51 



An Investigation of the Fuel Value of Indiana Peat 



RoBEKT E. Lyons. 



Peat is a moisi;, spongy, partially carbonized vegetable matter. It is 

 an incipient coal* containing the heat units stored up by the vegetation 

 I'roni which it is formed. This form of crude fuel has been used in Europe 

 for centuries and today is used in Canada and in some places in the United 

 States. 



Hundreds of thousands of acres of peat beds exist in the lake region of 

 Indiana embraced within the three or four northern tiers of counties. These 

 deposits constitute a source of cheap and easily obtained fuel for local 

 use. As tlie price of coal advances the use of peat for the manufacture of 

 briquettes will increase and the time will doubtless come when the cities 

 in that portion of the state will derive their fuel fx'om the peat bogs of 

 that region. 



It has recently been my privilege to investigate the fuel value of a 

 number of representative samples of Indiana peats whicli were collected by 

 the State Department of Geology and Natural Resources. The relative 

 fuel value of each of twenty-nine samples was determined by calorimetric 

 test with the Parr Standard instrument and the results expressed in 

 British Thermal Units. ( P>. T. U. = the amount of heat necessary to 

 raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.) 

 The results are also expressed in calories ; a calorie being the amount of 

 heat refinired to raise one gram of water one degree centigrade. The test 

 was made on samples of peat dried at 105° Cent., which give a slightly 

 higher thermal effect than would be obtainable in the practice with air 

 dried peat, because of the moisture held by peat even after prolonged air 



'■'The following table from ( )st. Teclinische Chemie, 1903, p 12, indicates the progressive 

 changres which peat might undergo in a possible conversion to anthracite coal: 



Wood. 



Carbon 50 



Hydrogen 6 



Oxygen 43 



Nitrogen 1 



