ALCOHOL MOTOR FUEL

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 32, 2 November 1920, Page 7

ALCOHOL MOTOR FUEL

RESEARCH IN' GREAT BRITAIN,

Vigorous efforts are being mado by British men of science and eiigineors to discover all the possibilities; of alcohol as a motor fuel. The increasing scarcity of petrol, and the prospects that the supplies from all visible re-winces will' gradually sink until they disappear in twenty-live years or so, lend a special urgency to.lue problem of finding a cheap and plentiful .■.siibsutnte. .Realising how serious the situation was, the Royal Auiomobile Club aud the Commercial Motor Users' Association,, both of Great Britain, united in paying the cost of an ambitious programme of research; at ilhe University of Manchester, into the value of alcohol as fuel. A- the reaueyt of the Alcohol Motor Fuel Committer, appointed by the British Government to survey the whole question, the programme was put in the hands of . Professor Dixon, who leccnlly save the results of his investigations in a lecture delivered in London. A scientific study v.a S mado by Professor Dixon and his assislamls of the behaviour of alcohol and of mixtures of alcohbl and benzole after ignition. The main object, was to find out tlio conditions which would give tlio highest efficiency with existing internal combustion, engines when run on alcohol or alcohol mixtures Information of greatest value to dcsifiicrs has been collected. British in■vestimations in this field havo extended to the value of potatoes, beet, maize, ana ether sources of power alcohol. It is quite possible that many (.Topical aud sub-tropical plants which, have hitherto l>cen Tegardod as a-nuisance or as oi little value will prove to have a high viehl of tlio substances oull of which, by fermentation, alcohol may. be produced in large 'quantities ait a low price. J.ho research now being conducted mny therefor.} bo tho moans of transforming the economic prospects of moro than one country. ' ;