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| Carburetted Water Gas | |
|---|---|
| Name | Carburetted Water Gas |
| Other names | Water-gas, carburetted gas |
| Formula | mixture (CO, H2, hydrocarbons) |
| Discovered | Mid-19th century |
| Uses | Illuminant, heating, chemical feedstock |
Carburetted Water Gas is a manufactured gaseous fuel produced by enriching water gas with hydrocarbon vapors to increase calorific value. It played a significant role in 19th- and early 20th-century industrial lighting, metallurgical heating, and chemical synthesis across urban and industrial centers. The technology intersects with broader developments in coal gasification, chemical engineering, and industrial chemistry during the Industrial Revolution and the early modern energy era.
Carburetted water gas emerged as a practical solution to limitations in early town gas and coal gas technologies, addressing lighting and metallurgical demands in cities such as London, Paris, New York City, Manchester, and Glasgow. The process links to innovations by industrialists and engineers associated with companies like the Gas Light and Coke Company, United Gas Improvement Company, and later utilities such as Consolidated Gas Company and municipal gasworks. It contributed to infrastructure projects influenced by figures like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, George Stephenson, and the chemical work of Justus von Liebig and James Young (inventor).
Development traces to mid-19th-century improvements in gas manufacture within contexts including the Industrial Revolution, expanding coal extraction regions like South Wales Coalfield, Ruhr, and Appalachia. Early patent activity involved inventors and entrepreneurs connected to firms in London, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Leipzig. The technique matured alongside related technologies such as the Bessemer process, the Siemens regenerative furnace, and municipal lighting projects inspired by municipal leaders and engineers in Manchester and Liverpool. Wartime and industrial demand during periods including the American Civil War and World War I accelerated adoption for metallurgical and chemical feedstock uses. Academic and technical discourse around the process appeared in publications and institutions like the Royal Society, American Chemical Society, and technical schools at MIT and École Polytechnique.
Production involves alternating stages: an endothermic water-gas reaction and an exothermic carburetion or enrichment step common at gasworks in cities such as Sheffield and Birmingham. Coal or coke is reacted with steam to produce water gas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen), then hydrocarbon oils from distillation towers or pumpable tar are injected and cracked to produce higher-calorific hydrocarbons. Industrial equipment and plant design references include engineering firms and manufacturers like Siemens brothers, Babcock & Wilcox, and boiler-makers in Birmingham. Control systems and instrumentation were influenced by advances from engineers affiliated with institutions like Brown Boveri and Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Typical composition combines carbon monoxide and hydrogen with cracked hydrocarbons such as olefins and paraffins; proportions varied with feedstock and operating conditions. The resulting gas mixture contains combustible species similar to components studied by chemists including Friedrich Wöhler and August Wilhelm von Hofmann, and its calorific value was measured using apparatus developed by experimenters at places like Royal Institution and laboratories associated with University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. Physical properties (density, flame temperature, luminous intensity) guided applications in lighting systems designed by inventors or firms such as Joseph Swan, Thomas Edison, and municipal lighting committees.
Carburetted water gas served multiple industrial and municipal roles: urban illumination in metropolises including London, New York City, and Tokyo; heating and process furnaces in steelworks and foundries like those in the Black Country and Pittsburgh; producer gas for chemical synthesis linked to later processes in companies such as Dow Chemical Company and BASF. It was used in gas engines and internal combustion experiments connected to pioneers like Nikolaus Otto and Rudolf Diesel and supplied feedstock for synthesis of chemicals pursued by researchers at institutions including ETH Zurich and Kaiser Wilhelm Society.
Advantages included higher calorific value relative to plain water gas and flexibility of feedstock from coal and tar oils, making it attractive to municipal gas undertakings such as Paris Municipal Gasworks and industrial users in Essen. Limitations involved dependence on coal supplies from regions like South Wales Coalfield and environmental and operational constraints that later favored natural gas distribution networks developed by energy companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Standard Oil. Economic pressures from petroleum refining and the rise of electric lighting engineered by companies like General Electric reduced demand.
The process produced by-products (tar, phenols, sulfides) that impacted urban waterways and soil near gasworks in locations like Greenwich and industrial river basins around the Rhine and Hudson River. Occupational hazards included carbon monoxide exposure noted in industrial health surveys by organizations such as the Royal Society of Medicine and regulatory responses in municipal boards and laws like those enacted by the Metropolitan Board of Works and later public health authorities. Decommissioning of former gasworks sites required remediation practices later guided by environmental bodies including agencies analogous to the United States Environmental Protection Agency and national ministries in France and Germany.
Category:Fuel gases