Whether these methods of employing cheap oxygen would be successful or
not, I do not wish to discuss at the present time, but there is no
doubt but that cheap oxygen would be an enormous boon to the gas
manager, as by mixing 0.8 per cent. of oxygen with his coal gas before
purification, he could not only utilize the method so successfully
introduced by Mr. Valon at Ramsgate, but could also increase the
illuminating value of his gas.
In speaking of the structure of flame, I pointed out that close to the
burner from which the gas giving the flame is issuing, a space exists
in which no combustion is going on--in other words, a flame is never
in contact with the rim of the burner. This is best seen when the gas
is turned low--with a batswing burner, for instance--turned so low
that only a small non-luminous flame is left, the space between burner
and flame will appear as great as the flame itself, while, if the gas
is mixed with an inert diluent like carbon dioxide, the space can be
very much increased.
Several theories have been brought forward to explain this phenomenon,
but the true one is that the burner abstracts so much heat from the
flame at that point that it is unable to burn there, and this can be
proved by the fact that where a cold object touches the flame, a
dividing space, similar to that noticed between flame and burner, will
always be observed, and the colder the object and the more diluted the
gas the greater is the observed space.
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