WASTED SOUTH AFRICAN RESOURCES— COAL AND 



ITS BYE-PRODUCTS. 



By Alfred Kloot, B.Sc, AT.C. 



(Read July lo, 1918.) 



{Abstract.) 



The paper opens with a disclaimer as to originahty of its 

 contents, but is written to call public attention to the fact that 

 coal — which is really South Africa's best asset — has hitherto been 

 merely wasted by direct burning, instead of being utilised to make 

 fertilisers, disinfectants, coke, power-gas, tar and possibly petrol 

 substitutes — for all of which there is an immediate and lucrative 

 market. Coal distillation being once started, the more developed 

 subsidiary industries (such as carbolic acid, coal-creosote, simple 

 drugs and dyes, naphthalene, lampblack, and printers' ink, photo- 

 graphic chemicals and electrical carbons) would have a chance to 

 get started, with much benefit to the country. 



So far the only utilisation of coal, except for burning, has 

 lain in the manufacture of ammonium sulphate at Mount Ngwibi 

 ( Natal j, and of coke at various mines, and of these it may be 

 said that the coke-makers waste the tar, ammonia, and gas of 

 the coal, whilst the ammonia-makers waste the coke and gas — 

 although it is true that many of our coals are so ashy that this is 

 almost the only purpose they can be used for. This sort of thing 

 loses to the country materials which are really more valuable than 

 the coke or ammonia produced. 



There is no doulDt about the immensity of the coal-fields, 

 and little doubt that the pithead cost of the coal can be brought 

 down to about 5s. per ton. Unfortunately, no preliminary 

 research-work has been done (or at least published) to prove 

 whether the distillation products of South African coal are of 

 precisely the same nature as, and of similar quantity to, those 

 from European coal, but the presumption is in favour of such a 

 view. The average result of the heating of four different coals 

 from this country given by the author is (samples air-dried with 

 I per cent, moisture) : 23 per cent, volatile matler, 13^^ per cent, 

 of ash, and 62 per cent, carbon, as against 20 per cent., 2 per 

 cent., and 80 per cent, respectively for these data in Welsh coal, 

 thus showing that as regards light and heavy oils the African 

 coal is not likely to be inferior, whereas its coke (carbon plus 

 ash) is markedly inferior. Even for our metallurgical purposes 

 it is only coke from coal specially picked, so as to have much less 

 ash than the average, that is of any use, and even then the sulphur 

 is usually too high. Such coke fetches about £4 per ton in 

 Johannesburg. Metallurgical coke is, therefore, not at present 

 a large-scale proposition in the Union, and it is the other products 



