Connecticut western news., 1916-10-12
VOL. XLVI
EAST CANAAN'S NEW BUSINESS
$26O,OOO Plant to Make Wood A. cohol, Acetate of Lime and Charcoal.

An immense manufacturing plant has been in process of construction for several weeks on the open land south of East Canaan station, and no one has seemed to know what it was for nor who was doing it. It has been learned, the past week, that the new plant, ac. cording to The Hartford Courant, is being constructed for the Connecticut Chemical Co., a newly organized COT. poration of which William M. Barnum 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.,, of which former State Senator Charles W. Bar. mum is president, and his son, Richard N. Barnum, vice-presilent and man. ager, which will take over the opera. tion under a long time lease.
 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 manu facture of two chemicals-wood alcohol and acetate of lime, the latter being the material of which "acetone" is made, which is one of the elements entering into the manufacture of high explosives. It is 8 significant and striking example of the advance of modern progress in the evolution of ordinary / things, that the charcoal. which by the old process of manu- facture, was the all-important and supposedly the only possible product of the coal-pit, becomes simply the residue, or leavings, in this new pro- cess of extracting from the wood chem icals which until recently were not known to be present, each of which is of more money value than the charcoal, and both of which under the old and crude way of burning, went to waste
 The Courant, in describing the plant states that it will cost upward of $25O,. 900, and will consist of two main buildings of steel, tile-brick and cement. equipped with elaborate machinery retorts. distillation tanks, etc., and system of private railway switch tracks, locomotive. etc. whereby the company will be able to do it's own switching.
 The larger building-82x172 feet will be known as the retort house, and the smaller, 5Ox1OO, as the still house, where the distillation processes will be i'll operation. The retort house is on massive cement foundations, the thick cement floor being depressed about four feet below the groun i-surface level, and containing immense foundations for ten retorts, or steel ovens, in which the wood is placed to undergo the burning process. Each of these ovens is 54 feet long, feet wide and feet high, and a railroad track extends through it's entire length, to admit the cars on which the wood is loaded. The wood, by the way, IS not unloaded from the cars until after the whole carboniz. ing process is complete and it has be. come charcoal; so that the cars get cooking every time they invade re. tort.
 Only six retorts are being installed for the present, giving the plant cap. acity for carbonizing eighty to seventy five cords of wood a day. These six retorts alone cost $75, Quo.
 The process, as described by B. J. Bussman of Hancock, N. Y., the expert iu charge of the construction, is essen tially as follows
 Four small steel cars each holding two and one-half cords of wood, or ten cords in all, will be run into each re. tort. Tie steel doors are then closed, fastened and dramatically sealed and the big receptacle made absolutely air tight. Fires are built in specially de- signed fire boxes beneath the retorts and an intense heat created, which completely carbonizes the wood in about twenty hours. (By the old coal pit method it requires from two to three weeks, depending upon the wood and weather conditions, to transform stack of wood into charcoel.)
 Attached to the retorts are condensers, arranged by an intricate system of pipes and fues to trap and condense the vapors and smoke arising from the car. bonizing wood, and these condensed vapors from the liquid from which the resultant chemicals sought for are produced. At the end of the carboniz. ing period from 245 to 250 pounds of this liquid will have been extracted ITOm eacn COlu Ol WoOll, Or aOOuG one and one-quarter tons from each retort, aggregating seven and one-quarter tons a day from the six retorts.
 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, after 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. dry substance, which is put up in bags for shipment.
 The alcohol, previously referred to, goes through a refining process in the still l-house. and is stored in tanks and shipped in tank cars owned by the