William Champion (1709 - 1789) was a British metallurgist. He is recognized as being the first to have patented for his process of extraction of the Zinc starting from calamine.

He had several factories of production of Laiton (alloy of zinc and Cuivre) whose demand was particularly keen at the time. Its competitor, Battery Arm, Wire & Copper Company of Bristol managed to convince the council of the Lord of the Small Seal which it was in situation of monopoly. In 1768, its partners give up it and he declares Faillite.

Process

The process of extraction of the zinc of William Champion consisted in reducing the calamine in a Haut-fourneau by using coal like Réducteur. Zinc was recovered in iron pipes containing of water. This process made it possible to produce 400  kg of zinc in 70  H for six crucibles. The annual production is estimated at 200  tons per annum.

William Champion accepted her patent for this process in 1738. However this one was greedy from an energy point of view. Let us notice that William Champion was not really the inventor of this technique which he had actually seen with work at the time of a voyage in China.

Also let us note that the brother of William Champion, John Champion, had also developed a production process of zinc by the Calcination of the Sphalérite (zinc sulfide).

See too

• extractive Metallurgy of zinc

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