Gasworks

“ Put a shovelful of soft coal into your furnace and watch the thick, yellow gas hover over the black mass before it bursts into flame. Open a draft below the fire box. The oxygen in the air helps to make a hotter fire. Hot air rises. you can see these gases and coal dust rush up the smoke pipe, on the column of hot air. They are carried away before they have time to burn. Of course, then, you understand that smoke means waste of fuel. Under boiler and house furnace fires, from two to five tons of coal are burned to produce the heat that is in one ton. ”

“ In the case of a steam-boiler the energy of combustion is transmitted to water inside an air-tight vessel. The fuel does not actually touch the "working fluid." In the gas or oil engine the fuel is brought into contact and mixed with the working fluid, which is air. It combines suddenly with it in the cylinder, and heat energy is developed so rapidly that the act is called an explosion. Coal gas, mineral oils, alcohol, petrol, etc., all contain hydrogen and carbon. If air, which contributes oxygen, be added to any of these in due proportion, the mixture becomes highly explosive. ”

“ Neither he nor I opened the windows, because of the rain, as you know. Somehow, just how I cannot say, a slow stream of carbonic-acid gas finds its way into this room. It is the product of combustion, as you of course know, and is produced in large quantities by burning coal. It may come through the register from the furnace, or from some peculiar action of partially slacked lime in the plaster [292] of the walls. Wherever it comes from, being heavier than air, it slowly settles to the floor, where it collects, becoming deeper and deeper, just as water collects and rises in a tank. ”

“ The chief danger with an apparatus of this sort is its liability to accident by the careless use of the gas, and, as a mixture of hydrogen and air is very explosive, great care must be taken to exhaust all the air in the generator and tubes before attempting to light the gas at the blow pipe. The only way to make sure that the air is exhausted is to test the gas, as described under the head of “The Flame and Its Management.” ”

“ Gas is passed by pressure through a large extent of cast-iron piping of small dimensions. It has been said that it permeates the metal, but it certainly permeates the joints, and so escapes. The screw threads corroding in the pipes, the vibration of the passing vehicles shakes out the rust, and the gas goes out through the loose earth. This waste—a very heavy per-centage—raises the price of gas proportionately, at the same time that it lessens our supply of light and lowers our health, sometimes killing us outright by explosion or inhaling. ”

“ Natural gas occurs in very large quantities in the United States, where it is conveyed through pipes under pressure for hundreds of miles, and distributed among factories and houses for driving machinery, heating, and cooking. In England and Europe the petroleum engine and coal-gas engine have been most utilised; but of late the employment of smelting-furnace gases—formerly blown into the air and wasted—and of "producer" gas has come into great favour with manufacturers. ”

“ In an iron-mill of thirty furnaces, running eight heats each for twenty-four hours, this would make a difference in favor of the gas of, say, 8 X 30 X 25 = 6,000 pounds of iron per day. This is an important item of itself, leaving out the cost of firing with coal and hauling ashes.
For generating steam in large establishments, one man will attend a battery of twelve or twenty boilers, using gas as fuel, keep the pressure uniform, and have the fire-room clean as a parlor. For burning brick and earthenware, gas offers the double advantage of freedom from smoke and a uniform heat. ”

“ Nor, I don't well see how you're to cure the gas, at all times, neither. When a heading [the working at the end of an excavation] is made up a slant, the gas collects in the upper end, and to disturb this gas, as you must do, and distribute it, and drive it away, a'nt so safe and easy a matter, without a chance of a bit of an explosion or two. The worst time of all is when an up-hill heading is united to another heading, for then you're almost certain to have a rush down of the gas, and if there's an uncovered light in the way, you're sure of an explosion. ”

“ In passing into the incandescent fuel that fills the generator, the steam is decomposed, and there forms carbonic oxide, while hydrogen is liberated. The mixture of these two gases with the hydrocarburets furnished by the fuel constitutes water gas. This gas on making its exit from the generator through the pipe, M', passes through the chambers, B, and abandons therein the greater part of its heat, and enters the pipe, R, whence it passes through Q into the purifiers, and then into the gasometer. ”

“ It succeeded perfectly, but, of course, either the expense of the gas, the faint light of its flame, or its poisonous qualities, would preclude its application. But we may, perhaps, without being considered extravagant, be allowed to search in the products of oil, resins, coal, &c., distilled, or otherwise treated, with this object in view, for a substance, which being a gas at common temperatures and pressure, shall condense into a liquid, by a pressure of from two to six or eight atmospheres, and which being combustible, shall afford a lamp of the kind described [8] . ”

“ The workman is not called upon to exercise his own judgment, because, when the fire is properly managed, the evolution of the gas goes on spontaneously, and without further care, till all the gas is extricated from the coal.
No part of the machinery is liable to be out of order,—there are no cocks to be turned, no valves to be regulated; nor can the operator derange the apparatus but by the most violent efforts. And when the stock of gas is prepared, we may depend on its lighting power as much [154] as we depend on the light to be obtained from a certain number of candles or oil-lamps. ”

“ When the gasometer is quite down, the inside of its top, a, rests on the ground; when the gas enters, it raises it up till the lower edge is but a few inches below the water, and is prevented from rising higher by frames which support it; when some of the weights, d d, are removed, the huge cylinder, a, slowly sinks down and forces the gas through the tubes, c c, to be burnt by thousands of consumers. About four cubic feet of gas is produced from every pound of coal used ”

“ Emerson Dowson invented an apparatus for manufacturing a gas suitable for power plant, the gas being known as Producer or Poor Gas, the last term referring to its poorness in hydrogen as compared with coal and other gases. While the hydrogen is a desirable ingredient in an explosive charge, it must not form a large proportion, since under compression it renders the mixture in which it takes part dangerously combustible, and liable to spontaneous ignition before the piston has finished the compression stroke. ”

“ The air thus reached the burning fuel hot, instead of cold. By the use of two chambers used alternately to receive and give out the heat, the process was made continuous. By a further improvement gas was used in place of solid fuel, and this was passed through the ‘regenerator’ so that it arrived at the place of combustion in a highly heated state. Not only was there an enormous economy of heat, but the gas could be made from fuel of a very inferior sort, while processes could be conducted in the open furnace which could only be carried out in crucibles when solid fuel was employed. ”

“ The heat in the earth has driven off the gas, or hydrogen, from the coal in the mines. Once, when they were boring a well, some of this pent-up gas, which was where they happened to be boring, burst out in a kind of explosion, tearing their boring apparatus all to pieces, and frightening the workmen pretty thoroughly. ”

“ And so true is this, that if a main were to descend 100 feet below the base of the gas holder, and if the pressure of the gas in the main was only equal to sustain a column of water half an inch in height, the gas lamps could not be lighted at all, at a point so low, because the pressure of the gas is then in an equilibrium with the pressure of the atmosphere. Hence in lighting a town or district with coal gas, the best situation for the gas apparatus, as far at least as it regards the economy of the mains for distributing the gas, is the lowest part of the town or district. ”

“ The greater efficiency of gas as a fuel results chiefly from the circumstance that a pound of gas yields in combustion twenty-two thousand heat-units, or exactly double the heat produced in the combustion of a pound of ordinary coal. This extra heating power is due partly to the freedom of the gas from earthy constituents, but chiefly to the heat imparted to it in effecting its distillation. ”

“ You see, then, that every fire-place, or grate, or stove is a gas factory; but the gas is burned up as fast as it is made. The gas which is made at the gas-works is made in such a way that it is not burned at the time. It is made generally by heating coal, and is kept in large reservoirs called gasometers. From them pipes branch out in the same way that they do from water-works; and through these the gas goes all about to different buildings, as water goes in aqueduct pipes; and as the water comes out when you open the faucet, so does the gas when you open the burner. ”

“ When the fire burns bright, much radiant heat will be sent off from it; but when [150] it is smothered up, very little will be generated: most of the heat produced will then be expended in giving elasticity to a thick dense vapour, or smoke, which is seen rising from the fire; and the combustion being very incomplete, the carburetted hidrogen gas of the coal being driven up the chimney without being inflamed, the fuel is wasted to little purpose. ”

“ If seven bulbfuls of air be mixed with one bulbful of gas, an explosive mixture of 1 to 7 is produced, this being 294 the proportion commonly employed for street-gas. For producer-gases the preferred proportion is 1 to 1, oxygen being often added to the air in order to insure complete combustion. ”

“ Sometimes the gas comes up with such violence as to drive out the boring machine, or flows with the water, and again, rushes up in sudden explosions, at intervals of hours or days, springing up in the air to a height of a hundred feet. This gas easily takes fire. Petroleom, is also found accompanying the salt, and is used by the inhabitants for bruises, or to oil machinery. Filtered through charcoal, it is burned in lamps. In the country upon the Muskingum river are several deposites of salt rock, or Muriatiferous rock. ”

“ Gas for Fuel and Power—The first gas-producers, which were built by Faber du Faur at Wasseralfingen in 1836 and by C. G. C. Bischof at Mägdesprung (both in Germany) , consisted of simple perpendicular shafts of masonry contracted at the top and the bottom, with or without a grate for the coal. Such producers, frequently strengthened by a wrought iron casing, are even now used to a great extent. Sometimes the purpose of a gas-producer is attained in a very simple manner by lowering the grate of an ordinary fireplace so much that a layer of coal 4 or 5 ft. deep is maintained in the fire. ”

“ The ashes that remain form but a small part of the whole. The two most common products of combustion are watery vapor and carbonic anhydride.
The illumination of our towns and cities has long been accomplished by the use of gas manufactured from coal. Bituminous coal is used for this purpose, and the process consists in heating it to destructive distillation, and afterward condensing and absorbing such portions of the volatilized materials as might clog the gas pipes or interfere with perfect combustion.
Nature, it is now known, has her own gas works, on an immense scale. ”

“ Fairbanks-Morse Producer Plant and Engine, Connected for Operation.
In practical work, the natural fuels are coal, mineral oils, natural gas, and wood, which are compounds of the elements carbon and hydrogen. When these fuels are burned to their lowest forms the products of combustion consist of carbon dioxide and water, the first being the result of the oxydization of carbon, and the latter a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. ”

“ THE practical application of natural gas, as an article of fuel, to the purpose of manufacturing glass, iron, and steel, promises to work a revolution in the industrial interests of America—promises to work a revolution; for, notwithstanding the fact that, in many of the largest iron, steel, and glass factories in Pittsburg and its vicinity, natural gas has already been substituted for coal, the managers of some such works are shy of the new fuel, mainly for two reasons: 1. ”

“ This shows that by far the greatest product of the combustion of coal-gas is not light but heat. The flame of hydrogen is much the hottest known, and as that gas enters so largely into the composition of coal-gas, and the complete combustion of all the other constituents takes place when the gas is previously mixed with air, as in the Bunsen burner, we are provided with an economical means of obtaining high temperatures. ”

“ One estimable feature in this system of gas-producing is that the production can be arrested for half a day without deranging the producer, the fuel and brickwork being sufficiently bulky to maintain a dull red heat for that period. Air cannot enter the grate unless the gases given off in the producer are withdrawn to the furnace; and when the gas valve of the furnace is reopened, the production of the gases is once more continued. ”