GETTING ELECTRICITY DIRECT FROM COAL.

Lake County Press, Issue 2138, 4 October 1906, Page 7

GETTING ELECTRICITY DIRECT FROM COAL.

Probably two hundred and fifty, thousand scientists of the world have struggled with the problem of producing electricity direct from heat during fhe last twenty-five years. Success meant millions to some one, and an incalculable material saving to heat, power and light consuming humanity of modern times. An unknown, an obscure man, so far as the general public is concerned though a line chemist and an expert electrical engineer, has just given to the world tliis new marvel. His name is .1. H. Reid, and he lives in Newark, N. .1. The device is called the dynelcctric. If under the investigation of technical experts this remarkable machine does all that is claimed for it, or what it is capable of doing through short demonstrations, it must be hailed as the most momentous and astounding invention of the present century.

The inventor is a slirewil, canny Scotsinaii, who could, speak only Gaelic and llindoostani when he went. to America as a boy. Paring t lie years lie has laboured hundreds of clever devices have been consigned to the junk heap. Financial stress and almost dire poverty have sorely tempted him again and again to renounce this scientific passion of his existence and turn to that easier path of immediate material success which always invited him on account of his abilities as tin electric-

at engineer. Mr. Keid sometimes speaks of his device as a gas battery, for the only destructive chemical reactions which .-take place in it.are. the evolution of 'oxygen and hydrogen. The metal elements which are Corroded and con- ' sumed in tho ordinary battery are in no wa.V;. injured in the dynelcctro. In fact, oil that is consumed is the fuel -'*•.. .under the battery and water! which is \i hydrogen and oxygen combined, and air, which is nitrogen and oxygen, and a change is slowly brought about in tho original caustic potash solution with which the jars are filled. .The elements which in your telephone or bell battery are carbon and zinc'in the dynelcctro are carbon and sheet iron, the fluid which in one is a weak solution of some acid alkali is in tin- dynelcctro a very concentrated -solution of costic potash, which will not become fluid until heated above 800 degrees Fahrenheit, to which is added two per cent, of iron oxide. The outside jar containing receptacle is of cast iron. Heat and air have to-be added to the dynelcctro battery as described, before it will generate electricity. It must be heated up- to 390 degrees Fahrenheit and air must be pumped through the carbon at twelve pounds pressure. The heat may vary fifty degrees in either direction without seriously interfering with the generation of the electrical current, but the instant the air supply is cut off it dies like a living creature would deprived of oxygen. What we have then is a simple iron pot in a convenient rectangular shape around which plays the gentle heat of a flame, inside the pot hanging in a solution of caustic potash and iron oxide is a hollow iron slab twelve inches deep, eight inches wide and - one inch thick, from each side of which protrude like the bunches of a bristle of a huge toothbrush hollow carbon pencils similar to those used in electric arc lamps. An aii- pipe is connected to the top of the iron slab, air forced into tho hollow slab has no way to escape except through the porous carbon pencils. Over the horizontally projecting series of carbons are slipped thin sheet-iron plates, which look almost ' like sieves, so filled with round holes are they. Through each hole a carbon passes, and the holes tire sufficiently' large to keer. it insulated or to prevent the iron sheet from making contact with the carbon pencils at anj- point. • Sheet tifter sheet of this thin iron 'is put over the pencils, with slight intervals of space between them, until the layers look like the blades s of. some new form of meat, chopper when they are in final position. V'e have now the carbon pencil element carefully insulated or separated from the vertically hanging sheets of iron. From the carbons one wire is taken, and from the iron the other, exactly as the wires are taken from the two poles of a battery. Add costic [iotash for the liquid solution, heat it to MOO degrees and pump nildown into the carbon, so that it. comes bubbling and spluttering up through the hot alkaline fluid and you have an active battery, giving oil lot) amperes of current at 9.10 th of a volt. For the sake of the layman let it be said that the ampere represents the quantity of electrical current, jnst as a si ream of water does, and the voltage represents tie' speed of flow, or better, the pressure of water say, in a pipe. A large pipe might give a very large Mow of water sluggishly or large amperage and small voltage, or a. little pipe inighl pass just the same quantity of water through it under high pressure in lie' same time, which would be small amperage and high voltage. iJuanH ty and pressure, or amperage and voltage together, represent t Ik- a mount of work which can be done cither by a stream of water or an electrical current. i | M ihe lb-id bat lory we have a sluggish current of great, quantity. " Nine-tenths of a volt, pressure is ol

little* value commercially, whatever the quantity may, bo, for it requires very largo .and expensive copper conductors to lead it anywhere.

Tftis difficulty of low voltage is overcome in two ways by connecting up tho batteries in series—carbon of one cell to the iron pole of the next, and so on until all aro joined and the two wires which lead away

from the entire series aro tho conductors of the electrical current, which has gained in voltage, according to electrical laws, just as many times as there aro cells. The amperage remains the same. Tho experimental dynelectron has twelve cells in series and therefore gives a current of 10.8 volts and 100 amperes.

This will and does light sixteen incandescent lamps of sixteen candle power each. To keep from being forced to use large conductors to the outside circuit rotary "Step-up" generators are used which means putting the current into a rotary electric motor which induces a current, of much higher voltage in coils of tine wire. But as this is not an electrical treatise, suffice it to say that the original small current can be "stepped up" to several hundred or even thousands of volts with very little loss of the original current, und thus conducted economically on small wires long distances for distribution and consumption.

| What takes place in the battery is exceedingly interesting to the expert, but too technical to please tho average reader. Nothitvg destructive, howi ever happens to the permanent parts ! of tho battery, it is claimed, so that ] the acme of cheap installation is obI tained, for the materials are cheap ; and last indefinitely and the mechani ism is simple and easily constructed I and maintainance of the plant is i practically nil, for their are no movi ing parts to wear out and break I down and skilled engineers and mechanics are not required to l.c ever on hand and watchful. What will this invention do in the industrial world it" it is really a success was asked of a prominent engineer. He replied instantly that "it meant a complete revolution in upj plied economic electrics ; it means if it is shown under efficiency tests that 'the dynelectron requires oily ore- ! fifth the heat of coal consumption j now used to produce an equal qtiani tity of current that the Electrical | with its millions and millions investi ed in operating plants, will bitterly j fight to prevent its introduction. Hut ! whv ?

" Because every factory, every house in tact using heat can produce nil the electricity it needs for lighting or power from the waste heat which now passes out the chimney, i.here is nothing, apparently, to prevent the private house which uses a furnace, a cooking stove or gas range from having nil its lighting current supplied without any considerable extra cost by an attachment to the ordinary heating or cooking appliance. The new system would do away with the enormously expensive systems of electrical distributation by overhead and underground wires, It. would do away with the immense central powei stations. It would eliminate from any centrnl power station or factory the batteries of wasteful boilers. the high speed and expensive engines, the corps of engineers and mechanics and it would reduce the floor space in which e<|ual powered plants could be placed by three-fourths." Mr. Re id says that theoretically he can get a horse power from every tour pounds of weigh! of batteries, and hence, the new generator is the ideal device for automobiles. He says that it will cost £2,VK>O to build a locomotive equal in power to the present £Ii!,OQO steam locomotive. and it will possess the advantage that traction and driving power can be distributed over the entire train by seperate motors.

L'p to lie- present moment these remarkable batteries have u-en in operation many mouths without showing anv deterioration. The carbon pencils

and iron plates are in their pristine condition and nothing has been consumed except air, water and coal gas, though incandescent lamps have been burnt out over and over again, and motors and pumps have had to have their bearings renewed. Experts from colleges and from industrial concerns are wrestling with tho problem, and are almost convinced that the ERA Ol'' ELECTRICITY DIRECT FROM HKAT HAS COME. —"New York World."