Читать книгу Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting - Harold P. Manly - Страница 20

In 1862 a chemist, Woehler, announced the discovery of the preparation of acetylene gas from calcium carbide, which he had made by heating to a high temperature a mixture of charcoal with an alloy of zinc and calcium. His product would decompose water and yield the gas. For nearly thirty years these substances were neglected, with the result that acetylene was practically unknown, and up to 1892 an acetylene flame was seen by very few persons and its possibilities were not dreamed of. With the development of the modern electric furnace the possibility of calcium carbide as a commercial product became known.

In the above year, Thomas L. Willson, an electrical engineer of Spray, North Carolina, was experimenting in an attempt to prepare metallic calcium, for which purpose he employed an electric furnace operating on a mixture of lime and coal tar with about ninety-five horse power. The result was a molten mass which became hard and brittle when cool. This apparently useless product was discarded and thrown in a nearby stream, when, to the astonishment of onlookers, a large volume of gas was immediately liberated, which, when ignited, burned with a bright and smoky flame and gave off quantities of soot. The solid material proved to be calcium carbide and the gas acetylene.

Thus, through the incidental study of a by-product, and as the result of an accident, the possibilities in carbide were made known, and in the spring of 1895 the first factory in the world for the production of this substance was established by the Willson Aluminum Company.

When water and calcium carbide are brought together an action takes place which results in the formation of acetylene gas and slaked lime.