Talk:Coal gas

Early history of gas production by gasification

This section needs a lot of attention. What is BWG? It is presumably "B" water gas but what does the "B" stand for? There seem to be contradictory statements about when carburetted water gas was invented - was it 1860 or 1875? I think there is also confusion because developments in the USA went in a different direction from those in Europe. Biscuittin (talk) 11:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The article is a mess, but BWG is defined later in the article as "blue water gas".Pyrotec (talk) 12:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I have added an explanation. Biscuittin (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Calorific values

Calorific values expressed in relation to volume are meaningless unless the pressure is stated. I believe that, in the UK, coal gas was supplied at a pressure of 4 inches of water while natural gas is supplied at 10 inches of water. Natural gas is claimed to have the higher calorific value but this is only because of the higher pressure. If both gases were supplied at the same pressure then coal gas would probably have the higher calorific value because of the large content of free hydrogen. Biscuittin (talk) 11:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Lowe's gas

There seems to be confusion about what Lowe's gas was. According to the coal gas article it was carburetted water gas but, according to the Thaddeus S. C. Lowe article it was hydrogen, obtained by the Water gas shift reaction. Can anybody clarify this? Biscuittin (talk) 16:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Problems

This article should concentrate to the coal gas and its usage, and not so much to its production. Therefore I moved some sections to the Coal gasification article. However, this article needs a cleanup. The structure is messy, so as a first thing a standard structure (history; process; usage) is needed. Different history sections should be merged and rewritten using summary style; if necessary different history article should be started. The article is also geographically out of balance. Beagel (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Other uses? Perhaps for inflation of UK Barrage Balloons during WW2. Old Aylesburian (talk) 09:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

There is a sentence in the introduction, "The production process is distinct, both physically and chemically,from ..." which has been tagged "[clarification needed]". The meaning is clear, Coal Gas is produced using different equipment from other gases and the chemical reactions are different. If there are no dissenting opinions I'll remove this tag because it is intrusive and confusing.OrewaTel (talk) 07:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The meaning of that sentence is clear but it might not even be true. "In the USA, producer gas is a generic term referring to wood gas, town gas, synthesis gas,syngas or raw gas. In the UK, producer gas, also known as suction gas, means a fuel gas made from coke or other carbonaceous material." (See https://www.cooperativepatentclassification.org/cpc/definition/C/definition-C10J.pdf). In any case, the next paragraph is inconsistent with it, as it begins "Manufactured gas can be made by two processes...." If "coal gas" is not "manufactured gas," why does an article about "coal gas" describe the processes of making "manufactured gas"? And if "coal gas" is not "producer gas," why does the next section describe the manufacture of "producer gas"? Where is the section on how "coal gas," which we are assured is a different product, is made? Yes, the article needs cleanup. I came to it specifically to find out how "town gas" differs from "producer gas" or "manufactured gas," and I'm none the wiser for it. Maybe the cleanup should consist of removing all reference to manufacturing processes.Marty39 (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2020 (UTC)