OIL FROM COAL

Evening Star, Issue 19763, 13 January 1928, Page 7

OIL FROM COAL

m mmmn process DEMONSTRATION IN ENGLAND INVENTOR’S EXPERIENCES IN RUSSIA. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, January 12. (Received January 13, at 9.25 a.m.) The first public demonstration of the Dvorkovitz system of coal carbonization was given at Slough. The process heats the coal by means of the introduction in the top of vertical retorts of highly pre-heated neutral gas. The temperature inside the retort is kept at 500 degrees centigrade, The neutral gas passed down the retorts, carrying with it the constituents separated from the coal by means of the heat, and escapes from the bottom of the retorts, where it is collected by condensers. The inventor claims that the two commercial units at Slough, each treating five tons of coal daily, will show the following average yield from a ton of bituminous coal:—Four gallons of motor spirit, twelve gallons of lamp oil, six gallons of lubricating oil, 241 b of paraffin wax, 401 b of, phenol, 901 b of pitch, 241 b each of ammonia and sulphur, leaving a residue of 15cwt of smokeless fuel of high calorific value. It is claimed that the invention will give the collieries a profit of 7s per ton, and will reduce the coal bills of electricity and gas works 25 to 50 per cent. Dvorkovitz is a Russian who lias lived most of his life in Britain. Before the war he was 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 the war time in connection with the Red Cross. The Bolshevik revolutionaries confiscated his property and gaoled Dvorkovitz. H© was thrice sentenced to death, but was each time reprieved at the last minute. The Bolsheviks ultimately employed him to perfect the carbonization process at the Moscow gas works. He escaped to England penniless in 1921, at the instrumentality of the British Foreign Office.