A view of BTP Tioxide (now Huntsman) on Haverton Hill Road. The first photograph shows the West Site main gate and G. McDonnell, gateman. The second is a photograph of BTP Tioxide’s East Site.
Photographs courtesy of Malcolm Corner.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Titanium Dioxide Ti02 has many applications from paint pigments to food and toothpaste.
Part of the process uses Sulphuric Acid probably why it was built next to the ICI South Works.
My memory of the plant was as a 16 year old working at ICI Plastics which at the time was the southern most plant then there was the Acetic Acid plant and then Titan as we called it.
Near the Titan the dust was bad and it made your skin prickle, I made a note never to work there although my Pal Noel Kiddle worked there for years.
The plant did cross the road and another plant was built near the Jetty I am guessing they imported rock salt to process by ship, my Daughter worked in the offices that side of the road much healthier than the old original offices.
My father, Philip Southward, was a chemical engineer at British Titan from the mid 1950’s until his untimely death in 1972. From my memory, his office was through the door to the left of the main gate and upstairs on the first floor. I remember being fascinated by a scale model of the chemical works in the drawing office.
The model you saw is on this site now David… http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/tioxide-model/
What did the Tioxide factory in Portrack Lane do? This was built on a new industrial estate opposite the Malleable.
And did ICI ever produce any titanium metal? Mr Dee, the Chemistry master at Richard Hind had a large lump he used to show around to his class in the mid 1950s. I would guess that at that time titanium was worth 100 times that of steel.
The Portrack Lane site was BTP’s Central Laboratories. Nothing was produced there.
ICI had a titanium metal plant called Bain works at the Wilton site which involved reacting titanium tetrachloride with sodium, a very vigorous reaction which had to be carried out in large steel reactors which had to have their lids welded on. The reactors were allowed to cool down for about a week before they were opened and then the contents (titanium metal and salt) were drilled and blasted out with dynamite, the salt was then washed off leaving a very light titanium metal sponge