Abstract
THE memorial lecture established by the Liverpool Section of the Society of Chemical Industry in memory of Dr. Ferdinand Hurter, and which will be given every alternate year, was inaugurated by Prof. G. Lunge, of Zürich, on October 4, before a large and representative gathering at University College, Liverpool. Prof. Lunge's subject was “Impending changes in the general development of industry, and particularly in the alkali industries.” After an appreciative review of Hurter's contributions to technical chemistry, in which special reference was made to his remarkable mathematical power and to the manner in which he employed it side by side with the highest branches of chemical science for the investigation and elucidation of technical problems, Prof. Lunge turned to the more immediate subject of his address. In contemplating the general features of chemical industries as carried on to-day, the question of the supply of fuel and of other sources of power was first considered; it was pointed out that the superiority which many countries, notably Great Britain, enjoy in many industries on account of their wealth of coal is limited in time, and that the increasing consumption of coal with a decreased source of supply as the result, must lead to the employment of other sources of energy. The economical use of coal in the blast-furnace, the adoption of closed coke ovens which, in addition to allowing the recovery of by-products, also increase the yield of coke, and recent improvements in the production of gaseous fuel are likely to postpone the time and force of the competition of those other sources of energy of which water-power stands foremost, but such postponement is restricted essentially to certain industries. From a general standpoint the total energy of the fossil fuel of the world is an infinitesimal fraction of the energy which the sun expends daily on the evaporation of water, and which is transformed to a great extent into the kinetic energy of falling water. The transformation of water-power into electrical energy, with its easy and cheap power of transmission, is likely to lead to revolutionary changes in chemical industries, not only in respect to the conditions of manufacture, but also in regard to the centres of production. Countries possessing great water-power will in the future carry on all those manufacturing processes in which electricity is either essential or an advantage, subject to certain limitations regulated by the cost of carriage of both raw materials and products. Prof. Lunge detailed the present position of electrical processes applied to chemical industries, dealing especially with the alkali trade and the manufacture of bleach and chlorate; the next generation will in all probability, in his opinion, obtain its chlorine by electrolytic methods, but the accompanying alkali will not form more than one-eighth or one-tenth of the world's demands. The bulk of the latter must therefore be derived from other sources—these, in Dr. Lunge's opinion, will be the ammonia-soda process and naturally occurring soda. In regarding the future of these industries the modern developments of the manufacture of sulphuric acid by the catalytic process, in which sulphur dioxide and oxygen are passed over platinised asbestos, were discussed; the success of this method, especially for the manufacture of strong acid, is thoroughly established, and the lead chamber is threatened with extinction in consequence. Prof. Lunge pointed out, however, that this old apparatus has still certain claims of efficiency in the manufacture of weak sulphuric acid. Incidentally, in considering the economical use of fuel, Prof. Lunge gave a most interesting description of the Dellwik-Fleischer water gas process, the efficiency of which he had himself examined with the result that he found that it gave no less than 82 per cent, of the fuel value of the coke against the 45 per cent, of the older processes. The characteristic of the process is the formation of carbon dioxide during the “blow” instead of carbon monoxide, a fact which reduces the time of the blow from 13/4 minutes to if minutes.
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The Hurter Memorial Lecture. Nature 61, 92 (1899). https://doi.org/10.1038/061092a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061092a0