NEW MOTOR FUELS.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 January 1922, Page 3

NEW MOTOR FUELS.

SOLID KEROSENE PRODUCED

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. (10. For several years American automobile experts have been wrestling with the difficult problem of providing a substitute for the rapidly disappearing gasoline as a motive power for motor cars and other petrol-driven, .vehicles, and now an announcement has been made in Maplewood, in New Jersey, by Dr G. F. Peinhold, a wellknown scientist and' inventor, that the worthy investigator into the unknown has forged ahead another step in the I scientific world. In brief, he claims that gasoline in a solid form will soon bo placed, before the public at a nominal cost of fivepence a gallon. After fourteen years’ research, Prof. Reinhold says .he has produced automobile fuel that may be used in lump form or as a liquid. As a solid, it resembles vaseline, and has all the combustible qualities of gasoline. It will burn without exploding, and, the inventor says, makes an ideal fuel for cooking or heating. To prepare the solid gasoline all that is necessary is the addition of water, although the world understood that water would not mix fvith gasoline, and furthermore was supposed to reduce fue

efficiency. The New Jersey inventor asserts that the resultant liquid contains at least one-third more heat units than the motor fuel of to-day. Dr Reinhold has produced solid kerosene, ’and for this he makes the same claims, declaring that the solid kerosene will burn more easily than the present liquid form and without the aid of a wick or other conveying agent. The residue left after this product has been burned resembles oil, and can be used as a lubricant, the inventor says. Dr Reinhold has completed final tests, and is preparing to send his products out wholesale at 8 cents a gallon, so that they may be bought by the consumer at about 10 cents, or an equivalent to the British fivepenco. GERMANS BUSY, TOO.

Information has just reached New j York that the German Government is . introducing a new gasoline substitute for the automobiling public designed to . render Germany independent of the importation of American and other foreign brands of petrol. This German > substitute is composed of a mixture of . 50 per cent of benzol; a gasoline-like coal-tar derivative; 25 per cent, of tetralin, another coal-tar derivative extensively used in tho manufacture of explosives; and 25 per cent of alcohol This substitute received a trial by the recent cross-Germany automobile contest in which its use was compulsory. It failed to meet entirely the expectations of the Government experts and thor chemical industry, developing about 10 per cent less power than ordinary gasoline or the 50-50 mixture of gasoline and benzol now customarily I ’used by German aittomobilistte and I warming up slowly in the motors. But | aside from these deficiencies and a I corrosive action of the tetralin upon J the enamel of the cars, it was found !to be a fairly satisfactory l substitute for petrol. The data received in New York s4tated that the chemical experts of Germany, to-gether with . motor designers, are now engaged side by side in efforts to remiedy these defects, the chemists by seeking a modification of the mixture to give more power and greater volatility and eli-. minate the corrosive effects of the tetralin upon cylinders and enamel, and the designers to produce a carburettor which will break up the new fuel more effectively. In the meantime the coal syndicate will start deliveries of the new mixture instead of straight benzol. i ' The inventive genius of Great Britain, however, has completely eclipsed . both the German scientists and the New Jersey inventor, for the United ] States Department of Commerce has : been advised that at a show in London a nine-horse-power automobile was exhibited that is sold on a guarantee to travel sixty-one miles on one gallon of gasoline and to make sixty' miles an hour. This extraordinary machine is priced at about 900 dollars in American money. As might bo expected, the joy riders . and speed fiends of the United States ] are seeking hurried particulars of this latest motor marvel, and there is eer- ,

tain to be a big demand for this British creation for testing on the speedways of America, where thousands witness frequent hair-raising races, and incidentally, the spilling of human blood to satiate the craving for some dangerous- exhibitions performed by human beings.