CARBONISING OF COAL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 79, 13 January 1928, Page 5

CARBONISING OF COAL

PROCESS ON TRIAL. CLAIMS OF IMPORTANT RESULTS. MANY BY-PRODUCTS GAINED.(Ter Press Association— Copyright.) (Received This Day,. 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, January 12. The first public demonstration of the Dvorkovitz system of coal carbonisation was given at Slough. The process heats coal by means of introduction in the top of vertical retorts of highly pre-heated neutral gas. The temperature inside the retort is kept at 500 degrees centigrade. Neutral gas passes down the retorts, carrying with it constituents separated from the coal by means of heat, and escapes from the bottom of the retort, where it is collected by condensers. The inventor claims that two' commercial units at Slough, each treating five tons of coal daily, show the following average yield from a ton of bituminous coal: Four gallons of motor spirit; 12 of lamp oil, six of lubricating oil, 24 pounds of paraffin wax, 40 of phenol, 90 of pitch-, 24 each of ammonia and sulphur, leaving a residue of 15 hundredweight of smokeless fuel of high calorific value, dt is claimed that the invention will give collieries a profit of 7s a ton and reduce the coal bills of electricity and gas works by from 25 to 30 per cent. Dvorkovitz is a Russian, who lias lived most of his life in Britain. Before the war he was a consultant oil expert to the Shell and Anglo-Persian companies. He made a fortune of £BO,OOO which he invested in oilfields and elsewhere in Russia. At the 'request of Britain he returned to Russia in war time in connection with the Red Cross. Bolshevik revolutionaries confiscated his property and imprisoned Dvorkovitz. He was thrice sentenced to death, but was each time reprieved at the last minute. The Bolsheviks ultimately employed him to perfect the carbonisation process at the Moscow gas works. In 1921 he escaped to England, penniless, through the instrumentality of the British Foreign Office.