Improvements in the Manufacture or Production of Illuminating Gas.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 30th Mar., 1890
Complete Specification Left, 30th Dec., 1895-Accepted, 27th Mar.. 1897
Complete Specification Left, 30th Dec., 1895-Accepted. 27th Mar.. 1897
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in the Manufacture or Production of
Illuminating Gas.
I, VIVIAN BYAM LEWES, of 19 Park Row, Greenwich, in the County of Kent,
Professor of Chemistry, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:-
As is well known, when lime and carbon are fused together in an electric furnace,
calcium carbide is produced, and on decomposing this compound by adding to it
water, lime is left behind and acetylene gas escapes.
Acetylene gas so produced has a high illuminating power but the calcium carbide
is costly to manufacture owing to the large waste of electric horse power involved
in obtaining the requisite temperature in the electric furnace, and moreover,
difficulty has been experienced in burning by itself the acetylene gas produced by
the action of the water on the carbide in consequence of serious smoking taking
place after a few hours burning, with considerable deposit of carbon.
With the view of obviating. or mitigating the last mentioned difficulty it has
been proposed to mix the gas with air, but owing to the gas forming an explosive
mixture when mixed with only a little over one and a quarter times its own volume
of air, this is a dangerous practice, to avoid which it has been proposed to dilute
the acetylene with other gases, such as nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon monoxide &c.,
which, however, is open to objection in consequence of the resulting loss of
illuminating power, which is calculated in practice to nullify to a large extent the
advantages sought to be attained by the use of the gas, and also renders it unfitted
for purposes such as the lighting of country houses, railway carriages, tramcars,
and so forth where it would be practically as troublesome to have to produce the
diluting gas as to manufacture coal gas.
Now my invention is designed to obviate or mitigate the disadvantages above
referred to. For this purpose I manufacture mixed carbides in an electric furnace,
using such compounds in their production that the chemical actions taking place
will give rise to the evolution of heat, whereby the resulting carbides are produced
with less expenditure of electric current than heretofore. In the manufacture of
the mixed carbides such metals are chosen that the carbides formed can be
decomposed by the action of water, with liberation of not merely pure acetylene but
of mixtures of acetylene, hydrocarbon gases and hydrogen that can advantageously
be utilized for illuminating purposes.
My invention can be carried out in various ways:-For example, I take a
mixture of peroxide of manganese, lime, and excess of powdered charcoal or other
finely divided form of carbon, and heat this in the electric furnace thereby liberating
oxygen from the black oxide of manganese, which at once sets up violent combustion
with some of the carbon present, the heat of this combustion, together with the heat.
of the electric arc, determining the combination of the manganese and calcium
present with the carbon, whilst oxides of carbon escape, and a fused mass of the
mixed or combined carbides of calcium and manganese remains. On treating this
mass with water, the calcic carbide decomposes with evolution of acetylene, whilst
the carbide of manganese decomposes chiefly with the production of methane and
aydrogen, so that the evolved gas consists of acetylene, diluted with the methane

page_text: and with the hydrogen to such an extent that it can be satisfactorily burnt with
very great illuminating effect, and without smoking.
Dated this 30th day of March 1896.
Improvements in the Manufacture or Production of
Illuminating Gas.
I, VIVIAN BYAM LEWES, of 19 Park Row, Greenwich, in the County of Kent,
Professor of Chemistry, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in
what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:-
As is well known, when lime and carbon are fused together in an electric furnace,
calcium carbide is produced, and on decomposing this compound by adding to it
water, lime is left behind and acetylene gas escapes.
Acetylene gas so produced has a high illuminating power but is so rich in carbon
that difficulty has been experienced in burning it by itself owing to a tendency
which the flame has to smoke when the gas is consumed in ordinary burners,
whilst another objection is that the light is too intense for ordinary domestic
illumination.
With a view of obviating or mitigating this difficulty it has been proposed to mix
the gas with air, but owing to the very wide range over which mixtures of
acetylene and air are explosive, this is a highly dangerous practice: In order to
avoid this danger it has been proposed to dilute the acetylene with other gases
such as nitrogen, hydrogen; carbon monoxide &c., but most of these cause
considerable loss in the illuminating power given by the acetylene, whilst the
production of such diluting gases would give rise to a considerable amount of
trouble and would practically nullify to a large extent the advantages to be
attained by the use of acetylene for the lighting of country houses, railway
carriages, tramcars, and so forth, where it would be practically as troublesome to
have to produce the diluting gas as to manufacture coal gas.
Now my invention is designed to obviate or mitigate the disadvantages above
referred to. For this purpose I manufacture mixed carbides in an electric furnace
using such compounds in their production as will by double decomposition give rise
to a high temperature whereby the resulting carbides are produced with less
expenditure of electric energy than heretofore. In the manufacture of the mixed
carbides such metals are chosen that the carbides formed can be decomposed by the
action of water, with liberation of not merely pure acetylene but of a mixture of
acetylene and other hydrocarbon gases and hydrogen or of acetylene and
other hydrocarbon gases that can advantageously be utilized for illuminating
purposes.
My invention can be carried out in various ways:-For example, I take a
mixture of peroxide of manganese, lime, and excess of powdered charcoal or other
finely divided form of carbon, say for example in the following proportions, by
weight, viz. 261 parts of peroxide of manganese, 56 parts of lime, and 72 parts of
carbon and heat this mixture in an electric furnace in the ordinary way. By this
means the oxygen is liberated from the black oxide of manganese, which at once
sets up violent combustion with some of the carbon present, the heat of this

page_text: oustion, together with the heat of the electric arc, determining the combination
of the manganese and calcium present with the carbon, whilst oxides of carbon
escape, and a fused mass of the mixed or combined carbides of calcium and
manganese remains. On treating this mass with water, the calcic carbide
decomposes with evolution of acetylene, whilst the carbide of manganese
decomposes chiefly with the production of methane and hydrogen, so that the
evolved gas consists of acetylene, diluted with the methane and with the hydrogen
to such an extent that it can be satisfactorily burnt with very great illuminating
effect, and without smoking.
In this way it is possible to use the mixed or combined carbides in any ordinary
acetylene generator, and to obtain a gas which can be burnt freely without fear of
smoking.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is :-
1. The manufacture or production of illuminating gas by subjecting to the action.
of water a mixture or combination of metallic carbides decomposable by water with
liberation of a gaseous mixture containing acetylene and other hydrocarbon gases,
substantially as described.
2. In the manufacture or production of illuminating gas as herein described, the
employment of mixed or combined carbides produced from compounds such as by
double decomposition in an electric furnace give rise to a high temperature,
ubstantially as herein described for the purpose specified.
3. The hereinabove described improved manufacture or production of illuminating
as wherein mixed or combined carbides of manganese and lime are subjected to
he action of water.
4. In the manufacture or production of illuminating gas, the use with water of
etallic carbides such as conjointly with the water acting upon them produce a
aseous mixture which contains other hydrocarbon besides acetylene and with air is
apable of combustion with a practically smokeless flame.
5. The hereinabove described manufacture of mixed carbides and production
erefrom of illuminating gas.
Dated this 30th day of Dec
W. LLOYD WISE,
46 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, W.C., Chartered Patent Agent.