Gasworks
A gas works , also out of date gas station or gas factory , is a system for the production, storage and supply of technical gases , in particular those for heating and lighting purposes .
A gas works consists of the system for generating and cleaning the gas, the systems for measuring the amount of gas, for storing it, for example in a gas container , and the compressors and valves for distributing and providing the line pressure .
In addition to the plant for the production of town gas , the gas works also denotes municipal companies that were responsible for the construction and operation of the gas network as well as the distribution of the gas taking place via it. In the sense of municipal socialism, gas works were often combined with electricity works and water works to form municipal works. In some cases, their name has been retained in the company name even after the change from a producer of town gas to a distributor of natural gas . B. at GASAG Berliner Gaswerke Aktiengesellschaft or Gas-, Elektrizitäts- und Wasserwerke Köln AG .
history
Colored steel engraving after a lithograph by Friedrich August Schmidt , around 1830
On March 2, 1810, the first gas works was built in London to produce gas by gasifying coal in a coking plant . On February 26, 1825, Hanover , the capital of the kingdom of the same name , with around 19,000 inhabitants, was the first city on the European continent to sign a gas supply contract with the Imperial Continental Gas Association (ICGA).
Preserved gas works
As seen in the 1950s and 1960s to over went, natural gas - interconnections to create this had the closure of many gas stations and the demolition of a large part of their buildings resulted. However, the gasometers were often preserved because they still had a function. The oldest surviving gasometer dates from around 1830 and is located in Fulham . The Point Breeze gas works in Philadelphia , built in 1854 , is still in operation and contains an exceptionally large number of 19th century equipment. Examples of well-preserved plants in Germany are the Neustadt (Dosse) gasworks and the Augsburg gasworks .
As a result of the gas works, which have often been in operation for decades, many of the former premises in the soil and in the groundwater are polluted by phenols , polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other hydrocarbons as well as cyanides . The remediation of these contaminated sites is sometimes complex.
function
In a gasworks, coal gas or one of the following types of gas is usually produced in the furnace house through coal gasification . If wood, which is more difficult to gasify, is used instead of coal, it is also referred to as wood gasification . The furnace house consists of several furnaces which deliver the so-called raw gas. In older gasworks, retort furnaces were used for gasification , later the more economical chamber furnaces, like those used in coking plants . This creates coke as a solid product in the furnace . This is ejected about once a day per retort or furnace chamber, extinguished and then sold or used as fuel in the gas works itself.
The raw gas produced in the course of coal gasification is cooled down and subjected to gas scrubbing in the washing house in order to separate off undesirable components such as tar , ammonia water and naphthalene . In addition, gas works consist of various additional structures such as water towers, measuring devices, the generator house for generating generator gas to supply the ovens in the furnace house, and a gas suction house in which exhaustors , technically early forms of suction devices, are housed. They pass the generated gas into the gasometer or into the pipeline network.
Manufactured gas types
The following gases are produced in gas works:
- Wood gas , which is made from wood
- Lignite gas, lignite is used instead of hard coal
- Town gas or coal gas, coal gas that glows brighter as an open flame
- Blue gas, or oil gas, is made from oil and the gas is bottled
- Acetylene gas , a gas made from water and carbide
- Aerogen gas or air gas, produced from volatile hydrocarbons ( gasoline , petroleum ether, gasoline, etc.) and air
- Water gas , which is made from coke and water vapor
- Generator gas, similar to water gas, only with additional air
- It is also possible to produce combustible gas mixtures from bones, pitch, peat, resin, fat, etc.
Example of coal gas production
The luminous gas production from hard coal is divided into the following steps:
- Raw gas generation by dry distillation of the hard coal at approx. 600 ° C to 1200 ° C in the furnace
- Purification of the raw gas from
- Tar and condensed water in the so-called tar trap by means of condensation and in tar separators
- Ammonia in washers by absorption
- Hydrogen cyanide also in washers
- Naphthalene by washing the oil with oils
- Hydrogen sulfide by passing the gas through iron hydroxide z. B. in the form of lawn iron ore
- Benzene by washing the oil with oils
The gas is then fed to the consumption points via the gas tank , which acts as a buffer for fluctuations in consumption, and the gas regulator.
Byproducts
In addition to the main products gas and coke, a number of by-products were generated in gas works. The most important are crude tar , benzene , naphthalene , toluene , ammonia and sulfur . Depending on the market situation, these substances were sold directly or after treatment and processed further in the chemical industry or, like the ammonium sulfate produced in processing, used as fertilizer in agriculture. By selling the by-products, the selling price of the town gas could be reduced.
Web links
- detailed description using the example of the Vienna-Simmering gasworks
- List of all still existing decommissioned gasworks in Germany
- Investigation of an Aërogengas plant of the van Vrieslands Aërogengas-Gesellschaft, by W. Wedding, Groß-Lichterfelde, 1901
- Description of the gas works in Herten (Westphalia) and detailed description of the luminous gas production
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lueger 1904 oil gas
- ↑ Brockhaus 1911 Luftgas
- ^ Meyers 1905 illuminating gas
- ^ A b Rainer Fellenberg-Grahl: Contamination and rehabilitation of former gas works and coking plants , Berlin 1989