Coal gas
Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous fuels produced for sale to consumers and municipalities.
Town gas was supplied to households via municipally owned piped distribution systems.
With the head and upper body placed inside the appliance, the concentrated carbon monoxide would kill quickly.
Originally created as a by-product of the coking process, its use developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries tracking the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.
Any residual gas lighting found in homes being converted was either capped off at the meter or, more usually, removed altogether.
As of 2023, some gas street lighting still remains, mainly in central London and the Royal Parks.
These gases are made by partial combustion of a wide variety of feedstocks in some mixture of air, oxygen, or steam, to reduce the latter to hydrogen and carbon monoxide although some destructive distillation may also occur.
Producer gas has a very low calorific value of 3.7 to 5.6 MJ/m3 (99 to 150 Btu/cu ft); because the calorific gases CO/H2 are diluted with much inert nitrogen (from air) and carbon dioxide (CO2) (from combustion) The problem of nitrogen dilution was overcome by the blue water gas (BWG) process, developed in the 1850s by Sir William Siemens.
The light oils would be thermocracked as they came in contact with the white hot checkerwork fire bricks inside the carburettor.
[15] The decline of coal as a feedstock for town gas production using carbonisation is demonstrated in this graph.
Gas warm air heating found a market niche in new local authority housing where low installation costs gave it an advantage.
A 212-mile (341 km) long high-pressure trunk pipeline was built from Canvey Island to Bradford.
Subsequently, the North Sea was found to have many substantial gas fields on both sides of the median line defining which nations should have rights over the reserves.
3438) pointed the industry in the direction of building up the use of natural gas speedily to 'enable the country to benefit as soon as possible from the advantages of this new indigenous energy source'.
As a result, there was a 'rush to gas' for use in peak load electricity generation and in low grade uses in industry.
[21] The Portadown site has been cleared and is now the subject of a long-term experiment into the use of bacteria for the purpose of cleaning up contaminated industrial land.
Poisoning from natural gas appliances is only due to incomplete combustion, which creates CO, and flue leaks to living accommodation.
Monty Python parodied the conversion from coal to North Sea gas, and the jumping through hoops some encountered, in their "New Cooker Sketch," as part of the episode that began its second series in 1970.
With the labours of August Wilhelm von Hofmann, the whole German chemical industry emerged.
Using the coal gas waste as feedstock, researchers developed new processes and synthesized natural organic compounds such as Vitamin C and aspirin.
The German economy relied on coal gas during the Second World War as petroleum shortages forced Nazi Germany to develop the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis to produce synthetic fuel for aircraft and tanks.
Dyes, medicines such as sulfa drugs, saccharine, and dozens of organic compounds are made from coal tar.
Apart from in the steel industry's coke ovens' by-products plants, coal gas is no longer made in the UK.
