Abstract
SIR PHILIP DAWSON'S presidential address to the Institute of Fuel on October 15 entitled “Road, Rail and Fuel” emphasized our dependence on imported liquid fuel, and especially motor spirit. He stated that in the present year, Germany will produce more than fifty per cent of her needs of light motor fuel. The use of Diesel fuel is increasing in all forms of transport. Discussing the relation of road and rail, he said that the former employs almost twice as many persons as the railways, and in ten years the number of railway employees has fallen by fourteen per cent. Sir Philip advocated an extension of railway electrification, but pointed out that this would involve a big reduction in the consumption of coal, even were the power generated from steam boilers. At the same meeting Dr. Franz Fischer, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, Mulheim, delivered the Melchett Lecture to the Institute, taking as his subject the conversion of coal into liquid motor fuels and other products by way of carbon monoxide. Having indicated the advantages of beginning with a single pure gas such as carbon monoxide rather than raw coal, as in direct hydrogenation, Dr. Fischer traced the development of his work from 1921 until the present stage when large-scale plant is in use. Very extensive efforts were necessary in the search for a suitable catalyst and a method for adequately purifying the gaseous raw material. Hydrocarbons ranging from petrol to paraffin wax are obtained by this ‘Kogasin’ synthesis. Thus these researches have shown that from coal and water all necessary liquid fuels would be obtainable from coal even if mineral oils were entirely exhausted. Fischer's process offers the advantage over the process of direct hydrogenation, that high pressures are not used and that only plant of common materials, easy to fabricate, is required.
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Future of Liquid Fuel Production. Nature 138, 752 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138752a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138752a0