2026-10-08 - Google Patents, Espacenet, Cambridge Core (Freedman 1979)
What was searched
Google Patents: inventor=Frederick Soddy, before priority 1956-01-01; inventor=Soddy, priority 1900-1950. The result list did not render (blank page after waiting; no result items in the page tree). Recorded partial.
Espacenet: in="Soddy Frederick" - Chrome extension "Permission denied for this action on this domain". Recorded blocked (extension permission).
Google: "Soddy" notebooks "Glasgow University Archives" OR "University of Glasgow Archives" radioactivity 1904-1914 led to Freedman 1979.
Cambridge Core: M. I. Freedman, "Frederick Soddy and the Practical Significance of Radioactive Matter", British Journal for the History of Science 12(3), 1979 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/frederick-soddy-and-the-practical-significance-of-radioactive-matter/C27A43378BD9D9525F47CB095A5652EB) - references only (no abstract on the page).
Google Patents direct: GB191025504A (found); GB191605527A (404, see below).
Google: Soddy mesothorium patent 1911 OR 1912 "Soddy" US patent OR French patent OR German patent mesothorium monazite.
Found [web]
Freedman 1979 references: "Glasgow and West of Scotland Radium Committee minute book, University of Glasgow Archives, item 35904"; Soddy, "Radiothorium", Nature 80, 12 (4 March 1909); British patent No. 25,504, "A process for the separation of mesothorium from monazite sand and for the concentration of mesothorium in crude products obtained from minerals containing thorium", applied 3 Nov 1910, complete specification 7 Apr 1911, accepted 17 Aug 1911 (Soddy Papers items 82-83); "The chemistry of mesothorium", J. Chem. Soc. 99, 72-83 (1911).
GB191025504A (https://patents.google.com/patent/GB191025504A/en): abstract "25,504. Soddy, F. Nov. 3." Mesothorium salts obtained from monazite sand or mantle ash by adding a barium compound; mesothorium is carried down with barium sulphate while thorium stays in solution; the barium is converted to chloride and the mesothorium concentrated "by repeated re-crystallization of the barium chloride". No family members listed; classification C01F15/00. No PDF link found on the page.
Springer chapter snippet (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-94-009-5297-3_12, not opened): "Soddy's patent, approved in 1911, threatened the enterprises of the German firm, Knoefler and Company, which by then had been marketing mesothorium".
Encyclopedia.com snippet (not opened): Soddy "went exploring for monazite sand, and patented his 1923 process for thorium extraction in 1940".
GB191605527A: Google Patents 404. The CSAC catalogue's "Secret Patent 5527/16" (fireless boilers, 1916) is not found under that number; wartime secret applications may never have been published, or may carry a later publication number.
How it bears on the claims
Claim 5 (isotopes): the patent is the commercial side of the same chemistry. The process works because mesothorium (radium-228, [memory] high confidence) cannot be separated from radium or barium-carried radium chemically, the "chemical identity" that Soddy (1910-11) turned into the isotope idea. The patent concentrates mesothorium with barium, as radium is concentrated.
Priority 4 (historical record): the Glasgow Radium Committee minute book and the Knoefler conflict are records of the commercial history of Soddy's radioactive work; the 1940 thorium patent and the WWI secret patents (fireless/alkali boiler, steam turbines, concentrators) are not yet identified in any patent database.