CHEMISTS SAY THAT AIR AND WATER WILL BE FUTURE FUELS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 6

CHEMISTS SAY THAT AIR AND WATER WILL BE FUTURE FUELS

PITTSBURGH. Chemists at the International Coni Conference fore-east startling fuel changes. These were based on the primary assumption that coal will be used chemically in the future rather than as a raw product. Friedrich Bergius, Gorman fuel technologist, laid the basis for the transformation, it was said, in converting eoal to oil. ; The process is just coming into commercial practice.

Tlie fads of the future may be air and water, said A. T. Stuart, consulting engineer, Toronto. These will bo decomposed and added to pure carbon, he said; a few years will see coal commonly liquefied under the Bergius process, or gasified. Cities will bo heated by gas, Mr Stuart predicted. The chief source of low-cost hydrogen, needed with coal to form gas br liquid fuel ,will be water. Each ton of coal used, he predicted, will take 1.35 tons of water.

Automobiles without valves, clutches, carburetter, fuel' pumps or magnets, using a two-stroke engine, may follow development of so-called “carbon-al-princ gas” from coal, Jacobus Aarts, director, Privaat lutsitutc of Technology, Holland, said. The fuel comes from complete gasification of the coal, which turns it into pure activo carbon, igniting at low temperature. Carbonalphinc can be used in the proposed motor, either in gas or liquid form, he said.

Central heating for whole towns and cities as a means of the “conservation of warmth ’ ’ will be a logical development, Dr Aarts said. Coal will bo transformed at central works into latent heat of water and steam and gas, after first having been distilled, with a view to primary recovery of by-pro-ducts and gas. “Steam—or hot be- purchased in the future by householders, just as gas and electricity are to-day,” Dr. Aarts said.