Generic Sequence Of Gas Manufacture (click on image to enlarge)

Generic Manufactured Gas Processes

William Murdock's Independent Gas Supplier (Birmingham, England, 1805)

William Murdock, the Scotsman-father of manufactured gas had constructed the first commercial manufactured gas plant, at Smethwick, Soho District, West Birmingham, England by 1805. This was some seven years before the first accorded commercial gas plant, that of the Chartered London Gas Light & Coke Works went into production at London. This view shows the original gas works, yet preserved at the Soho Foundry of Boulton & Watt, Murdockšs employers and builders of steam engines and small gas works, probably about 1890. Courtesy of British Ordnance Surveys.

Murdock's pioneer Smethwick Gas Works is shown on this 1901 British Ordnance planimetric map of Smethwick (as the smallest of the circles denotes the gas holder at the Soho Foundry, formerly owned by Boulton & Watt. To the immediate west is the Smethwick Corporation (Town/Municipal) Gas Works, now derelict, but yet with its own ca. 1890 multilift gas holder. Gas coal was delivered via the adjacent canal. The gas holder is visible from the adjacent street and constitutes one of the more than 1000 FMGPs admitted as to ownership by British Gas PLC, the privatized remains of the 1949 Labour Government's nationalized gas industry. The figure of 1000 is believed to be a significant under-estimate of the quasi-private gas holdings of FMGPs, now undergoing an extremely simplified transfer of contaminated land to redevelopment (Courtesy, British Ordnance Surveys).

Gas Company Investment Opportunities (certificate from Helena, Montana)

From their beginning in the United States, at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1816, manufactured gas companies were locally owned, generally the brainchild of a group of several leading citizens, organized under some type of charter, originally that of the State Legislature, but giving over to "franchises" issued by the city or town. Stock was sold to raise the $25,000 or $30,000 required to purchase the gas making equipment and to hire a journeyman plumber to erect the works. About six months were required and the journeyman often stayed on the become the Gas Works Superintendent. This was the case at Burlington, Iowa, when Master Plumber Spellman stayed on, with his grown daughter Laura marrying itinerant fuel-oil salesman John D. Rockefeller. On her death, in 1915, Laura Spellman Rockefeller was proudly announced by the Burlington Hawkeye as "Richest Woman on Earth Dies, Native of Burlington."

Generic Layout Considerations for an 1883 U.S. Coal-Gas Plant

Coal Gas Plant Linear View

A composite linear view of a small to medium-size town coal gas plant in a typical circa 1900 configuration. The gas generation, clarification, purification, metering, storage and distribution sequence begins on the right, with one bench of six or nine closed-end retorts. A 400-pound charge of gas coal is loaded into each of the retorts, on a time-staggered basis and heated for four to six hours from the furnace below the bench. As gas is generated it rises up the vertical riser pipes and bubbles through a tar bath in the horizontal main, then into the horizontal foul main and moves under a slight negative pressure, created by the Exhauster, to and through the Tar Extractor, to the Multi-tube Condenser and through its bottom water bath (to separate out more tar), then through a cool-water Wash Box, and then rises upward through the fresh, cool water of the Fresh Water Scrubber and its wood shavings and out and into the Rotary Scrubber. As the gas passes through the Washer, the overall process of Clarification is complete, as directed to removal of tiny particles of tar. The process yields Ammoniacal Liquor as the aqueous phase and tar and tar sludge as the viscous liquid phase, both effluent streams are hereby separated from the gas. At the Purifier, the gas continues in processing with removal of sulfur, cyanide, heavy metal, and mm or tar,  then passes through the Station Meter for a close measure of the volume of gas actually produced at the plant. Passing into the post-1900 Gas Holder, we note that there is no subsurface Tank and that purpose is served by the cool-water resting in the first (lower-ring) tank-segment of the holder. The remaining rings represent a two-lift Bell or Cup in which each lift slides up and down along the Guide Rails and a gas-seal is provided by a horizontal seal of water at the juncture of each of the two upper rings and between the lower rim of the lower lift and the upper rim of the above-ground Tank. Once in the Gas Holder the Gas is under the gravity-induced pressure of the weight of the riveted steel-plate Cup and is then pressured reduced for street distribution by the Governor and admitted to the Street Main for its entry to the Distribution System, (Artwork by Robin Snyder, Gas Works Illustrator; ) (click on the image for a larger version of this image).

Coal-Gas Retort Bench

Coal-gas Retorts were made in the general configuration shown, and, after about 1880 generally came as a solid ceramic tube of a Dee cross-section as a measure to avoid stress-prevalent sharp corners. Retorts experienced thermal damage from the typical four-to-six hour charge cycles and commonly needed replacement within months to two years. Most plant sites will be found somewhat littered with broken retort fragments and bricks stripped from aged Bench housings, the which provided the heat-conserving support structure and the by-pass flues to heat the retorts in the absence of oxygen. Riser Pipes are here labeled Gas Off take Pipes. This is a Bench of Eights, more common to the United Kingdom, and sharing a single Furnace. Furnaces were fed by coal, by coke raked from the retorts on completion of each gas run, and sometimes supplemented by flowing tar recovered at various points in the Clarification Process. It is best not to assume that plant tar residuals were consumed in any degree unless backed by reliable plant or company records (Artwork by Robin Snyder, Gas Works Illustrator; ) (click on the image for a larger version of this image).

Carburetted Water Gas Plant (Post-1900)

This outstanding method of gas-manufacturing was invented by T.S.C. Lowe, one of America's truly outstanding engineering geniuses. This process diagram begins on the left, with the three cylindrical Generator units of the system, developed and patented in 1875, to utilize coke as a reactor bed in the Generator, with steam injected, from the Boiler, into the Generator, then passed to the Carburetor for injection of light petroleum oils (for gas light illumination) and then into the Superheater, where more checker-board fire bricks retained heat to flash the composite gas into a fixed nature, followed by a Wash Box seal to pass the raw gas through a Tar Separator, and Scrubber, then into the Relief Holder (serving a pressure-equalization role far different from the Relief Holder of coal-gas plants). From this position the gas went on to experience a Condenser, an Exhauster, another Tar Extractor, and, finally, the purifier boxes, then the Station Meter and a Storage Holder identical for what was required at coal-gas plants. In fact, make use of this illustration for superior details to those shown for the coal-gas plant. A single three-unit Generator Set, of three cylinders, could make much more gas per day than could coal-gas benches, in addition, saving on labor and operating space in the Generator House. One major flaw came into being as coke became scarce after 1910 and, at the same time, motor vehicle fuel sales crowded the usual light gas oils off the market and CWG plants were forced to substitute coals as inferior reactor feedstock and to carburet with inferior heavier-weight oils. On the West Coast, the situation grew worse earlier, forcing the use of crude oils and the production of equally inferior tar-water emulsions as well as lampblack (soot). Generally speaking coal-gas tar carried less than 4-6 percent water, while CWG tar-water emulsions reach as much as 90 percent water. Buyers of tar-water emulsions were nearly non-existent and huge amounts of this non-salable wastes were consigned to the environment as a management option by many plant operators. Today their presence should be expected as hazardous wastes.

Carburetted Water Gas Plant, Paducah, Kentucky (ca. 1925)

By the early 1900s, the standard brick manufactured gas plant had given way to a steel-framed brick-facade generator building of slightly taller nature, to accommodate the usual two-story layout of carburetted water gas. This plant, built on contract by the Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (SWEC; Founded 1889, at Boston, Massachusetts, and owners, builders, and operators of many manufactured gas plants and yet in business as a subsidiary of The Shaw Companies), has the typical operator's floor above, with the bases of the generator set cylinders extending upward from the ground floor. The traditional monitor-style factor roof ridge is a preferred holdover from 19th century architectural tradition and promotes ventilation on hot days. A newer above-ground gas holder lies to the right rear and an obviously older gas holder is seen to the left, probably serving as the relief holder to buffer the pressure waves associated with moving from blow cycle to run cycle, every few minutes. (Photo from undated SWEC sales brochure of ca. 1925).

U.G.I. 1890 Version Of T.S.C. Lowe's Carburetted Water Gas Plant T.S.C.

Lowe sold his basic carburetted water gas patents to the United Gas Improvement Company, of Philadelphia, in 1884, just two years after its founding. Lowe shortly moved west, to Pasadena, California, and became a leading civic, gas manufacturing personality, and developer of public attractions in Southern California. His base patents began to expire about 1892 and CWG units began to appear as marketed by other than U.G.I., notably the Gas Machinery Company (Cleveland), Bartlett-Hayward Company (Baltimore), Gas Engineering Co. (Trenton), Western Gas Construction Co. (Ft. Wayne, IN), Koppers Co. (Pittsburgh), and West Gas Improvement Co., of Britain. The term "water gas" was used loosely throughout the gas era, even in Brown's Directory of North American Gas Companies, and should be question-factored into site and waste characterization studies. This view, from an 1890 U.G.I. sales brochure portrays a single Generator Set of, from left to right, Generator, Carburetor, and Double Superheater, followed, on the right, by the Wash Box and two cylindrical Scrubber towers. Separated tar wastes were plumbed to transfer below the floor of this two story gas house. Note that there is a typical factory-type smoke stack at the boiler, with the blow-fume cylindrical chimney above the superheater shell.

Combination Coal-Gas And Carburetted Water Gas Plant (ca. 1925)

As noted above, an ideal combinational mix of gas manufacturing equipment was to generate gas and coke via coal-gas machines and to employ the coke for general plant heating of boilers and gas-making furnaces, then to employ the coke also as the reactor bed for the carburetted water gas generator sets. This design, by Stone & Webster, at Pawtucket, Rhode Island shows the related layout (Photo from an undated SWEC sales brochure of ca. 1925).

Hancock (Ripley), Michigan

Ruins of the FMGP at Hancock (Ripley), Michigan, a plant built for coal-gas generation and expanded to include carburetted water gas (CWG). There was a certain symbiosis in this dual operational capacity, in the years after widespread availability of CWG equipment (from the United Gas Improvement Company, of Philadelphia, purchasers of T.S.C. Lowe's patents in 1884) and before 1910, when coke produced at the coal-gas plant could be used to fire the plant boilers, to fire the furnace below the retort benches, and to serve as the feedstock-reactant bed of the CWG sets.

Loomis Gas Producer (From Miller, 1910)

Gas Producers make up the forgotten bulk of American coal-tar sites. This technology produced "Blue" Water Gas, that is fuel gas made from coke or nearly any other organic matter, to thermally disassociate superheated steam into hydrogen gas (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO), both combustible at low Btu and without illumination qualities. The technology was suggested in Belgium in 1832 and pioneered in Britain in the 1850s by Sir William Siemens and perfected about 1861. Producer gas truly came into its own, in the U.S. about 1890 and continued in force until supplanted here and there by newly-arriving natural gas, mainly after 1930 and through 1960. Plants were installed in all manner of factories, in nearly every industry, especially those requiring heat. Factory owners bought the machines directly from manufacturers and operated them with plant personnel. Tars were generated and clarified and normally the waste waters and their tars were handled by options chosen by the factory management. There were hundreds of manufacturers across the nation. Patents were dodged in many ways, leading to the proliferation of designs. Shown is a Loomis Gas Producer, one of the leading varieties, as produced by the Loomis-Pettibone Company of New York City, NY.

"Bituminous coal contains a large amount of tarry vapors formed by the hydrocarbons, which condense on coming into contact with cold surfaces, and if these are drawn through an incandescent bed they add still further to the combustible ... If the tar cannot be so treated, it must be washed out of the gas together with the dust, water vapor, and the uncombined carbon dioxide." J.B. Rathbun, Consulting Gas Engineer, Chicago, IL, in Gas Engine Troubles and Installation, 1911.

Producer Gas Engine
(Nash, Three-Cylinder Variety, ca. 1911)

Producer gas engines were the preferred power transfer medium for producer gas, here shown, in the center of the view (blue color), as driving an electric-generating D.C. dynamo (red color) and powered directly from the adjacent gas producer (green color). Normally, the entire gas producer set would be equipped with a condensing and washing tar removal device, with tar-bearing effluent sent through the floor and into some form of waste transport channel or sewer (Artwork by Ms. Robin Snyder, Gas Works Illustrator; [email protected]).

Coke Works, St. Louis, Missouri 1950

Calital low oblique aerial photograph of the Laclede Gas Light & Coke Company utility byproduct coke plant at Carondelet District of South St. Louis, Missouri. This configuration was the result of some modifications to the 1914 plant, built as an economic investment just prior to the start of World War I, in Europe. The entire site today measures about 16 ha. and lies at the juncture of the Mississippi River (top view) and the River des Peres, a major stormwater channel (shown to the right) of St. Louis. The site is geologically complex and contains karst features, an open tar pond, and an 1872-1905 coal-gas plant (not shown, but lying at the extreme west edge, beyond the lower edge of this view, along Broadway Blvd). The plant was abandoned by its third owner in 1987 and is the property of the St. Louis Community Redevelopment Authority and under a VCP order to its original builder. Historic activities that have gone on at this site include the first European settlement west of the Mississippi River (Tamaroa, 1700-1703; portions of riverboat Captain James B. Eads' Union Army gunboat works (1862-1865) , Carondelet Gas Light Company (1872-1905), the world-class Vulcan Steel Mill (1870-1888) and Balloon Training School V of the United States Army Signal Corps (1917-1918).

Koppers Direct Ammonia Recovery Plant (Post-1910)

Heinrich Koppers, a premier German gas engineer, emigrated to the United States in 1908 and enjoyed a brief but spectacular career in design of by-product coke ovens before his return to his native country in 1914, as a victim of the outbreak of the great European war. He sold his prosperous engineering company to Pittsburgh financiers headed by J.P. Morgan. The Koppers name became the leader in coke by-product plant design and much of the ongoing research in technologies for ever more efficient production of manufactured gas and of coal-tar by-products. The firm expanded into all aspects of the coal-tar chemical industry and provided the basis technology for production of synthetic rubber under the terrifying early days of World War II, with the loss of Asia to the Japanese. The Koppers firm eventually bankrupted under pressure of its numerous environmental remediation obligations. Shown is a late Koppers plant design for direct recovery of ammonia from a by-product coke-oven plant (click on the image for a larger version of this scanned image).

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