β Scribed by J.J. Jakowsky
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
THE legislation in many States against the present method of producing carbon-black by the incomplete combustion of natural gas, and the continually increasing demand for gas for other purposes, indicate that the supply of carbon-black may gradually be decreased and that new methods for its production, utilizing a greater percentage of the carbon in the gas should be developed. In the course of investigations of the effects on hydrocarbons of high voltage discharges, it was noted that under certain conditions natural gas could be decomposed and that carbon-black could be produced.
The effects of several types of electrical discharges on natural gas have, accordingly, been studied in order to find out the fundamental factors underlying the reactions and their possible influence in the recovery of a greater part of the carbon content of natural gas than is now possible. Present commercial plants using natural gas for the manufacture of carbon-black recover from 0.8 to 1. 5 pounds of carbon-black per thousand cubic feet of gas consumed, or less than 5 per cent. of the total carbon in the gas. It should be noted, however, that the present methods involve heating the gas to incandescence by burning it as a luminous flame, and a considerable part of the gas is thus consumed as a source of heat. If this heat can be supplied from some other source, or if a more efficient method of applying the energy contained in part of the gas, to the decomposition of the rest of it, can be worked out, then a greater yield of carbon-black per thousand cubic feet of gas can be expected. Results showed that electrical production of carbon-black is a promising field, but further research is necessary to determine its commercial feasibility. Further details on the experiments are given in Serial No. 2417 , recently published by the Bureau.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
The Production of Different Carbon Forms by Electric Arc Graphite Evaporation. -Samples of fullerene black and of electrode deposits obtained under various experimental conditions in a graphite evaporator are characterized by powder XRD, TEM, and temperature-programmed combustion. The yield and com