On peat and its products / Professor Brande.

  • Brande, William Thomas, 1788-1866.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On peat and its products / Professor Brande. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    2. By the various products derivable from what is called its destructive distillation. When it is desired to convert peat into charcoal, the plan adopted by the Irish Amelioration Society is to carbonize blocks of peat, partially dried on trays of wicker work, in moveable pyramidal furnaces. The charcoal so obtained varies in character with that of the peat which produces it; and when the peat is compressed previous to its carbonization, (which may be well effected by means of a machine invented by Mr. Rogers, and which was explained by reference to a diagram,) the resulting charcoal exceeds the density of common wood charcoal. In stove-drying, dense peat loses about one-third, and the light and porous, half of its weight: 4 tons of dried peat will give about one ton of charcoal. The efficacy of this charcoal in the manufacture of iron, in consequence of the small quantity of sulphur it contains, was mentioned ; and its deodorizing and purifying qualities experimentally exhibited. 2. The products of the destructive distillation of peat were then described. The elements of peat are essentially those of wood and coal ; viz. Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Oxygen. If there- fore peat were distilled in close vessels, the products obtained, would, as might be expected, resemble the products of a similar operation on coal or wood. Hitherto, however, the expense of such a process in the case of peat has precluded its general adop- tion. Mr. Reece however has invented for this purpose a blast- furnace, which differs in principle from that in which iron is melted, by having an arrangement to collect the products of combustion ; and he has thus succeeded in obtaining ammonia, acetic acid, pyroxy- lic spirit, tar, naphtha, oils, and paraffine, together with large quantities of inflammable gases, from the peat. It has been found convenient to place two of these furnaces close to each other, so that one may be at work when the blast is turned off the other in order to allow of its being charged. In two furnaces of this kind, 10 feet in diameter and 35 feet high, 100 tons of peat may be decomposed every 24 hours, and produce 10,000 gallons liquor (A.) 1,000 . . tar (B.) 6,270,000 cubic feet of inflammable gases (C.) A. The liquor holds in solution sufficient ammonia to yield when saturated by sulphuric acid 1 ton of sulphate of ammonia ; enough acetic acid to give, when saturated by lime, 14 cwt. of grey acetate of lime ; and, lastly, it contains 52 gallons of pyroxvlic spirit. This process was described in detail, and a diagram of the furnaces, and of the apparatus employed for distilling the spirit was exhibited. B. The tar is quite different from what is obtained from coal or from wood. It is a peculiar greasy-feeling substance. This sub- stance is heated to about 100° at which temperature it melts ; and being then treated first with about 3 per cent, of sulphuric acid, and afterwards with hot water, it separates after a time, into two