ALCOHOL FOR POWER.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1918, Page 6

ALCOHOL FOR POWER.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES. USE FOR WASTE PRODUCTS. A lecture on. ''Alcohol in its Industrial and Scientific Aspects'' was delivered at an open meeting of the Auckland Institute the other evening'by Mr A. Wyllie, city electrical engineer. The lecturer stated that alcohol was a form of carbon, as were charcoal and diamonds, and explained that 120,000 carbon compounds had been investigated, which was a grater number than the known compounds of all the orher elements put together. Mr \\ vllie showed how alcohol may he produced by the fermentation of sugar solution, the process being stimulated by the inclusion of yeast. Any substance which contained sugar or substances, such as starch, tnat could be changed into sugar, could be used for the production of alcohol. Tims the spirit could lie obtained from a large number of waste products, such as waste fruit and potatoes, sawdust and wood. In France it used to be a usual practice in the country districts to save such waste products for their' conversion into alcohol, travelling distilleries moving about the country to deal with the fermented liquor. To give an idea of the immense possibilities of the industry. Mr Wyllie mentioned that a ton of wood would produce 18 to 20 gallons of spirit. Mr Wyllie gave a practical illustration of how alcohol was separated from water, and explained that it was possible to convert acetylene gas into alcohpl. Speaking of the cost of production, the lecturer said that, where barley, beet, or molasses iv.ts used the cost of material was fairly high, but the actual cost of production was small. Before the war the Herman Government had given great encouragement to the industry, so that spirit could be sold from Wd to Is a gallon. In England up to that time it had not been possible to produce spirit for less than 2s a gallon, but experiments made with peat showed that the total cost of production could be reduced to a few pence a gallon. Speaking of the future, the lecturer said that the world's sources of mineral oils from which petrol was obtained were limited, and this fact gave great importance to alcohol as a power producer. It had been proved that alcohol when used in a properly designed internal combustion engine had a higher rate of efficiency than petrol. Alcohol vapour could be compressed to a far greater extent than petrol vapour, and it was safer. The argument against its use that it caused corrosion had been disproved, for in the early experiments there had not been complete combustion. The value of alcohol for power had been proved during the war, and there was every reason why the restrictions of the English laws upon its manufacture should be modified.