GETTING ELECTRICITY DIRECT FROM COAL.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 22, 8 January 1907, Page 2

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 the last twenty-five 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 fine chemist and an expert electrical engineer, has just given to the world this new marvel. His name is J. H. Reid, and he lives in Newark, N. J. The device is called the • dynelectric. 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 miftt be hailed as the most momentous and astounding invention of the present century. The inventor is a shrewd, canny Scotsman, who could speak only Gaelic and Hindoostani when he wont to America as a boy. During the years he 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 an electrical engineer. Mr. Reid -sometimes speaks of his device as ft&as 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 consumed in the ordinary battery are in no way injured in the dynolectro. In fact, all that is consumed is the fuel under the battery and water, which is hydrogen and oxygen combined, and air, which is nitrogen and oxygen, and a change is slowly brought about in the 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 dynolectro are carbon and sheet iron, the fluid which in one is a weak solution of some acid alkali is in the dynelectro 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 'Ohe dynelectro battery as described, before it will generate electricity. It must be heated up to 390 degrees Fahrenheit and air must be pumped through tho 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 tho 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 tho gentle hftat j of a flame. Inside the pot hanging in a solution of caustic potash and iron j oxide is a hollow iron slab twelve j inches deep, eight inches wide and ( one inch' thick, from each side of j which protrude like the bunches of a ! bristle of a huge toothbrush hollow | carbon pencils similar to those used in electric arc lamps. An air pipe is connected to the top I of the iron slab, air forced | into the hollow slab has no way to j escape except through the porous carbon pencils. Over the horizontally projecting j series of carbons are slipped thin sheet-iron plates, which look almost like sieves, so filled with round holes j are they. Through each hole a car- i bon passes, and the holes are sufficiently large to keep it insulated or to prevent the iron sheet from making contact with the carbon pencils at any p oint. Sheet after sheet of this thin iron is put over the pencils, with slight intervals of space between them, until the layers look like the blades of some new form of meat chopper when they are in final position. We 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 potash for the liquid solution, heat it to 390 degrees and pump air down into the carbon, so that it enmus bubbling and spluttering up through tho hot alkaline fluid and you have an active battery, giving ofi 100 amperes of current at 9.10 th of a volt. For the sake of the layman let ft be said that the ampere represents the quantity of electrical current, just as a stream of water does, and tho voltage represents the speed of flow, or better, the pressure of water say, in a pi|ie. A large pipe might give a very large flow of water sluggishly or large amperage and small voltage, or a little pipe might pass just the same quantity of water through it under high pressure in the same time, which would be small amperage and high voltage, Uuanti-

j voltage together, 'represent the ir mount of work which can be done l either by a stream of water or an ! electrical current. In the Reid battery we have a sluggish current of great quantity. Nine-tenths of a volt pressure is of little value commercially, whatever the quantity may, be, for it requires very large and expensive copper conductors to lead it anywhere. This difficulty, of low voltage is |«vbrcomo 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 are joined and the two wires which lead away from the entire series are the Conductors of the electrical current, which has gained in voltage, according to electrical laws, just afl many times as there are 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 out9ide 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 fine 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, and 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. Nothing destructive, however happens to the permanent parts of the battery, it is claimed, so that tho acme of cheap installation is obtained, for the materials are cheap and last indefinitely and the mechanism is simple and easily constructed and maintainanco of the * plant is practically nil, for their are no .moving parts to wear out and break down and skilled engineers and mechanics are not required to l.e ever on hand and watchful. What will this invention do in the industrial world if it is really a success was asked of a prominent engineer. He replied instantly thafi “it meant a complete revolution in applied economic electujes vJf means if it is shown under efJeMnWftesls that the dynelectron requires fifth the heat of coal * now* used to produce an equal tity of current that the Electrical with its millions and millions invested in operating plants, will bitterly fight to prevent its introduction. But why ? “Because every factory, every house in fact using heat can produce all the electricity it needs, for lighting or power from the waste heat which now passes out the chimney, there is nothing, apparently, to prevent - the private house which uses a furnace, a cooking stove or gas range from having all 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 power stations. It would eliminate from any central power station or factory the batteries of wasteful boilers, the high speed and expensive engines, the corps of engineers and mechanics j and it w’ould reduce the floor space J in which equal powered plants could be placed by three-fourths." Mr. Reid says that theoretically he j can get a horse power from every j four pounds of weight of batteries, I and hence the new generator is the 1 ideal device for automobiles. He says that it will cost £2,200 to build a locomotive equal in power to the present £12,000 steam locomotive, and it will possess the advantage that traction and driving power can be distributed over the entire train by seperate motors. Up to the present moment these remarkable batteries have been in operation many months without showing any 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 i have their bearings renewed. Experts from colleges and from industrial concerns are wrestling with . tho problem, and are almost convin-! ced that the ERA OF ELECTRICITY DIRECT FROM HEAT HAS COME. «—“New York World."