OILS FROM KAURI TEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15951, 23 June 1915, Page 12

OILS FROM KAURI TEAT.

NORTHERN SWAMP AREAS.

PROSPECTIVE INDUSTRY.

SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENTS.

The extraction of various oils and othel products from New Zealand kauri peat is the object of an Australian Company, the result of whose experiments and investigations may be the creation of a new Dominion industry. The company in question is the Kauri Peat Oils, Limited, the managing director of which, Aft. A. N. Macnicol. was recently in Auckland. Mr. Macnicol, who is an engineer, has spent the past four mouths iu inspecting some oi the larger swamps of the north, having pursued his investigations over an area from the North Cape to a few miles south of Auckland. Explaining the operations of the company, Mr. Macnicol said it was formed to investigate the possibilities in connection with 'the manufacture of oil, etc., from the kauri-peat areas of the Dominion. The company had,been- working in Australia during the past 18 months on the problem, Laving obtained peat from different parts ;of northern, New : " : Zealand, some from Papaknra, arid from other districts near Auckland. The results of experiment* so far " : had; been''satisfactory! ■ /Several grades of useful oil had been obtained, some of which were expected to take the place of :'"certainiof..the paint oils at present being used commercially. Lubricating oils had ' also been successfully extracted from the peat, whilst wax was another of the main y products obtained. The company had ■ '' managed also to isolate a high grade in- i sulating pitch. These were really all made : from the crude oil produced • by. the ■ destructive distillation of the peat. Special processes were in, use, covered by patents held by the company. .. • : . Continuing, Mr. Alacnicol said the com- ' pany now had to commence refining the oils"arid making them fit for '- the market. and- was prepared to spend another £.3000 .or £4000 liru this direction. Originally, £5000 had been subscribed, and there was another '£5000 'available;when required. ' In. addition to \ the oil products the kauri peat was. yielding various chemicals of considerable value. These' included acetic acid, . formaldehyde, gallic acid, amj monia, and several other salts. Further 1 experiments; would v be necessary' before these could be placed upon a commercial basis. V.-i'U

:I How Material Would be Treated. ■ The company proposed to take up a considerable. area , of kauri swamp . land, ,and, if further experiments proved satisfactory, to form a larger company with ip working capital of at least £200,000 to erect Works in New Zealand for the treatment of the peat products. The whole of the work must be done in New Zealand, Mr. Macnicol pointed out, as it would not pay to take the peat away for treatment to any other place. The. proposal was to erect works big enough to treat from 500 to 1000 tons of the material per day. ~ ."J!Describing the process to which the company proposed to subject the peat, Mr. Macnicol said that after being excavated by machinery it would be mechanically dried, tin ' surplus heat from the main works being utilised for the purpose. After having been dried the peat would be automatically fed into large retorts, with the addition of catalytic agents, as 'it was important to obtain as much of the lighter .spirits as possible. The retorts w«uld vary in boat from the minimum at the beginning to the maximum at the discharge end. The residues would ••then, be automatically loaded into trucks and deposited on the ground whence the peat was originally obtained. The oil would be drawn from the retorts at"'various points, and' then lie 'passed through the several processes of redistillation, cleaning, and decolourising.