The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1920-06-06

new York ~ paying an annual tuel
bill Of approximately forty million
dollars. Most of this goes for
anthracite. Experts are searching
for substitute fuel which will be
cheaper and yet retain the smokeless
qualities Of the anthracite.
Robert G. Skerrett, in the New
York Evening Post, calls attention to
cheap, but highly efficient, smoke
less fuel, a combination of powdered
coal and crude oil, which was formu-
lated by United States chemists in an
effort to combat the submarine. He
believes this collodal fuel can now be
turned to commercial uses with great
benefit.
Mr.. Skerrett writes as follows
Powdered coal steadily has been
widening its realm of usefulness in in
dustrial circles. Special apparatus
has been evolved which makes it prac-
tcable to grind the coal to the suit
able degree Of fineness, and then, by
other mechansms, to feed it to the
furnace burners, where it is blown in
under pressure and lighted the
result being a shower Of instantly ig-
nited particles which form gaseous
flame of intense holiness. Because of
the relative completeness of combus-
tion of the coal in this state, The ash
and clinker problem is nearly elimi-
mated the ash, in the form of fine
dust, being conveniently arrested in
the boiler or allowed to pass skyward
through the chimney. But powdered
coal is bulkicr than lump coal, and
unless certain precautions are taken
to protect it in storage it invites fire
hazards, just as coal dust does in
mines and elsewhere, and powdered
coal is not as efficient heating agent
as an equal weight of fuel oil. But
by combining powdered coal with
petroleum, it is possible to obtain a
combustible which is of greater heat
ing value than a similar measure of
oil and powdered coal burned sepa-
rately. Not only that, but this we'd
ding of the two forms of carbon gives
superior results and permits the
united combustibles to occupy con-
siderably less space for a fixed num-
Der of thermal units-the latter be-
ing the basis by which the efficiency
and practical worth of different fuels
are Judged by the engineer and the
4 shrewd consumer. The percentages
of oil and solid carbon can, of course,
be varied to meet different needs, and
4 it is quite feasible to secure excellent
results in the way of steam-raislng
by mixing powdered coal wastes and
refinery by-products that virtually
are unmarketable The latter has
only to be of sufficient fluidity, when
suitably pre-heated. to flow through
I the pipes and to lend itself to atom
izing at the furnace burners.
'Iindon w. Bates, chairman of the
engineering committee, New York,
explains how collodal fuel can be
made from the residuals of oil refin-
cry pressure stills-these by-products
being in the form of low-grade oil,
wax, tailings, oil coke, etc. AS he
expresses it, These residuals are the
Cinderella products of refining.
( Liquid fuel, so made, may add in this
country to each years stock of avail
able fuel oil many millions of barrels,
without increase of oil well produc-
ton or strain on rail or sea transport,
Similarly, gas-house coke and tar
charcoal, culm, and many kinds and
conditions of coal ordinarily unsala-
BILE, can be powdered or pulverized
and combined with crude oil or refin-
cry waste so as to make thoroughly
satisfactory smokeless eollodial fuel
"Bpt it is not alone in the direction
of cheapness that collodial fuel makes
its claim to recognition. In the mat
ter of safety it is distinctly superior
to the ordinary fuel of commerce. This
lately has been vouched for by the
Underwriters Laboratories, the Off
cial research organization of the Ma.
tional Board of Underwriters, Let
us be specific, because we shall ther
be better able to realize just why the
New York consumer may welcome the
admission Of this combustible with
out any fear Of inviting disquietinl
fire hazards To begin with, il Is
hardly necessary to say that gallor
of the mixed fluid weighs more, ha!
a higher specific gravity, as the tech.