New Producer-gas Filter's Efficiency Substantiated
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RESULTS of a 3,000-mile test of the new " Vacunaatic scrubber" recently introduced by British Vehicle Producer Gas, Ltd., 120, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1, constitute convincing evidence Of the efficiency of this apparatus for purifying producer gas. The method adopted to ascertain how high a percentage of the foreign matter in the gas was arrested by the new device in its passage from the first-stage filter to the engine was this.
Analyses were made of the fluid in the scrubber and of the sump oil, respectively, to determine what percentages of suspended matter they contained. The figure for the former was 3 per cent, and for the latter 0.1 per cent. Therefore the ratio of matter passed by the first-stage filter to that passed by
the second-stage filter is 31 to 1. Accordingly, practically 97 per cent, of the foreign matter which formerly would have gone to the engine is now extracted. This, of course, disregards the dust and so forth, which is inspired into the cylinders and discharged with the exhaust.
With regard to the influence of the new device on acidity, tests showed that the acidity, after 3,000 miles, of the scrubber fluid was 0.8 per cent., whilst that of the sump oil was 0.15 per cent. This represents an efficiency of 84 per cent. • Engine lubricant, of course, is under the influence of the acid products of combustion, so one would he justified in crediting the scrubber with considerably greater efficacy, in this respect, than the figures indicate. We have witnessed a demonstration of the B.V.P. turbulent fluid purifier, in which the functioning of the plant was reproduced in apparatus made of transparent material, and can state that its action is definitely impressive. So far as the eye can detect, all the maker's claims are substantiated and the gas bubbles, which normally pass through an ordinary water filter, are thoroughly broken down, so that the whole of the gas is brongfrt into intimate contact_ with the fluid and subjected to a complete washing process.
A description of the filter appeared in our issue dated October 11, together with a diagrammatic drawing of the device. We understand that lc can, in many circumstances, be accommodated within the original filtering unit.