Mechanical Engineering - Theses
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ItemA study of the preparation of coke by the carbonization of brown coal briquettes( 1954)In all industrialized countries coal is a most important source of energy and an essential raw material for the metallurgical and heavy chemical industries. Where there is little or no oil and a low hydro-electric potential its position is dominant. The four great nations, the United States, the Soviet Union, Germany and Great Britain, could not have become pre-eminent in industry and technology if they had not possessed abundant supplies of coal, particularly bituminous or coking coal. Although coal is used extensively as a fuel in homes and factories, the largest quantities are consumed for the generation of electricity, the production of town gas, the firing of railway locomotives and the preparation of metallurgical coke. Except in Germany these processes have utilized black coal almost exclusively. In the State of Victoria, however, the reserves of black coal are a mere 6 million tons whereas those of brown coal amount to 45,000 million tons according to a recent estimate by Herman (loc. cit. p.89). This means that for self-sufficiency in fuel Victoria must seek to do with brown coal what other countries have done with black. Much has already been achieved. Most of the electricity generated in this State comes from power stations burning either raw or briquetted brown coal. A large plant for completely gasifying brown coal briquettes is at present being erected at Morwell to augment the supply of town gas to Melbourne. The Victorian Railways have recently demonstrated that steam locomotives can be efficiently fire with pulverized brown coal. There remains then the task of making a solid non-volatile from brown coal to take the place of the coke obtained black coal. The work described in this thesis is a contribution to the solution of this problem. (From Introduction)