PETROL FROM TAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21876, 11 August 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

PETROL FROM TAR

EXPERIMENTS IN BRITAIN About 200 recently visited the Fuel Research Station at East Greenwich at the invitation of Sir Harold Hartley, chairman of the Fuel Research Board, and saw refined petrol of high anti-knock value being produced from coal and tar, says the London correspondent of the Herald. That was one of a series of the new enterprises, based on coal and its derivatives, being developed at Greenwich under the aegis of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The highest possible yield of valuable products is the aim of every department. From one treatment of tar, 45 per cent of motor spirit is derived, and by reprocessing, the total yield of motor spirit reaches by volume 98 per cent of the original tar. Another field, of experiment has resulted in an increased production of coal gas in horizontal retorts. It has been found possible to increase the amount of coal carbonised in a setting of retorts by 50 per cent. Further, by passing steam into the retorts the yield of gas has been increased by seven to 10 therms per ton of coal, roughly, 10 per cent. This aim at high productivity affects not only petrol and gas, but pulverised fuel, lubricating oils, gas coke and other smokeless fuels for the domestic grate. To carry through this laboratory method of perfecting a process on a works scale over 8000 tons of coal a year are used. In one department Lancashire boilers are fired with powdered coal through the "grid" burner, and its latest development, assures such steady and perfect combustion as to suggest possibilities for the future -use of vast quantities of small size coal. _Clo§£ by a series of small rooms assigned to measuring the radiant heat and other qualities of domestic fuels manufactured from coal.