ANTILIA

1998. Vol. IV.

Indice.

Artículos.

• Joaquín Fernández Pérez
  From the barrilla to the Solvay Factory in Torrelavega: the manufacture of saltwort in Spain

  Abstract:
  In this article will be to briefly describe the traditional saltwort attainment procedures of burning barrilleras plants. This process had great importance in Spain until the beginning of the XIX Century, long period characterised by the treatment of the native sulphate of sodium. Finally it will be seen the Solvay method was used in the first Spanish saltwort plant, established in 1908 in Torrelavega. It can be said, as regards the attainment of saltwort changed from aeotechnique phase to a very unique paleotechnique phase and changed again to another neotechnique. Nearly a century went by, between the disappearance of the first in the XIX Century and the settlement of the Solvay factory in Torrelavega and the development of the Leblanc method, in between. As will become evident later the chemical industry in Spain was very weak, and the few factories existing could not compete with the big number of them established in England, where the chemical industry was born. Spain even had to import saltwort from other countries. The closure of the industries established in Spain was determined by the low price of the saltwort imported, in relation to the one produced in Spain, during the last decades of the XIX Century. However, lot of the raw materials used in the production, either in the Leblanc method or in the Solvay, were easily got in the Spanish deposits. The causes of the lack of chemical industrialisation in Spain must be sought in the new historic queries that belong to the Spanish Economic History

Key Words: Barrilla. Saltwort Manufacture in Spain. Leblanc's Process. Solvay's Process.

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