Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

218 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. Hg. 4. -NÜRNBERG ENGINE OF 900 H.P. TWO CYLINDERS TANDEM. Running on blast furnace and coke oven gas at Brymbo Steel and Iron Works. of carbon, and break up into two molecules of carbon monoxide (CO), which can burn. (It causes the light-blue flames that play on the top of an ordinary open fire.) The gas that reaches the top of the pro- ducer is of this kind. Before becoming usable it must be cleaned, and therefore is passed through a scrubber, b, filled with coke per- petually flooded by water issuing from a number of jets above. The water absorbs dust and other deleterious elements. The purified gas consists of about one part of carbon monoxide diluted with two parts of nitrogen. It may contain more or less hydro- gen, if steam be mixed with the air and de- composed by the hot fuel. Such, a gas has no illuminating power, and is much less ex- Cheap Plosive than lighting gas; but Gas. *s cheap, and serves its purpose excellently. The pro- ducer itself is essentially so simple that it cannot well be damaged by its attendant, who has merely to keep it full of fuel. The gas engine was now independent of a town supply. Wherever a producer could be Boom in Gas Engines. erected, there an engine could be worked. This led to a regular boom in the manufacture of the machines, and, as often happens when business is profit- able, to a certain stagnation in design and cessation of scien- tific experiment. A few men only strove after improvements, and encouraged fuel economy by means of competitions. The producer was <ill right in its way, But not suited for engines Fig. 5. SECTION OF GAS PRODUCER AND SCRUBBER.