January, 1926
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
offset by the actual savings to buildings, paint, furnishings, clothing, etc., entirely aside from the effect on health, the value of by-products recovered, and the indirect savings and advantages. With our present system of house heating, coal is brought from the mine, shipped to the various parts of the United States, unloaded in dealers’ yards, loaded into trucks, hauled through the streets, carried into the basements of houses, and from there shoveled into furnaces. After this, the ashes must be regulariy removed from the furnace, carried to the alley or some convenient point for collection, shoveled into wagons, and carried through the city streets to their final destination. With gas heating, the coal would be hauled directly from the mine to a central plant, mechanically handled through the gas-making equipment, all the by-products recovered, and the gas purified and freed from sulfur, then distributed through the streets in underground mains. Each house would have its individual heating plant, thermostatically controlled. Our present methods of house heating can only be compared with and belong to the same age as the tallow dip and the town pump. Our grandchildren will look upon a coal stove much as we now think of a spinning wheel, Gas heating is not an idle dream. Several of the larger gas companies have already started on very extensive construction programs with this gas load as the ultimate consideration. Considerable progress has already been made in the development of gas-fired boilers.
Improvements in Processes and Machinery House heating with gas will serve as an illustration of the possibilities in the utilization of gaseous fuel. Great progress is also being made in gas-making processes and gas-making machinery. Improved coke ovens have been developed with a thermal efficiency higher than was considered possible a few years ago. A coke oven must be operated at a fairly uniform rate to obtain good economies. Some very interesting developments to increase its flexibility and adapt it to more general conditions’have been brought out. For example, if the maximum yield of gas is desired and there is little demand for coke, this coke can be gasified and used for heating the ovens. If there is no demand for gas and coke is the primary product, the ovens can be fired with their own gas. If both coke and gas are required in maximum quantities, the ovens can be k e d with producer gas generated from soft coal, leaving the total output of oven gas and coke for the market. These changes in the method of
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operation can be made very quickly and with practically no sacrifice to economy. Carbureted water gas finds its greatest field where the maximum quantity of gas is required with the lowest initial cost of plant. Water gas plants have the further advantage of being quickly put into operation, and as quickly shut down. Water gas machines were formerly very low in thermal efficiency. Improvements in design and the development of the so-called “backrun” process of operation have resulted in a much higher thermal efficiency and an appreciable increase in capacity per square foot of grate area. The accepted fuels for water gas operation have always been coke or anthracite coal. With the improvements recently developed it is now possible to use soft ‘ coal as generator fuel. This is unquestionably a great step in advance and marks a new epoch in water gas development. Equally important improvements have been made in methods of purifying, condensing, and scrubbing gas, and the recovery of by-products. Processes are being developed for the complete gasification of coal, Other processes aim to recover the maximum quantity o€ by-products, and in this class may he grouped all the low-temperature distillation processes. These processes are an effort to produce a smokeless fuel from soft coal and convert the condensable hydrocarbons to motor fuel. Just as great activity is also apparent in the oil gas field. Some of the processes aim at complete gasification, others produce gas for distribution and benzol for motor fuel as a byproduct. The gas industry has never seen the time when so much effort was expended in attempting to develop new processes and improve existing apparatus. This activity is further evidence of the changing conditions being brought about by the rapidly increasing rate of the consumption of energy. There is no doubt but that we have reached the time when the conservation of energy will assume increasingly greater importance. I n the final analysis, the answer to most industrial problems is the economic answer, not the mechanical. There is no difficulty in developing machinery that will conserve energy. The practical problem is to develop machinery and processes that will save energy and money a t the same time. As society is now organized, the trend of every industry is primarily towards dividends, not towards conservation. The best evidence that we are entering a Gas Age is that higher efficiencies and bigger dividends are beginning to lie in the same direction.
Determination of Mineral Nitrogen in Fertilizers’ By J. E. Breckenridge AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL CHEMICAL Co., CARTEWT, N. J.
N THE last few years laws have been passed in some states Irequiring a determination of the percentage of mineral and organic nitrogen in fertilizers. In the Official Methods of the A. 0. A. C . are two methods for the determination of nitric and ammoniacal nitrogen-the reduced iron and the zinc iron methods, both of which are marked official. Either might be used in control work. Early in this year one state department used the zinc iron method with the result that the percentages of mineral and organic nitrogen found were entirely different from those used in mixing the fertilizers. This led to work on the subject and cooperation with this state department to the end that the zinc iron method was dropped and the reduced iron method substituted. I Presented under the title “Determination of Various Forms of Mineral Nitrogen in Fertilizers” before the Division of Fertilizer Chemistry at the 88th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Ithaca, N . Y.,September 8 to 13,1924.
While either methodjwill give good results on samples of fertilizer having no soluble organic nitrogen, the zinc iron will give high results when soluble organic is present, undoubtedly due to the action of the strong sodium hydroxide and zinc on the soluble organic nitrogen. It is believed that the zinc iron method should be marked“Not to be used on mixed fertilizers.” The following are some results by both methods on samples of grades made and in stock two months: Modi$ed Reduced Iron-Dissolve 8 grams of fertilizer in 200 cc. water, filter, take 25 cc. aliquot (equal to 1 gram) and proceed as under No. 33.2 Modifigd Reduced iron Zinc iron reduced won Calculated 1.03 1.31 0.95 1.83 2.20 1.85 4-8-4 2.60 2.68 3-8-3 1.95 2.39 1.87 1.89 3-8-3 1.98 2.16 1.83 1.82 Cyanamid was used in making all these grades. 2 Assoc. Official Agr. Chem., Methods. 1919, p. 10,SS and 34.
Sample 2-8-2 3-8-3
