February 2, 1917.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

225

MIDLAND INSTITUTE OF MINING, CIVIL
AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERS.

A meeting of the Midland Institute of Mining, Civil
and Mechanical Engineers was held at University
House, Leeds, on January 25. The President (Mr.
C.’ C. Ellison) occupied the chair.

New Members.

The following new members were elected :—Members,
Mr. John Griddle, Mr. Thomas Blunt, Mr. Matthew
William Archer, Air. Frederick James Dundas, and Mr.
George Edward Stringer. Associate.members, Mr. John
Arthur Yeadon and Air. G. L. Moss. Associate, Mr.
John Ernest Waring., Student, Mr. J. L. F. Fenwick.

It was reported that the following firms had become
subscribing members of the institute in response to the
recent appeal of the council :—The Ackton Hall Colliery
Company; T. and R. W. Bower Limited (Allerton Main
Collieries), John Brown and Company Limited, BnII-
crof't Alain Collieries ’ Limited, Cortonwood Collieries
Company Limited, Dalton Main Collieries Limited,
Deame Valley Colliery Company Limited, New Silkstone
and Haigh Moor Coal Company Limited, Bother Vale
Collieries Limited, Sheffield Coal Company Limited,
Skinner, and Holford Limited, Strafford Collieries
Limited, Stringer and Son Limited (Park Mill and
Ernie y Moor Collieries), Wath Main Colliery Company
Limited, and Wh e ld ale Coal Company Limited.

£1,000 for Research Work.

The President .said he had to announce that Mr.
G. H. Peake, of Bawtry Hall, had very generously given
to the institute the sum of LI,000 as a donation, to be
• devoted to the interests of mining, and to be applied as
the council thought fit. It was a very handsome pre-
sent, and was given in the most broad-minded way, as
Air. Peake did not mind whether they spent the whole
of the money at once or utilised it for the carrying on
of the work of the institute in the future. After con-
sultation with Air. Peake as to his wishes, the council
had decided that a medal, to be called the Peake medal,
should be etruck, and should be presented from time to
time toi any member of the institute who, in the opinion
of the council, had carried out work or research which
was of value to the mining world. It was particularly
desired that the medal should only be awarded for
valuable' work, and not simply because they had a medal
to give away. He moved a most hearty and grateful
vote of thanks to Mr. Peake for his kind and generous
gift.

Mr. John Gill, in seconding, said they ought to show
by every possible means their appreciation of Mr.
Peake’s generous gift, and also of the freedom that he
had given to the council to dispose of it in any way they
chose.

The resolution was carried.

Fuel Economy and Briquetting.

; The first paper on the agenda for discussion was one
on “Fuel Economy, with Special Reference to
Briquetting, ” by Messrs. F. C. A. Lantsberry and
J. Drummond Paton, which was read before the Man-
chester Geological and Alining Society on December 19
last.* Both the authors attended the meeting.

Air. Lantsberry, before the discussion was pro-
ceeded with, corrected a mistake which appeared near
the conclusion of the paper, in the remarks on. .the
Konigsgrube briquette factory, in Upper Silesia. The
cost of the equipment, instead of being LI,700, as
stated, was L17,000. The mistake was due to a, typist’s
error in copying out his manuscript. The object which
Air. Pa ton and himself had in view in writing the paper
was to continue the discussion on fuel economy, which
was taking place all over the country at the present time.
Before any final action was taken with regard to' economy
of fuel, it was desirable to study in considerable detail
all the methods which had been suggested and used for
economising fuel. It also appeared to the authors that,
at the present time, there must be a certain amount of
solid fuel used—that the time had not yet been reached
when the whole of the carbonaceous 'and organic matter
in that coal could be converted into gas and used as
such. If solid fuel was used, some of it was bound to
be in the state of smalls, and there was always trouble
in dealing with small fuel in any form. The object of
the paper, therefore, was to open up a discussion on the
methods which had been devised for briquetting fuel.
The subject had received great attention in Germany,
and the paper paid particular attention to German
methods, because it was considered that there was
plenty of information as to what was being done in this
country, but not so much—except possibly amongst the
makers of briquetting machinery—-as to. what had been
done in Germany and on the Continent generally.

Discussion.

Air. Paton said they had considered the matter of
.briquetting in relation to the general question of national
economy in fuel. Personally, he had been greatly >
interested in the question of low temperature distilla-
tion, and he hoped the time would come when we
should be eating coal in the form of margarine. That
was in the remote future, but he thought it was some-
thing that was not impossible. He had also 'given much
attention to the utilisation of waste coal. There- were
many products in which they must have briquetting,
and he thought that information such as Mr. Lants-
berry had given, detailing the various Continental pro-
cesses, was very valuable. The general information with
regard to machinery had been compiled by Mr. Lants-
berry; in fact, the bulk of the paper was by that gentle-
man, he (the speaker) having assisted him in relation
to the economics of waste coal, means of mining, and
the general aspect of coal. Mr. Lantsberry and himself

* Colliery Guardian, December 22, 1916, p, 1228.

would be only too happy to have the most open discus-
sion. Their desire was to assist the coal industry to a
solution of any problem which would conduce to national
advantage and national economy in coal.

Mr. W. Newton Drew said he had recently noticed
in one or two scientific papers the statement that, in
certain parts of Germany, the pitch was taken from the
stills direct to the briquetting machines. He thought
that was a matter worthy of consideration from the
point of view of economy. In this country, the coal
that was usually taken for briquetting Was a long way
from the pitch; and where they got coal which was
carbonised for pitch, such coal was.not briquetted. Pos-
sibly the fact of being able to run the pitch hot might
mean considerable economy.

Mr. J. A. Yeadon (Leeds) said the authors frequently,
gave credit, in the paper, to British engineers for the
original ideas they had displayed in connection with
briquetting machinery, but in one part it was distinctly
stated that the first machine with double pressure was
invented by a Frenchman, named Couffinhal. One fact,
however, did not seem to have come to- the knowledge of
the authors. Couffinhal was an engineer employed by
the firm of Beatrix and Company, of St. Etienne, whose
first double-pressure machine was brought out in 1878.
Twelve months before that, Yeadon and Company had
erected at the Bernissart Collieries, Belgium, two
machines, both of the double-pressure' type, 'and both of
the revolving verticaJ-mould-plane type; and according
to the best information that was ascertained then,
Couffinhal himself had been to examine those machines
before he brought out his own so-called invention.
Another error in the paper was the statement that
Robert Middleton, of the Sheepscar Foundry, Leeds,
was the first to introduce the revolving vertical-mould -
plane machine, afterwards, improved by Yeadon and
Company. Robert Aliddleton never knew what a
briquetting machine was until he commenced making
them , for Yeadon and Company. He was glad Air.
Lantsberry had corrected the error as to the L17,000.
At present, his firm were in negotiation with a leading
company in France for a 400-ton plant, the cost of
which, without motor, buildings, or foundation, would
be nearly L10,000.

The idea of briquetting originated, in this country, but
it-had been developed ten times as much on the Conti-
nent, and particularly in Germany, whilst this country
had been asleep. Until recently, briquettes were made
almost entirely of rectangular form, and, so far as this
country was concerned, almost entirely in South Wales.
That was due to th© quality of the coal in that district,
and its closeness to the seaboard. The briquettes were
more suitable for marine and locomotive purposes, and
were exported, and the rectangular form was chosen
because in that shape the largest tonnage could be
placed in the ships’ holds. In other parts of the country
the manufacture of briquettes had been proceeding on
a smaller scale. In Scotland, for three or four years
past, briquettes had been made of half anthracite and
half bituminous coal. Every ounce of them had been
exported to France, and. according to the tests, they .
were quite equal in quality to the best South Wales
fuel. In Scotland, too, briquettes had been made for
household purposes. The rectangular shape was practi- ,
cally the only one adopted until recently, but another *
which was now coming to the front, and which, in his
opinion, was going to play a very important part in the
economical utilisation of coal in this country, was the
eggette, or ovoid form. If the question before the insti-
tute had been merely one of fuel economy, he should
have felt some hesitation, as a simple engineer, in
speaking before colliery managers, but, as briquetting .
was being considered, he felt that, as one who had 40
years’ experience in this particular line of machinery
manufacture, he might be able to offer son^e useful
suggestions. They wanted to $tart with two or three
facts on which they could all agree. One was the high
price of fuel, which he thought was likely to continue,
because of the shortage of labour. Alany of the poor
fellows who had gone out to the front would not come
back; and they could not make a collier in a day, or a
week, or a month. Another point was the low price of
pitch, and this also, he was informed, was likely to con-
tinue. In the paper, it was stated that makers in Ger-
many had discarded the use of blast furnace pitch. It
might be interesting to the institute to hear that the
two leading firms in Scotland;—William. Baird and Com-
pany and the Coltness Iron Company Limited—had for
30 years been using, entirely and solely, blast furnace
pitch for the agglomeration of their coal to- make it into
briquettes. In the endeavour to- obtain economy, what
was it that they had to work at? Well, he thought they
would admit that, up to the time of the war, at any
rate, there were thousands and thousands of tons of
usable material up and down the country, in different
shapes and forms. He once had offered to him, in the
Bishop Auckland district, 15,000 tons of small coke
breeze at 6d. per ton.	It	was being sold	to the. railway

company for ballast,	but	was	usable if	made up	into

briquettes in the proper form. A great deal of small
coal was left down in	the	pits,	and he had always	held

that means ought to	be found	for every	ounce of	coal

that was got down below to be brought to the surface
and utilised. Then, in addition to the small coal from
the coke ovens, there were the slimes. The Birchin-
wood Colliery had been mentioned in recent discussions
of the institute. At the present time, his firm were
negotiating with Alessrs. Robert Heath and Sons, who
were practically the principal Birchinwood people, for
the utilisation of their Climes and small coal by making
them up into payable briquettes. The relative advan-
tages of the use of the best washed fuel, and of the
commonest material, in colliery boilers, had also been
discussed by the institute recently. There were two
schools of thought on that subject, and it was difficult
for him to put in a voice where doctors differed, but he
held strongly, and should be prepared to show, that no

stuff about a colliery need be wasted—it could all be
utilised, and utilised profitably. Mr. Lloyd had told
them that coal of only about 6,000 British thermal units
could b© used—the commonest stuff, containing about
40 or 50 per cent, of ash and water. Air. Laverick said
he had tried washed coal, and had come to: the conclusion
that there was no saving in it, and that he was going
back to the commonest stuff. From a patriotic point of
view, every colliery ought to try to supply to the nation
every ounce of good coal it could, and, if possible, to
run the colliery itself with stuff that could not be sold.

Advantages of Ovoids.

But apart from that, the common stuff that could not
be sold could b© utilised. For boilers, it should not be
made up into briquettes of the rectangular shape, for
they would not burn properly. Th© briquettes should
be of the ovoid shape, which was the ideal shape for
boilers. They could be made of a size which could be
fed in‘by mechanical stokers. These briquettes would
not choke the draught of the fire; they did not want
stirring, and they burnt right away to. coke and small
dust, with a. minimum of clinker and a minimum of
opening the fire doors and letting the cold air in. A
piece of coal was like the leaves of a book. If they laid
a piece of coal flat on the fire., it burnt slowly, because
the fire had to crack up the coal. If they placed it
sideways up, the heat disintegrated it very quickly, and
it burnt away. In either case, a large amount of vola-
tile matter escaped from the surface, alt the. top, uncon-
sumed. But with the ovoid briquettes, there was no
such thing as that. There was no splitting. ’ The vola-
tile matter did not escape at the top, but at the bottom,
and burned away there, the briquette gradually coking
right away through, until the whole was one mass of
coke. There was the advantage. The crucial question,
of course, was, “ Will it pay. Supposing it pays now,
will it also pay eventually, when the war is over?” He
thought they would agree that after the war it would
be necessary to study economy, and the utilisation of
waste materials, in this country, more than had ever
been done in the past. They would not have to throw
stuff on th© muck heap, and let it take fire itself. They
would have to use all that they could, and not let either
Germany or any other country take the lead of them in
that matter. It could be done, it ought to be done,
and it would pay to be done. The actual cost of making
briquettes in this country at the present time, including
pitch, motive power, steam, and grease, and including
15 per cent, interest on capital for interest and depre-
ciation, was 2s. 9d. per ton for a 50-ton plant. If the
size of the plant was increased, the cost per ton was
less, because labour was reduced. His conviction was
that these common materials ought not to be wasted.
They could be utilised, and utilised profitably. Some
two years ago, a number of people, including a leading
chemist, went to his firm, and said they intended to
make briquettes out . of coal and Kentish. chalk. He
thought there was nothing in the scheme', but agreed to
make the briquettes. . The day before they were to be
tested, he made some’ for his own use-, and was astounded
to find that, weight for weight, briquettes composed of
,45 per cent, coal, 45 per cent, chalk, and 10 per cent,
pitch, kept up th© steam in the boiler as well as the coal
they had hitherto used. There was. no smoke, there
was no clinker in th© fireplace, and what they might
call the ash that was left was worth _15s. per ton for
lime. Had it not been for the war, there would have
been two plants working in the South of England for
the manufacture of these briquettes at th© present
time. A gentleman who was brought up in the Wold
district of Yorkshire had since told him that when he
was a youth he had often seen house fires burning half
coal and half chalk. With the white . cliffs of Albion
to go at, it did not look as if this country would be
short of raw material for some time. That, however,
was a matter for the future. . For the present, he took it,
they wanted to fe&l satisfied that the stuff which, in
many cases, was thrown away could b® profitably
utilised. He had given them the cost of making it up.

Greater Heating Power of Briquettes.

Prof. Goss told them that briquettes, weight for weight,
raised more heat than the coal itself.- This had also
been tested at th© Clifton Colliery, Nottingham. A
plant was installed there for making ovoid briquettes,
which had been tested for boilers, and it had been found
that, weight for weight, they produced mor© steam than
the coal itself. In arasiwer to a question as to “ What
is the calorific value of the average quality of briquettes
made from inferior coal?” Mr. Yeadon said he would
only give what might b© called a truism : if they put a
good quality of coal in, they would get good briquettes.
In briquettes intended for the market, they did not want
to exceed 12 per cent, of ash, but in the boilers of their
own collieries they could work up to 30 per cent, of
ash, .’and still get an advantage out of it. Scotsmen were
very cautious about giving anything in the shape of a
recommendation. Three years ago, a leading firm in
Scotland, after very careful consideration, commenced
making briquettes of half bituminous coal and half
anthracite. They were aisked several times how they
were getting on, and if they were willing to say some-
thing in the shape of commendation, but all that they
would allow to be said was : “Well, we just keep the
machinery fairly going.” That was when they had a
plant for 200 tons a day. Within a fortnight they would
have another plant of the same size. They would be
making 400 tons per day of 10 hours, and they intended
to work day and night. All. their products would be for
the Continent.

The President : You do not know what the calorific
value of the chalk was, do you?

Mr. Yeadon said he thought they might take it that,
with briquettes m’ade to an average of 12 per cent, of
ash, one could get out anything from 10,000 to 12,000
British thermal units. If the ash were increased, the