OIL FROM GOAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 111, 13 May 1939, Page 7

OIL FROM GOAL

PROMISING PROCESS

Lord Addison presided on February 23 at a meeting at which Dr. E. Armstrong, the chemist, discussed a method of producing oil from coal which he described as the most promising yet known to him. This method Dr. Armstrong described as the "synthetic process," based originally on the process of Fischer, the German prjofessor. It was, he said, catalytic process by which fuel was produced out of water gas in the proportion roughly of 50 per cent, motor spirit, 40 per cent. Diesel oil fractions, and 10 per cent, lubricating oil. .

Dr. Armstrong said that the advantages 'of this process over those of low temperature carbonisation and of hydrogenation were . that it entailed almost no waste of fuel on the one hand, and on the other it would—if its present promise was fulfilled—be more economical to apply.

He reckoned that the other known methods of obtaining oil from coal as now being applied could between them supply about 5 per cent, of Britain's fuel requirements, and that this new method could, within.a few years, supply another 5 per cent. He reckoned that this method would have its own use both in national defence. and in relieving unemployment. It could, he said, make , use of whole mines—and even of those producing the poorest quality of coal. At present this "synthetic process" is being tried .at a pilot plant at Bedlay, near .Glasgow.