Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-02-24
BY-PRODUCTSE EXPLOITED
THE RESULT OF DISCOVERIES IN THE
OIL INDUSTRY.

|
Among the manufacturing industries
in the neighborhood of New York few
are larger than those connected with
the preparation of petroleum for the
market. Like thousands of other en-
terprises, the oil industry owes no
| small part of its present development
| to the little savings which progressive
ingenuity has devised. The story Of
the discovery and application of nu-
merous by-products of kerosene is typ
| ical of the advance and enrichment
| which modern methods and chemistry
| have contributed in many and varied
| fields.
When the discovery of petroleum In
| quantity first permitted the use of the
mineral on large SCALE 1t was man
ufactured only for the Illuminating oil
| which it contained. OF the Pennsyl-
vania crude oil, this constituted fifty
| to fifty-four per cent, or even more;
| by one process as much as seventy
| per cent. in Illuminating oil was OBJ
| tanned. The remainder was all, or
practically all, waste. Gas was pro-
duced in the earlier stages Of the dis
| tillatlon, but whatever inflammable
| vapors the crude gave off before it
| reached the temperature at which IL
| Illuminating oil would boil, were burned,
| though sometimes as fuel. Tar, pitch,
| or residuum remained in the stills
after the illuminating oil had been got
out. This was thrown away; more
often than not, run into the creeks
near the refineries. The manipulation
| of petroleum was thus the manufac-
| ture of kerosene; 1t was like the separ-
alton of lead only from an ore which
also contained paying quantities of
copper, silver and gold.
For in the crude petroleum were n
variety of other substances awaiting
only isolation from the compounds
with which they were mixed. OF fluids
more volatile than kerosene there was
a whole group of naphthas; of sub
| jects less easily brought to boil, there
was such products as paraffine, par
affine oil, vaseline, q wide variety of
other lubricating oils. and number of
sorts of pitch. Some of these were to
be had simply by condensing and saw
ing the vapors given off by distillation,
at different degrees Of heat; some
were available only after special pro-
cesses supplementary to distillation.
had been carried out. In almost all
cases, the product, once separated from
other components of the petroleum
or it's distillates, needed to be careful
ly refined.
Little time passed before kerosene
ceased to be the only material for
which crude oil was treated by water
acid, alkali and fire. The chemistry
of the substance was fairly well known
before the discovery of the great Penn
sylvania fields in 1861. A substance
very much like petroleum had been
distilled in the late forties from the BIZ
luminous camel found in parts OF
Scotland. Even the heavy fluid OBJ
tanned by heating this shale to about
500 degrees Fahrenheit and condens-
ing the vapors resulting, the Scotch
manufacturers were making an illum-
mating oil already in 1913. For nearly
forty years the competition has pro-
ceeded, though ever, to be sure, with
growing proof that the British coal
oil, despite economies of manufacture
and ingenuities of invention, was no
commercial match for the rock oil of
the Americans. Partly in Scotland,
partly in America, there has been
worked out system Of the utiliza-
ton of the by-products for which, in
brilliance and completeness, there are
few parallels in the whole history of
manufacturing technique.
The products other than Kerosene
finally derived from petroleum show
wide divergences in both their physical
characteristics and the uses to which
they can be put. Some Of them are so
volatile that at ordinary temperatures
they take the gaseous form; others
cannot be separated from the mother
liquid short of a red heat. Certain of
the commodities are solid; the major
ity, however, are fluids, though here
again there is wide range of differ
ence in point of specific gravity. III
broad way they may be grouped as
products obtained before and after
the distillation of kerosene.
After the kerosene of commerce has
been boiled off, with the help of jets
of live steam, the tar, which used to
be thrown away, is made to give up a
large proportion Of lubricating oil,
about seventeen and one-half per cent.
OF the total weight of. the crude ma
terial Into the condensers, along with
this oil, there passes also about two
per cent. of paraffin. which can be sep
arated by pressing after the distillate
has cooled, and is then ready for the
filtering and other publications which
fetch it out finally as a white wax.
OF the whole weight of the petroleum
scarcely ten per cent. is lost in manu-
facture when the process is arranged
to extract this considerable proportion
Of lubricants. When the still is. so
built and the firing conducted that the
highest practicable quantity (about
seventy per cent) Of Illuminating oil
Is taken out-this by continually con-