PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



383 



Moreover, such advances as have been made during recent years, and they are 

 by no means inconsiderable, have nearly all been in the direction of the wider 

 applications of gaseous fuels, yet in how many of oui- University laboratories 

 ds even gas analysis taught, or how many of our Schools of Chemistry provide 

 systematic courses in the chemistry and manipulation of gases, without which no 

 professional training of industrial chemists, however much 'research work' it 

 may include, ought to be considered satisfactory? It is my opinion that this 

 important branch of our chemical craft and science has not, tor many years 

 past, been accorded its proper place and share of attention in the ordinary 

 curriculum of the majority of our academic institutions. 



Of the 189 milldons of coal consumed in the United Kingdom in the year 

 1913, about 40 million tons, or say approximately one-fifth of the whole, was 

 carbonised either in gasworks, primarily for the manufacture of town's gas, oi 

 in coke ovens, for the manufacture of metallurgical coke, in practically equal 

 proportions. Two-thirds of the latter was carbonised in by-produce recovery 

 plants, the remainder in the old wasteful beehive ovens. 



So that, roughly speaking, we have 



Total Coal Carbonised = 40 million tons 



At the present moment there arc 8,297 by-product coke ovens built in this 

 country, or which 6,678 are fitted with benzol recovery arrangements, capable of 

 producing in all something like 10 million tons of coke per annum. 



The yields of the various by-products obtainable on such coke-oven installa- 

 tions naturally vary with the locality and character of the coal-seam, but they 

 probably average out somewhat as follows, expressed as percentages on dry coal 

 carbonised : 



or, to put the matter a little differently, each ton of dry coal carbonised yields 

 from 20 to 35 lb. of ammonium sulphate, from 56 to 112 lb. of tar, and from 

 2 to 3^ gallons of crude benzol, &c., according to the locality. About 65 to 

 70 per cent, of the crude benzol is obtained as finished products (benzene, 

 toluene, solvent, and heavy naphthas). 



How rapid has been the development of the by-product coking industry in 

 this country during recent years may be judged from the following official 

 returns of the quantities of ammonium sulphate annually made on such plants, 

 as compared with the corresponding quantities produced in gasworks. 



