The Great Central Motor Spirit.
Page 19
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Recovered from Gas Oil in a Special Plant.
In these times of petrol shortage, when the demand so overwhelms the supply, anything in the nature of a new fuel is regarded with intense interest by all those faced with the motor-transport problem during war time. The number of petrol substitutes is many, but they naturally give varying results as motor spirit, so that the examination of each separately is a duty the owner of commercial motors must not forego, in order to obtain a really adequate substitute for petrol.
All readers of TEE COMMERCIAL MOTOR, therefore, cannot fail to be interested in the motor spirit which is recovered from gas oil in a special plant by the Great Central Railway. The plant has been put down at Tuxford, and its purpose is the distillation. of this motor spirit from crude hydro-carbon .produced at the company's oil gas works from gas oil. used for the lighting of railway Carriages. The plant, a view of which is here reproduced, non. sists mainly of a steam-heated still, and a fractionating column for the purpose of separating the two products of the refining process; the light and the heavy fractions, the former passing into a condenser, in order to be condensed into liquid form. This refined spirit is then collected into storage tanks for use. The volatility of the Great Central motor spirit is shown graphically in the accompanying chart, where the results obtained from it can he compared with those obtained from petrol and paraffinThe thick black line shows the average result of tests with the fuel, the vertical lines indicating the percentage of fuel distilled at the different temperatures indicated by the horizontal lines. The spirit begins to distill at less than 45 degrees Centigrade, and between 85 and 90 per oent, of it passes over at a teraperature of 100 degrees, From tests made by the company, petrol begins to distill at 70 degrees Centigrade, and a similar quantity is not obtained until a' temperature of about 137 degrees Centigrade is reached. It has also been found that the motor spirit gives about five per cent. more power than petrol, quantities being equal.