Home Production of Motor Spirit.
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Progres with Synthol and Kentol.
The following short article is taken from last week's issue of "The Motor." We were unable to set apart space last week to publish the interesting announcements which are made in the course of the interview which is related.
One of the chief processes for the efficient commercial production of good motor spirit from creosote and shale, the Lamplough, was much before the motoring public in Septem
ber last. A lull followed, and this period of silence has at last been broken. A representative of "The Motor," on Friday last, took the opportunity to interview Mr. Alfred Armitage, the chairman of the British Motor Spirit Syndicate, Ltd., of 83, Pall Mall, and we are therefore—as our supporters will agree we deserve to be—the first. publication to inform motorists of the imminent realization of earlier hopes. All that has been written in the past by advocates of mineral spirit from Home sources promises to be fulfilled to the letter. That advocacy has been almost exclusively found in the pages of' The Motor'' and other house journals for which Wemple
Press Ltd. is responsible. We here refer not only` to the Lamplough process, but to the basic use of creosote and shale oils for conversion by arp, cracking process into good motor
spirit.. Our contemporary any COMMERCIAL MOTOR has made itself responsible for the estimate that 70,000,000 gallons a year of home-produced motor spirit will be the rate of yield
-from cannel, shale and creosote by the end of 1015. Mr. Armitage's statements are amongst the first which permit referelices to data upon which that prophecy of last year was founded.
" We have said nothing," began Mr. Armitage, "because we and our coadjutors have been steadily nequiring supplies
of raw material. Our experimental tests were soon confirmed on the 200-gallon scale, and there were no failures. Shale oils and creosote came alike to our plant, and the new spirit has been named S'ynthol. By August next one ' bench ' in the works of the Northern Symbol Syndicate, Ltd., will be producing 4000 gallons a day entirely from creosote, and that licensee will push ahead a second bench ' to produce MOO gallons a day." " It is -Mr ,J. E. C. Lord, of Weaste, near Manchester, who has formed this particular syndicate. He will
deal almost exclusivelywith creosote. The yield of many millions of gallons a year from that raw material will quickly be demonstrated to be no dream."
"The quality, the percentage yields, and the cost, you ask? \Veil, we find that, according to the temperature, which ranges from a dull red to a maximnm of 1200 degrees F., we get 0.660 spirit valued now at about 3s. a gallon, or a steady flow of high-grade motor spirit. We have made volatility the test, rather than gravity, for motorcar purposes, and my own use of the fuel bear* out all claims concerning it by Mr. Lamplough. As to costs," and here Mr,Armitage smiled with that blandness which has endeared hint to members of the R.A.C. and Associated Clubs General Committee, of which he is chairman, "I can only say that Mr. ShrapnellSmith's estimate that we might have to pay as much as 5d. per gallon to get hold of 50,000,000 gallons a year of creosote has rot been exceeded."
"Cost to you is one thing," we interpolated, " but we are more ceneerned in cost to the owner of a car."
" That will bc satisfactory; say, is. 4d. EL gallon, at the outset. It may fall. We cannot say. Price is more a question for our licensees than for the parent company which receives the royalties."
" Shale? Of course, we can utilize it, and there arc millions of tons of shale and cannel at our contractual disposal already. Both Ireland and Scotland have been considered, and the deposits in both countries will contribute large quantities. We get, on the manufacturing scale, with three runs through the plant, 50 per cent. of good motor spirit from creosote, and 75 per egnt, from shale. Water and crude oil go in at one end; the nickel plates and the heat play their part; the spirit comes out at the other, and the residue is automatically collected for re-treatment. I want von to come and see our plant at Charlton in a day or two.''' It is almost, needless to add that. me accepted the invitation.
" No; we have no scheme in hand for a flotation. We are not going to the public. The work is accomplished on a. commercial scale, and we have now only to watch our licensees extend their opmations."
"Distribution presents no special difficultirs. Mr. Lord
and others will follow their existing successful methods with benzoic." " The petrol companies! We do not fear them. Our production will probably not exceed one-third of the total imports of petrol for some time to come. The increase of supplies may easily overtake demand, and then prices must fail, but we do not intend to commence by any cutting— that is, our licensees do not." [It has to be recalled that Mr. E. Manville is associated with Mr. Armitage; also, that the first trial of creosote in the Lamplough plant was undertaken at the instance of the Petrol Substitutes Joint Committee.—En. "'rite Motor."]
Another process, of which we have ourselves received direct information, is that of low-temperature carbonization under vacuum, according to the system. which belongs to the Premier Tarless Fuels, Ltd., of coal or other carboniferous deposits. This company uses annular retorts, in which the fuel is practically at no time in a ring thicker than 3 ins. The retorts are small and self-contained, and the gases which hea-:, the ring of coal or other raw material are produced in the course of working the plant. Each vertical retor:.; will take a charge of 15 cwt., and the conversion is completely effected in about three hours, withou handling, and without mechanical rotation or othei: movement. Over 200 samples of coal, cannel, shale and peat have been tried in this plant, and no triai has concerned a less quantity than three tons of any material. The resulting coke is of a high grade, and above all is not friable. It sells well on the market. at from 30s. to 353. per ton, whilst the crude oil is fetching 4d. per gallon at the works, and the crude petrol Sd, to lOd. per gallon at the works. This company, of which Mr. F. D. Marshall, of 19, Queen Anne's Chambers, S.W., is the managing director, has granted a licence for a plant to carbonize 200 tons a day near Tilmanstone, in Kent. Two °the:licences have been granted. for the erection of plant. in the North, each for a like quantity. These three plants will be turning out spirit—to be called " Kentol " in the case of the Kent installation--at the rate of two million gallons a year by not later than twelv,3 months hence; other colliery owners are negotiating.
The important point is that the arrangements m hand are to be viewed as typical of many others which are taking definite shape, and the aggregate production of which will by degrees become considerable.
We have pleasure, too, in adding that Mr. Marshall will show the parent company's plant at Battersea to any gas or colliery engineer who may be interested in the matter from the commercial or scientific standpoints. The works are located in Kirthug Street, and associated with Mr. Parker in the developmentare Mr. Orville J. Parker. Mr. H. W. Crow (a member of the well-known firm of tar distillers of that name), and Mr. G. H. Short. The consulting chemist to the company is Dr. George Young, F.I.C.