally occurring mixture of lime and clay. Because its ingredients are mixed in nature, its properties are inconsistent. |