SYNTHETIC PETROL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 13 June 1928, Page 4

SYNTHETIC PETROL.

I{JiiliAHil'll IX ENGLAND. A NATIONAL PHOI3L4£AI. LON DON, April 17. Tho production of liquid fuel from coal is tuo important a. phase' of 'lie national fuel problem of this country to brook unnecessary delay in its commercial development, and the association of some of the products with power production in the internal umbustipn engine justified the survey of the whole' field by Air David Brownlie in his paper on “Liquid Fuel from (.bull,” read before the Diesel Jingine L'sei s’ Association last month.

Four cliicl" methods are available for this transformation, and a good deal of work has been done in three which are at present not largely .applied commercially. 11 igh-tcmpcratu.ie carbonisation— a well-developed industry—is concerned rather with other products of the heat treatment of coal. Low-tem-perature carbonisation has been explored in hundreds of processes, of which the author claimed to have accumulated data of no Fewer than -100.

There is a- growing appreciation of file Importance of these processes, water-power is scarce, and tho direct combustion of coal, except in rare eases extravagant. 'The present dependence of this country on foreign sources of liquid fuel, and the advantages to be derived from tho elimination of the smoky const iluten.bs of coal prior to its combustion, give special prominence to flic problem, in addition, the extensive resources of coal in this country oflcr scope for the development of the fuel industry on. new and more resourceful lines.

Some commercial work is already well advanced in this country. At the Daln ran lock Oas Works the Alaclaurin process is operated on a large scale, the solid residues being passed over to the electricity department for conversion into power. The AJ.idland Coal Products process, after operating for some years at NetherfWld, .is now closed down for re-erection at a colliery. At Leigh (Lancs) the Pur© Coal Briquette process is operating 0 » A large plant, while the old and much modified Coalite proccss’ at Barnsley has a. present capacity of 1000 tons of coal per week. The new plant to ho operated by the Fuel B©search Board, in conjunction with the Gas Light and Coke Co., Ltd., provides another important contribution to> the commercial exploration of the possibilities of the low-temperature treatment of coal, while a number of processes arc passing through what maybe called the semi-commercial stage of experiment. OTJi LH FItOOLSSFS. While, however, this low-temperu-turo treatment os coal is o>t long and siow development, two other processes of quite different types have come into recent.prominence. The principle o.f the lie rgins hydrogenation process is liie treatment of a, paste oi fincJy-dividea bitumonous coal at a temperature of 42c) deg. C., with .‘jU.OuU cinbiic feet, oi hydrogen at about dt>dd per square. inch pressure. Depending on the nature oi the coal treated, from 40 to 70 per cent, ot tiie solid material is converted into oil. A tla.rge plant at Lenna works of the I.G. Farbeni mills trie, A.G., already floats as much as 1-1,000 metric tons ot brown coal per day, and this represents one section only. The original patents, dale back only- to 1011. In addition, a, considerable amount of work has been done to convert heavy oils into light oils.

Synthetic (liquid fulfils are. entirely different products, in that they arc derived from the constituents of completely gasified coal with regulated amounts of air, steam or both. The carbon monoxide i.s then converted into organic liquids of the methyl alcohol type. There are, in any case, several other directions in which liquid fuels can be derived' from coal and other carbonaceous material. Through the medium of carbides, hydrocarbons arc readily obtained, acetylene being a well-known

example, while from uranium carbide both liquid and solid hydrocarbons can be obtained. From the point of men of this country, low-temperature processes are likely to go tar towards supplying those types of oils , such as - are required for Diesel engines, . and to-da.v there is a very much better opportunity for the disposal of the residual seinieoko than was the case when these methods were originally tried out.