The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-01-29
TO SUPERsEDE STEAM
A NEW MOTIVE POWER DIscOv-
Erred BY AN ENGINEER.
BY It's Use the Atlantic Voyage May Be
Made In Four Days-Ammonia
Gas Successfully App led to
Steam Engines.

The engines on the tug boat Edwin
Hartley. of New York. are of type
calculated to interest engineers
greatly. writes John K. Robson in
the Detroit Free Press. and. in fact
to arouse the curiosity of all people
in the development of new ideas.
They are much like the ordinary
engines in tug-boats and are adapted
from the original compound engines
used in the tug-boat But they give
the same speed to the boat that they
used to give when steam was used.
and are run with exactly one-half the
amount of coal the old system re-
quired. The saving comes from the
use of ammonia gas. in the place of
steam, as the source of the power
The gas passes through the same
cylinders that the steam was
used in. 1t is known that the steam
engine is very economical. but COM
paratively few people know that the
amount of work used is hardly more
than one-tenth the total energy in the
coal. By far the greatest part of this
great waste occurs in what is known
as the condenser. where the steam
that has been used is converted into
water This loss is only increased
when the steam blows off into the air,
for then the whole of the heat is lost;
that is to say. all the heat in the
steam being of a certain value, say
4. 25O units, only about 1875 are used
in the best modern steam engines.
The loss in the condenser is caused by
the absolute loss Of the heat required
to turn water heated to the boiling
point to steam. or about 200 units.
Inventor Campbell has found that
ammonia requires much less heat to
vaporize it than water does and has
conceived the idea of using that gas
in the place of steam. AS might be
expected, he encountered many diff
culties in the way of putting his idea
into practice. In the first place, am
mOnia gas itself cannot be made LIQUID,
necessary operation above a tenn
perature Of 39o. This great diff
Guilty he has avoided by using aqua
ammonia The water easily absorbs
the ammonia gas and thus can be
used.
Then ammonia water cannot be used
in boilers on account of the great cor
rosive power of the liquid. So he at
taches an evaporation to the regular
boiler and evaporates the ammonia by
using steam from the old boiler All
the heat OF the steam is thus used and
we have no waste there. The ammo
MIA gas found in this evaporation which
is practically the only addition made
to the machinery of the tug boat goes
to the engines and does the work in
stead Of the steam. Then it comes to
some cold ammonia water and is alb
sorbed and passes back to the evapor-
ator.
AS in the use of ammonia it takes
less than 400 units to evaporate the
liquid into gas, the waste is shown to
be decreased in the ratio of ten to
four; the ten representing the l, 900
units lost with steam, and the four
the 400 units lost with ammonia Thus
the efficiency of the engine is more
than doubled.
The advantages claimed for this svs-
tenn are:
l. The economy; but one-half the
coal is needed to run this type of en-
CINE that was required to run the
steam engine. This claim has proved
to be good from actual practice on the
Hartley, where only one furnace is
now in use in the old double furnace
boiler
ic W. oh
the present engines and requires very
little expense to fit it in place.
3. The boilers last longer, as the
water in them is always pure, while
ammonia gas. being in itself a good
lubricant, the use>of Oil in the cylin-
der is dispensed with. This advan-
tage would about double the life of
the machinery.
The system is as easily cared for as
the old one and the gas does not leak
out the ordinary glands and packing
being sufficient to keep it confined.
If, on further trial. this system
should prove the great success it now
promises to be. the new Atlantic lines
will be out Of date in two years and a
four-days trip from new York to
Queenstown will soon be not at all I'M
common.
The amount of coal required to be
carried and burned is divided by two.
This great economical advantage IS
enough to commend it to every user
of an engine. and especially to marine
engineers. where each pound of coal
carried means one pound less of cargo
to be carried.
After all this, and in view of the
fact that there are no disadvantages
worth mentioning. it,seems probable
that the steam engine. pure and SIM
pie. will soon be out of date, and this
new and great improvement in the
line of heat engines will be used.
An Amended Opinion.