[SEL] Sort of on-topic: The First Aircraft Engine

John Culp johnculp at chartertn.net
Mon Sep 5 17:32:39 PDT 2005


I once talked to a lady who had, some years earlier, attempted suicide 
by putting her head in a gas oven. (Well after the days of producer 
gas.) She lost consciousness, was found that way with her head in the 
oven and gas all in the kitchen. The coroner was called and pronounced 
her dead on the scene. She was loaded in a hearse and was being driven 
to the funeral home. Along the way she revived, which she ascribed to 
the fresh air blowing in the open windows of the hearse. When she spoke 
to the funeral home employees, they just about had strokes. Then they 
put the red light on the dash, turned on the siren (hearses then 
doubled as ambulances), and sped her to the hospital.

Geoff Hutchings has an old slide valve Otto, about an 1881 model, I 
think, that came from the Henry Ford Museum. I was there helping to 
crank it on the first startup attempt after he got it. Using propane, 
we never could get it to go. Turned out it was designed to run on 
producer gas and propane just couldn't carry the fire back through the 
slide valve passage like the hydrogen in producer gas would. He had to 
get hydrogen from a welding supply company to run it. Bet it'd run on 
propane with a little hydrogen mixed in.

I believe that's incorrect about producer gas having a high octane 
number, because of the large hydrogen content. Hydrogen is extremely 
prone to detonation, which is a big impediment to using it as a motor 
fuel. Experimental hydrogen car engines have had to resort to low 
compression and water injection to keep the knocking down. Methane and 
propane are both very high octane, however.

"Water gas" made from running steam through coal was a poor 
illuminating gas, as the hydrogen and carbon monoxide burned with a 
pale blue flame. Gas intended for lighting was usually blended with 
producer gas made from spraying gas oil (our modern Diesel fuel is an 
example of this distillate) into a hot "carburetor" often made of 
bricks assembled into a labyrinth, heated hot enough to crack the oil 
into gas. Ethylene was a major component of this gas, and it burned 
brightly in gas jets.

John


> Interestingly, it was
> fueled with a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, otherwise known
> as “producer gas” or “illuminating gas”, a man-made utility fuel made
> by reacting steam with coal in a gas works or “gas house”. This was the
> gas capable of killing a human or animal in a matter of minutes or even
> seconds if someone stuck his/her head in a cooking oven with the gas
> turned on. Since producer gas was tantamount to using deadly hydrogen
> cyanide gas as a household fuel, its use was discontinued around 85 or
> 90 years ago. Even though it hasn’t been around for a long time,
> putting one’s head in the oven with the gas turned on is still
> considered to be a way to commit suicide, but nowadays it is only a
> myth since methane or propane are not toxic and are only lethal when
> inhaled in concentrations high enough to displace air, which causes
> simple asphyxiation from lack of oxygen.


John Culp
Bristol, Tennessee, USA




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