SANAA
UREMBO NA USTAWI
UJANJA
UTAMADUNI NA HISTORIA
BURUDANI
MAZINGIRA
CHAKULA NA VINYWAJI
BAADAYE YA KIJANI
REVERSE ENGINEERING
SAYANSI
MICHEZO
TEKNOLOJIA
VAZI
Making Coal Gas for Lighting — The Gasworks That Lit the Nineteenth Century
Galadriel

Imeundwa na

Galadriel

25. Juni 2026US
25
0
0
0
0

Making Coal Gas for Lighting — The Gasworks That Lit the Nineteenth Century

Before electricity, the brightest, most modern light a city could have came piped from a gasworks. Coal gas — a mix of hydrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide cooked out of coal — burned with a clean, steady flame far brighter than any candle or oil lamp. From the 1810s, gas mains snaked under the streets of London and then every industrial city, lighting factories, shops, theatres, and homes.

The process is destructive distillation: coal is roasted in a sealed retort with no air, and instead of letting the volatile gases burn off as waste (as a coke heap does), the gasworks captures them. The raw gas is cooled to drop out the coal tar, washed to remove ammonia, and purified over lime to take out the foul-smelling sulphur. The clean gas is stored in a great floating gasholder and piped out to burners.

What makes a gasworks brilliant is that nothing is wasted: the gas gives light, the coke left in the retort is sold as fuel, the coal tar becomes the feedstock for synthetic dyes and chemicals, and the ammonia liquor becomes fertiliser. One load of coal yields four products — the same destructive distillation that makes coke, run the other way round to harvest the gas.

Juu
One retort charge (several hours of heating to exhaust the gas)

Maagizo

1

Understand coal gas

Coal gas is the flammable vapour driven out of coal when it is heated without air — mostly hydrogen and methane with some carbon monoxide. The goal of a gasworks is to capture that vapour, clean it, store it, and pipe it to burners for light, rather than letting it burn away as a coke oven does.
2

Build a sealed retort

Build a closed retort of fireclay or cast iron with a single off-take pipe at the top. It must seal tight so no air gets in — any oxygen would let the gas burn inside instead of escaping down the pipe. The retort is heated from the outside by a separate fire.

Vifaa kwa hatua hii:

FirebrickFirebrick50 vipande

Zana zinazohitajika:

Iron RetortIron Retort
3

Charge the coal and seal

Load bituminous coal into the retort and seal the door with luting clay, leaving only the off-take pipe open. The charge will give up its gas over several hours and leave coke behind.

Vifaa kwa hatua hii:

Bituminous CoalBituminous Coal30 kg
ClayClay4 kg
4

Heat the retort from outside

Build a strong fire around or beneath the sealed retort to bring the coal to a red heat. Because the heat is external and no air reaches the coal, it pyrolyses — decomposing into gas, tar vapour, and solid coke instead of burning.

Vifaa kwa hatua hii:

Bituminous CoalBituminous Coal25 kg
5

Draw off the raw gas

As the coal heats, raw coal gas streams out of the off-take pipe carrying tar vapour, ammonia, and sulphur compounds with it. This crude gas is dirty, smelly, and toxic — it must be cleaned before it can be burned for light.
6

Condense the tar

Run the hot gas through a length of cooled pipe or a condenser. The heavy tar vapour and ammonia liquor condense to liquid and drain off into a collecting pit. Save this coal tar — it is the raw material for synthetic dyes and a host of chemicals.

Zana zinazohitajika:

Condenser CoilCondenser Coil
7

Wash the gas

Bubble the cooled gas up through water in a vessel called a scrubber. The water dissolves out ammonia and remaining tar fog, leaving the gas lighter and cleaner. The ammonia-rich water is itself saved as a fertiliser liquor.

Vifaa kwa hatua hii:

WaterWater20 lita
8

Purify over lime

Pass the washed gas through trays of slaked lime. The lime absorbs hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide — the sulphur that would otherwise make the flame stink and corrode fittings. Spent lime turns yellow and is replaced when exhausted.

Vifaa kwa hatua hii:

Slaked LimeSlaked Lime5 kg
9

Store in a gasholder

Collect the purified gas under a counter-weighted bell that floats in a water tank — the gasholder, or gasometer. The floating bell rises as gas fills it and sinks as it is drawn off, holding the supply at a steady pressure for the burners downstream.

Zana zinazohitajika:

GasholderGasholder
10

Pipe to a burner and light

Run a pipe from the holder to a burner jet and light it. Purified coal gas burns with a bright, steady, smokeless flame. A simple flat-flame or fishtail burner gives far more light than a candle; later mantles made it brighter still.

Zana zinazohitajika:

Gas BurnerGas Burner
11

Recover the coke

When the gas flow dwindles, the coal is spent. Open the retort and rake out the glowing coke residue, quenching it with water. This coke is a clean fuel in its own right — the same product a coke oven makes, here a valuable by-product of gas making.

Zana zinazohitajika:

RakeRake
12

Account for every product

A single charge of coal has yielded four things: gas for light and heat, coke for fuel, coal tar for dyes and chemicals, and ammonia liquor for fertiliser. This complete use of the coal is what made the Victorian gasworks both profitable and central to industrial chemistry.

Vifaa

5

Zana Zinazohitajika

5

Blueprint zinazohusiana

Blueprint hizi zinashiriki maarifa — mbinu, vifaa au kanuni

Making Coke from Coal — The Smokeless Fuel That Forged the Industrial Revolutionna Gimli
Perkin's Mauveine — The First Synthetic Aniline Dye from Coal Tarna Tex
Making Synthetic Alizarin Crimson — The Coal Tar Pigment That Destroyed the Madder Industryna Charlie

Related blueprints

Other builds that share materials, tools, or techniques with this one.

Making a Sistrum — The Sacred Rattle of Ancient Egypt
Making a Clay Crucible for Smelting — The Vessel That Holds Molten MetalMetalworking
Making Rushlights — The Cheapest Light in HistoryHOME & LIVING
Making Soda-Lime Glass from Raw Materials — The Recipe That Has Not Changed in 5,000 Yearsglassworking
Building a Great Wheel for Spinning — The Machine That Clothed the Medieval Worldtextiles
Understanding Neon from Air Separation — The Gas That Lit the Modern Citychemistry

CC0 Umma Wote

Mchoro huu umetolewa chini ya CC0. Uko huru kunakili, kubadilisha, kusambaza, na kutumia kazi hii kwa madhumuni yoyote, bila kuomba ruhusa.

Saidia Mtengenezaji kwa kununua bidhaa kupitia Mchoro wao ambapo wanapata Kamisheni ya Mtengenezaji iliyowekwa na Wachuuzi, au unda marudio mapya ya Mchoro huu na uiunganishe kama kiungo katika Mchoro wako kuchangia mapato.

Majadiliano

(0)

Ingia kujiunga na majadiliano

Inapakia maoni...