This picture shows the wet chemical laboratory. Aluminium Corporation continued to use wet chemical methods to verify alloy chemistry until the early 1980's when the use of optical emission spectroscopy with a new ARL4560 spectrometer made analysis using spark emission totally reliable. It was backed up by a "round robin" testing regime with other Alcan laboratories in Banbury and Kingston, Ontario and Arvida, Quebec.
In the days of the smelting operation wet chemistry was also important for verifying the purity of the incoming alumina and cryolite supplies. Original alumina supplies came from the United Alkali Company of Hebburn near Wallsend on the River Tyne. The bauxite came from Var en Provence in France via Nice.