Frank Spedding

Frank Harold Spedding (22 October 1902 – 15

December 1984) was a Canadian-American chemist. Frank Spedding
He was a renowned expert on rare earth elements, and
on extraction of metals from minerals. The uranium
extraction process helped make it possible for the
Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs.

A graduate of the University of Michigan and

University of California, Berkeley, Spedding became
an assistant professor and head of the department of
physical chemistry at Iowa State College in 1937. His
efforts at building up the school were so successful that
he would spend the rest of his career there, becoming a
Frank Spedding
professor of chemistry in 1941, a professor of physics
Born 22 October 1902
in 1950, a professor of metallurgy in 1962, and
ultimately professor emeritus in 1973. He co-founded, Hamilton, Ontario
along with Dr. Harley Wilhelm, the Institute for Died 15 December 1984 (aged 82)
Atomic Research and the Ames Laboratory of the Ames, Iowa
Atomic Energy Commission, and directed the Ames Education University of Michigan (BS, MS)
Laboratory from its founding in 1947 until 1968. University of California, Berkeley
(PhD)
Spedding developed an ion-exchange method of
Known for Ames process
separating and purifying rare earth elements using ion-
exchange resins, and later used ion exchange to Awards ACS Award in Pure Chemistry
separate isotopes of individual elements, including (1933)
hundreds of grams of almost pure nitrogen-15. He Irving Langmuir Award (1933)
published over 250 peer-reviewed papers, and held 22 William H. Nichols Award (1952)
patents in his own name and jointly with others. Some James Douglas Gold Medal
88 students received their Ph.D. degree under his (1961)
supervision. Francis J. Clamer Medal (1969)
Scientific career
Institutions Cornell University
Early life and education Cavendish Laboratory
Iowa State University
Spedding was born on 22 October 1902, in Hamilton, Metallurgical Laboratory
Ontario, Canada, the son of Howard Leslie Spedding Ames Laboratory
and Mary Ann Elizabeth (Marshall) Spedding. Soon
Thesis Line absorption spectra in solids
after he was born, the family moved to Michigan, and
at low temperatures in the visible
then Chicago.[1] He became a naturalized U.S. citizen and ultraviolet regions of the
through his father.[2] The family moved to Ann Arbor, spectrum (1929)
Michigan, where his father worked as a photographer,
in 1918. He entered the University of Michigan in Doctoral Gilbert N. Lewis
1920, receiving a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in advisor
chemical engineering in 1925 and a Master of Science
(M.S.) in analytical chemistry the following year.[1]

As an undergraduate, Spedding took issue with the prevailing explanation by Friedrich August Kekulé of
how the six carbon atoms in benzene hold together and proposed an alternate explanation. His professor,
Moses Gomberg, recognised this as being the same as the (incorrect) model advanced by Albert
Ladenburg in 1869. At Gomberg's suggestion, Spedding applied to the University of California, Berkeley,
to study for his doctorate under Gilbert N. Lewis. Gomberg wrote a recommendation so that Spedding
was not only accepted, but given a teaching fellowship as well.[3] Under Lewis's supervision, Spedding
earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in 1929,[4] writing his thesis on "Line absorption spectra in
solids at low temperatures in the visible and ultraviolet regions of the spectrum".[1] It was published that
year in the Physical Review.[5]

Early career
Spedding's graduation coincided with the onset of the Great Depression, and jobs became hard to find.
Spedding received a National Research Fellowship from 1930 to 1932, enabling him to stay at Berkeley
and continue his research into the spectra of solids.[3] While hiking in northern California, he met Ethel
Annie MacFarlane, who shared his passion for camping, hiking and mountain climbing. Born in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, she was a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan and the University of
Toronto, where she had earned a master's degree in history. When they met, she was teaching at Victoria
High School in Victoria, British Columbia. They were married on 21 June 1931. They had a daughter,
Elizabeth, who was born in 1939.[6][7][8][9]

From 1932 to 1934, Spedding worked for Lewis as a chemistry instructor. Around this time, he became
interested in the chemistry of the rare earths.[10][3] These were expensive and hard to find, and generally
available only in minute amounts. In 1933 he won the Irving Langmuir Award for most outstanding
young chemist. The award came with a cash prize of $1,000. He borrowed money to travel to Chicago to
collect it. While he was there, he was approached by a man offering several pounds of europium and
samarium. His benefactor was Herbert Newby McCoy, a retired chemistry professor from the University
of Chicago, who had obtained a supply of these elements from the Lindsay Light and Chemical
Company, where they were a byproduct of thorium production. A few weeks later, Spedding received a
package in the mail containing jars of the metals.[11]

In 1934, Spedding was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship,[12] allowing him to study in Europe. To save
money, Spedding and his wife travelled to Europe by heading westward across the Pacific. His intention
was to study in Germany under James Franck and Francis Simon, but they fled Germany after Adolf
Hitler came to power in March 1933. Instead he went to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of
Cambridge in England, where he was welcomed by Ralph H. Fowler. Spedding worked with John
Lennard-Jones, and attended lectures given by Max Born. He paid a visit to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen,
and gave a lecture in Leningrad.[13]
When Spedding returned to the United States in 1935, the country was still in the grip of the Great
Depression, and the job market had not improved. He was George Fisher Baker assistant professor at
Cornell University from 1935 to 1937. It was another temporary position, but it did allow him to work
with Hans Bethe.[14][15] At one point he drove out to Ohio State University hoping to find a tenure track
position. The position had already been filled, but the professor of chemistry there, W. L. Evans, knew
that Winfred F. (Buck) Coover at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa, had a position. "I wouldn't normally
have chosen the place," Spedding later recalled, "but I was desperate. I thought: I can go there and build
up physical chemistry and when jobs really open up I can go to another school."[15]

Spedding took up the position as assistant professor and head of the department of physical chemistry at
Iowa State College in 1937. His efforts at building up the school were so successful that he would spend
the rest of his career there, becoming a professor of chemistry in 1941, a professor of physics in 1950, a
professor of metallurgy in 1962, and ultimately professor emeritus in 1973.[4]

Manhattan Project
By February 1942, the United States had entered World War II, and the Manhattan Project was building
up. At the University of Chicago, Arthur H. Compton established its Metallurgical Laboratory. Its mission
was to build nuclear reactors to create plutonium that would be used in atomic bombs.[16] For advice on
assembling the laboratory's Chemistry Division, Compton, a physicist, turned to Herbert McCoy,[17] who
had considerable experience with isotopes and radioactive elements. McCoy recommended Spedding as
an expert on the rare earth elements, which were chemically similar to the actinide series that included
uranium and plutonium.[18] Compton asked Spedding to become the head of the Metallurgical
Laboratory's Chemistry Division.[19]

Due to lack of space at the University of Chicago, Spedding proposed to organise part of the Chemistry
Division at Iowa State College in Ames, where he had colleagues who were willing to help. It was agreed
that Spedding would spend half of each week in Ames, and half in Chicago.[20] The first problem on the
agenda was to find uranium for the nuclear reactor that Enrico Fermi was proposing to build. The only
uranium metal available commercially was produced by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company, using a photochemical process that produced ingots the size of a quarter that were sold for
around $20 per gram. Edward Creutz, the head of the group responsible for fabricating the uranium,
wanted a metal sphere the size of an orange for his experiments. With Westinghouse's process, it would
have cost $200,000 and taken a year to produce.[21]

The other major problem was the purity of the uranium. Impurities could act as neutron poisons and
prevent a nuclear reactor from working, but the uranium oxide that Fermi wanted for his experimental
reactor contained unacceptably large amounts of impurities. As a result, references published before 1942
typically listed its melting point at around 1,800 °C (3,270 °F) when pure uranium metal actually melts at
1,132 °C (2,070 °F).[22] The most effective way to purify uranium oxide in the laboratory was to take
advantage of the fact that uranium nitrate is soluble in ether. Scaling this process up for industrial
production was a dangerous proposition; ether was explosive, and a factory using large quantities was
likely to blow up or burn down. Compton and Spedding turned to Mallinckrodt in Saint Louis, Missouri,
which had experience with ether. Spedding went over the details with Mallinckrodt's chemical engineers,
Henry V. Farr and John R. Ruhoff, on 17 April 1942. Within a few months, sixty tons of highly pure
uranium oxide was produced.[23][24]
Spedding recruited two chemistry professors at Ames for his group there, Harley Wilhelm and I. B. Johns.
Spedding and Wilhelm began looking for ways to create the uranium metal. At the time, it was produced
in the form of a powder, and was highly pyrophoric. It could be pressed and sintered and stored in cans,
but to be useful, it needed to be melted and cast. The Ames team found that molten uranium could be cast
in a graphite container. Although graphite was known to react with uranium, this could be managed
because the carbide formed only where the two touched.[25]

To produce uranium metal, they tried reducing uranium oxide with hydrogen, but this did not work. They
then investigated a process (now known as the Ames process) originally developed by J. C. Goggins and
others at the University of New Hampshire in 1926. This involved mixing uranium tetrachloride and
calcium metal in a calcium oxide-lined steel pressure vessel (known as a "bomb") and heating it. They
were able to reproduce Goggin's results in August 1942, and by September, the Ames Project had
produced a 4.980-kilogram (10.98 lb) ingot.[25][26][27] Starting in July 1943, Mallinckrodt, Union
Carbide, and DuPont began producing uranium by the Ames process, and Ames phased out its own
production by early 1945. As a result, the Ames Laboratory never moved to Chicago, but Spedding was
present at the University of Chicago on 2 December 1942, to witness the first controlled nuclear chain
reaction in Fermi's Chicago Pile-1.[28]

Throughout the war, the laboratory held regular information sessions known as "Speddinars". In addition
to its work with uranium, the Ames Laboratory produced 437 pounds (198 kg) of extremely pure cerium
for the cerium sulphide crucibles used by the plutonium metallurgists. Fears that world supplies of
uranium were limited led to experiments with thorium, which could be irradiated to produce fissile
uranium-233. A calcium reduction process was developed for thorium, and some 4,500 pounds (2,000 kg)
was produced.[29]

Later life
After World War II, Spedding founded the Institute for Atomic Research and the Ames Laboratory of the
Atomic Energy Commission. He directed the Ames Laboratory from its founding in 1947 until 1968.[4] It
was initially established on the grounds of Iowa State College. Permanent buildings were constructed that
were opened in 1948 and 1950, and subsequently named Wilhelm Hall and Spedding Hall.[30] Spedding
was "universally acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost experts on the identification and
separation of rare earths".[4] He developed an ion-exchange method of separating and purifying rare earth
elements using ion-exchange resins.[31][32] He later used ion exchange to separate isotopes of individual
elements, including hundreds of grams of almost pure nitrogen-15.[33]

During his career, Spedding published over 260 peer-reviewed papers,[4] and held 22 patents in his own
name and jointly with others. Some 88 students received their Ph.D. degree under his supervision.[34]
After his retirement in 1972, he authored 60 books.[6] He received the William H. Nichols Award from
the American Chemical Society in 1952, the James Douglas Gold Medal from the American Institute of
Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers in 1961 and the Francis J. Clamer Medal from the
Franklin Institute in 1969.[34] He was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in chemistry, but never
won.[8] An award called the Frank H. Spedding Award is presented at the annual Rare Earth Research
Conference.[35]
Spedding suffered a stroke in November 1984, and was hospitalised, but sent home. He died suddenly on
15 December 1984,[6][8] and was buried in the cemetery at Iowa State University.[36] He was survived by
his wife, daughter, and three grandchildren.[8] His papers are housed in the Special Collections
Department of Iowa State University.[4]

Notes
1. Corbett 2001, p. 3.
2. Hansen, Robert S. (1 May 1986). "Frank H. Spedding" (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.281501
6). Physics Today. 39 (5): 106–107. doi:10.1063/1.2815016 (https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.28
15016). ISSN 0031-9228 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0031-9228).
3. Corbett 2001, p. 4.
4. "Frank Spedding papers" (http://findingaids.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/arch/rgrp/17-01-11.pdf)
(PDF). Iowa State University. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
5. Freed, Simon; Spedding, Frank H. (September 1929). "Line Absorption Spectra of Solids at
Low Temperatures in the Visible and Ultra-Violet Regions of the Spectrum a Preliminary
Study of GdCl3•6H2O from Room Temperature to that of Liquid Hydrogen". Physical Review.
34 (6). American Physical Society: 945–953. Bibcode:1929PhRv...34..945F (https://ui.adsab
s.harvard.edu/abs/1929PhRv...34..945F). doi:10.1103/PhysRev.34.945 (https://doi.org/10.11
03%2FPhysRev.34.945).
6. Goedeken, Edward A. (2009). "Spedding, Frank Harold (October 22, 1902 – December 15,
1984)". The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa (http://uipress.lib.uiowa.edu/bdi/DetailsPage.asp
x?id=354). University of Iowa Press. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
7. Corbett 2001, p. 6.
8. "Frank Spedding, Key Figure in Atomic Bomb Development" (https://www.nytimes.com/198
4/12/17/obituaries/frank-spedding-key-figure-in-atom-bomb-development.html). The New
York Times. 17 December 1984. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
9. "Elizabeth Spedding Calciano Papers" (http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c82j6f3
n/). Online Archive of California. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
10. Spedding, Frank H. (March 1931). "Interpretation of the Spectra of Rare Earth Crystals".
Physical Review. 37 (6). American Physical Society: 777–779.
Bibcode:1931PhRv...37..777S (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1931PhRv...37..777S).
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.37.777 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.37.777).
11. Corbett 2001, p. 7.
12. "Frank H. Spedding" (http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/frank-h-spedding/). John Simon
Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
13. Corbett 2001, pp. 8–9.
14. Bethe, H. A.; Spedding, F. H. (September 1937). "The Absorption Spectrum of Tm2(SO4)3 •
8H2O". Physical Review. 52 (5). American Physical Society: 454–455.
Bibcode:1937PhRv...52..454B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1937PhRv...52..454B).
doi:10.1103/PhysRev.52.454 (https://doi.org/10.1103%2FPhysRev.52.454).
15. Corbett 2001, pp. 10–11.
16. Compton 1956, pp. 82–83.
17. Compton 1956, pp. 92–93.
18. * Seaborg, Glenn T. (10 September 1967). "Recollections and Reminiscences at the 25th
Anniversary of the First Weighing of Plutonium" (https://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/docu
ments/fullText/ACC0071.pdf) (PDF). University of Chicago. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
19. Corbett 2001, p. 12.
20. Corbett 2001, p. 13.
21. Compton 1956, pp. 90–91.
22. Corbett 2001, p. 14.
23. Compton 1956, pp. 93–95.
24. Hewlett & Anderson 1962, pp. 86–87.
25. Corbett 2001, pp. 15–16.
26. Hewlett & Anderson 1962, pp. 87–88.
27. Payne 1992, p. 70.
28. Corbett 2001, pp. 16–17.
29. Corbett 2001, pp. 17–18.
30. Corbett 2001, p. 19.
31. Spedding, F. H.; Fulmer, E. I.; Butler, T. A.; Powell, J. E. (June 1950). "The Separation of
Rare Earths by Ion Exchange. IV. Further Investigations Concerning Variables Involved in
the Separation of Samarium, Neodymium and Praseodymium". Journal of the American
Chemical Society. 72 (6): 2349–2354. doi:10.1021/ja01162a003 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2
Fja01162a003).
32. Spedding, F. H.; Fulmer, E. I.; Powell, J. E.; Butler, T. A. (June 1950). "The Separation of
Rare Earths by Ion Exchange. V. Investigations with One-tenth Per Cent. Citric Acid-
Ammonium Citrate Solutions". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 72 (6): 2354–
2361. doi:10.1021/ja01162a004 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fja01162a004).
33. Spedding, F. H.; Powell, J. E.; Svec, H. J. (December 1955). "A Laboratory Method for
Separating Nitrogen Isotopes by Ion Exchange" (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/met
adc1019021/). Journal of the American Chemical Society. 77 (23): 6125–6132.
doi:10.1021/ja01628a010 (https://doi.org/10.1021%2Fja01628a010).
34. Corbett 2001, pp. 23–24.
35. "Spedding Award" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131106023528/http://www.unr.edu/rerc/sp
edding-award). Rare Earth Research Conference. Archived from the original (http://www.unr.
edu/rerc/spedding-award) on 6 November 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
36. Corbett 2001, p. 25.

References
Atomic Heritage Foundation. Frank Spedding (https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/frank-s
pedding). Profiles, Manhattan Project Veterans Database.
Compton, Arthur (1956). Atomic Quest (https://archive.org/details/atomicquestperso0000co
mp). New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 173307 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/17
3307).
Corbett, John D. (2001). "Frank Harold Spedding 1902–1982" (http://www.nap.edu/openboo
k.php?record_id=10269&page=300–326). Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of
Sciences. 80. National Academy of Sciences. ISBN 978-0-309-08281-5. Retrieved 6 June
2015.
Hewlett, Richard G.; Anderson, Oscar E. (1962). The New World, 1939–1946 (https://www.g
overnmentattic.org/5docs/TheNewWorld1939-1946.pdf) (PDF). University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-520-07186-7. OCLC 637004643 (https://searc
h.worldcat.org/oclc/637004643). Retrieved 26 March 2013.
Payne, Carolyn Stilts (1992). The Ames Project: Administering classified research as a part
of the Manhattan Project at Iowa State College, 1942-1945 (http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewc
 ontent.cgi?article=11337&context=rtd) (PhD thesis). Iowa State University. Paper 10338.
Retrieved 29 May 2016.

External links
History of Ames Laboratory (https://web.archive.org/web/20100527091132/http://www.exter
nal.ameslab.gov/final/About/History.htm) at the Wayback Machine (archived 27 May 2010)

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