CHEAP FUEL FROM COAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 246, 18 October 1927, Page 16

CHEAP FUEL FROM COAL.

NEW GERMAN PROCESS. A Berlin dispatch to the New York "Herald Tribune" says the Bergius process will increase enormously the world's supply of oil, reduce by half the cost of gasoline, and have important political consequences by lessening the rivalry of nations for natural sources of supply. The prospect for the commercial production of synthetic gasoline is regarded #s of world-wide importance industrially, commercially, and even politically. The German "dye trust" is said to be building a plant having an annual capacity of 100,000 tons of synthetic gasoline. "After experiments carried on over a period of years and costing millions of dollars, 'the liquefaction of coal by hydrogenation,' as the Bergius process is' called, has been worked out in satisfactory form. The process has been perfected to a point where from 50 to 60 per cent of the coal can be transformed into oil. One ton of coal will yield 104 gallons of oil, from which can be obtained 45 gallons of gasoline. Nearly all grades of lignite and bituminous coal can be used in the process. As the coal is crushed in the process, it is feasible to use screenings. The Bergius process differs from other methods of extracting

coal by-products in that destructive distillation, as used in coke ovens, is not employed. "The German synthetic gasoline process is based on the conversion 6f bituminous and sub-bituminous coal into oil. Pulverised coal, mixed with tar or oil to form a thick paste, is heated at a temperature of 400 degrees centigrade in a steel autoclave and treated with hydrogen under a pressure of 150 to 200 atmospheres. This converts the coal paste into a black, tarlike liquid, which, when distilled at a temperature of 300 degrees centigrade, yields crude oils and tars. The by-products of this process are ammonia and illuminating gas.