The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-12
ANEW INDUSTRY Valuable Chemical Products From Manufacture of
 Charcoal.
Plant, Costing $25O, ,OOO, in Process of Construction at East Canaan-Very Interesting Process of Production Charcoal Merely a By-Product.

In the production of charcoal from
 cordwood the process is generally un-
 into coal as the sole product. By the | scientific process now being installed
 at East Canaan, charcoal of superior
 quality will be produced from wood,
 as a by-product of the manufacture of
 two chemica1s-wood alcohol and ace | tate of lime, the latter being the ma terial of which "acetone" is made, which is one of the clements entering | into the manufacture of high explo- sives. Coal becomes simply the resi- due, or leavings, in this new process of extracting from the wood chemicals which until recently were mot known to be present, each of which is of more money-value than the charcoal. The East Canaan plant, now in process of construction will cost $250,000. It is being constructed for the Connecti- cut Chemical Co.,, a newly organized corporation of which William M. Bar mum of New York, formerly of Lime Rock, is president. This, company will build and equip the plant and start it in operation, when it will be leased to the Barnum- Richardson Co.
 The Barnum- Co.,, man. ufactures at it's foundries in Lime Rock car wheels from the celebrated Salisbury iron ore. It operates also several iron-smelting furnaces at East Canaan, where the ore is transformed into pig-iron. Enormous quantities of charcoal are consumed in the opera ytion of these foundries and furnaces, and the practical depletion of the hardwood supply in that region has forced the company to ship charcoal from Michigan, where the desired woods, maple, hickory, beech and birch, which give the greatest yield of product-are most abundant. Only six retorts are being installed, for the present, giving the plant capacity for carbonizing eighty to seventy five cords of wood a day. These six re- torts alone cost s75,0p0. Four, small steel cars, each holding two and one half cords of wood, will be run into each retort. The steel doors are then closed, fastened and dramatically seal ed and the big receptacle made abso- lutely air-tight. Fires are built in spe- cially designed fire-boxes beneath the retorts and an intense heat created, which completely carbonizes the wood, in about twenty hours.
 { Attached to the retorts are conden-' sers, arranged by an intricate system of pipes and fues to trap and, con- dense the vapors and smoke arising from the carbonizing wood, and these condensed vapors form the liquid from which the resultant chemicals sought for are produced. At the end of the carbonizing period from 245 to 250 pounds of this liquid will have been extracted from each cord of wood.
 The liquid is conveyed to the still house and subjected to a process for separating the tar from the liquor. The liquor so obtained is neutralized by mixing with lime. It is then put through another process to separate the alcohol and the acetate liquor, af- ter which the acetate liquor is poured into large pans and boiled down. By this process the water is evaporated, leaving the finished article of acetate of lime, a dry substance. The alcohol previously referred to, goes through a refining process in the ,still-house, and is stored in tanks and shipped in tank cars.
 The net product, from single cord of wood, in this process, which, by the way, is technically known as the destructive distillation of wood is 225 pounds of acetate of lime; 10 gallons refined wood alcohol, and 50 bushels (20 pounds to the busheD, of charcoal. That the Barnum- Richardson Co.,, has been foresighted in the matter of wood supply is shown in the, assurance of R. N. Barnum, that it has bought woodlands in Connecticut Massachusetts and Vermont, sufficient to supply the plant, working at it's full capacity, for ten years to come, and has secured options on other large acreages of timber that will guarantee another ten years supply. The con- cern is already under contract to fur nish every pound of acetate of lime that the plant can produce. Wood all cohol is staple article that enters into an increasing number of uses and the demand grows in proportion. The com pany expects to consume practically the entire output of charcoal at it's va rious working plants.