The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1915-05-27
INCREASED PRODUCTION CAUSE
New Processes in the Making of Case
line Have Resulted in Big Reductions
in Cost Of Product Motor Cars Make
Gasoline Ore of Nation IS Big Products

More gasoline is being used in the
world today than ever before-yet the
price of this fuel, so essential in this
era or the internal-combustio engine,
IS lower than it has been in many years.
says Popular Mechanics for June.
The present European war has been
termed the gasoline war, and justly SO,
for if deprived Of this fuel the armies
engaged in the great conflict would be
compelled to suspend operations. For
transporting the field and seige guns
and for propelling the thousands of
motor cars used in the transportation
OF troops, ammunition, and supplies on
the scale required in a war Of such
magnitude, gasoline is necessity, and
Inns and aeroplanes would be an impos-
sibility.
But in spite Of the tremendous de-
mand made on the oil supply by reason
or the war, gasoline has been getting
cheaper. This situation is the result
of the developement of improved meth
DDS Of refining by which greatly in
creased supply Of gasoline can be OBJ
tanned for given amount of crude oil.
During the past year the tank wagon
price of gasoline has fallen in the large
centers, apparently from this cause
from sixteen cents to nine and one-half
cents gallon. There is little doubt
that the price will eventually go still
lower with the development Of the new
process just discovered by Doctor Ritz
man, chemical engineer of the U. S.
Bureau Of Mines. The improved proc
esses now in use are held as a monopoly
by one group of refners. The new
process is to be free to all ref1ners who
will submit to certain government reg
ulations With it, it will be possible
to extract three times as much gasoline
as can be extracted by the process of
distillation.
Increased production of gasoline is
not all that will be accomplished by
the new process. 1t provides means
for obtaining from crude oil the two
hydrocarbons, toluol and benzol, here
tofore obtained from coal tar and pro-
duced almost exclusively by German
and British manufacturers. Toluol and
benzol are of vital Importance both in
peace and war. They form the "moth-
err substances from which aniline dyes
are made and are at the same time in
ingredients of the high ex-
plosives used in modern marfare.
The biggest feature of the new proc
ess is that practically all the crude oil
can be converted into any hydrocarbon
desired, so that it provides a means for
cracking oils on such a scale as has
not been thought possible heretofore.
Full details of the process have not been
made public, but it is reported that the
kind Of hydrocarbon produced is gov
srned solely by the degree of heat and
pressure applied. With temperature
Of 932 degrees F., for example, the
product obtained is gasoline IF the
is raised to about 1,112 de-
grees F., benzine, toluene, and xylol,
with small quantities of methane, Gre
osote oil, and pitch, are obtained. The
is simple and apparently
does nothing more than vaporize the
crude oil and subject the vapor to the
required temperature and pressure.
Almost simultaneously with the an
of this process another dis
sovery, so remarkable that it ranks as
one of the romances of science. was
made public. This consists in process
for taking parafin or any other deriva-
i've of crude oil, and converting it back !
INTO crude oil-inshort, in taking one |
BART of complex product and remak-
ng the whole product from it.
One of the significant things in con-
1ection with crude oil products and |
he vital part they play in nearly every
sorm of human activity, is the fact
hat the supply is more than equal to /
he demand, and is likely to remain so
'or generations to come. The North |
American continent is thought to be
me vast subterranean oil reservoir.
Dill is found from the Atlantic to the
Pacific seaboards, and from Nome to
Central America, and while there are
number of fields from which oil is being
lrawn in enormous quantities, these
yast resources have apparently been
o,Yehad on1xy cno4S