PETROL FROM COAL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 233, 1 October 1931, Page 4

PETROL FROM COAL.

Quite Possible, but not Profitable. DR THACKER’S PROPOSAL. “ It can be done, but it is certainly not a commercial proposition.” was the comment of Mr F. W. J. Belton, engineer tq the Christchurch Gas Company, when his attention was drawn to a suggestion made by Dr H. T. J. Thacker that benzine might be extracted from coal-tar at the minemouth on the West Coast. Dr Thacker’s suggestion was made at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Automobile Association last evening and was in the form of a proposal that investigations should be made into the matter by the incoming committee. Dr Thacker said work might be found by this means for a number of the unemployed. There were millions of gallons available, he said, and if the services of Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, patron of the association, who was an engineer, were obtained, good results might be attained. The matter was referred to the committee to be dealt with when the opportunity to do so presented itself. “ Supposing all the coal mined in New Zealand w’ere first-class bituminous quality, which it is not, and it were all treated in coke ovens, that would mean only 7,000,000 gallons of benzol,” said Mr Belton this morning. “ Besides, although there are not as many bj'-products as in the coal carbonisation process, there is practically no outlet for what by-products there would be.” ' Hydrogenation Process. Mr Belton was of the opinion that Dr Thacker had been reading of the experiments conducted in the hydrogenation process in England but, with the present prices of petroleum ruling, that was not a sound commercial proposition. Imperial Chemical Industries were experimenting with fifty 1 tons of coal daily at Billingham, in the North of England. The hydrogenation process was an alteration of the constitution of coal by the addition of hydrogen. It was a development of the Burgess process, but all the experiments had shown that it was not profitable at present. Every gas company in the Dominion was treating coal and doing all that could be done with a coke oven with the exception of stripping the benzol. “ If the Government would remove the sixpence a gallon excise duty, the companies might be able to give attention to the production of benzol,” Mr Belton added. “ They have practically all the plant -«nd, if could make a success of it, they could.”