Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2023 June 3

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June 3

Coke (not the narcotic OR the drink named after it)

When was the beehive oven (in which the volatiles were simply burned or discarded, causing severe air and water pollution) replaced by the externally-heated slot oven (which allowed the separation and recovery of coal gas, coal tar, ammonia water, ammonium sulfate/diammonium phosphate, crude naphthalene, mixed pyridines, gas benzole, merchant sulfur, etc., and is currently the most typical coke-oven design)? 2601:646:9882:46E0:EF:7B3E:F67:8348 (talk) 03:13, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Courtesy link: coke (fuel). --142.112.220.184 (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Right, and it has quite a lot about the (older) beehive ovens (and about the air and water pollution therefrom), but hardly a word about the (newer) slot ovens with byproduct recovery -- any info on those, and in particular on when exactly (or even approximately) they came into wide use? 2601:646:9882:46E0:10AD:F0A:60F5:174 (talk) 07:08, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

"From 1916 forward, beehive production began to decline, and beginning in 1919 more coke was made in long, narrow ... refractory retorts frequently called by-product or slot ovens".^[1] Locally the switch-over may have been earlier.^[2] An OSHA Proposed Standard of 1975 states in its considerations, "Prior to 1910, the use of beehive ovens predominated in the production of coke" and "The first by-product coke ovens in the United States began operation in the 1890's."^[3]  --Lambiam 09:28, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

See Coal gasification#History. From the end of the 18thC coal gasification started, and by the mid 19thC "every small to medium-sized town and city had a gas plant to provide for street lighting" in the UK. I suspect that the answer to the OP's question is "it depends where you are talking about". Given the importance of the Boulton & Watt factory at Soho, I would guess that from 1805 onwards mill owners would be pushing for a reliable supply to enable working after dark. It is perhaps germane to point out that during the winter it gets dark by 4pm in places such as Birmingham and Manchester. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:32, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

In the UK;

By-product ovens only gradually superseded non-recovery ovens. The proportion of coke made in the latter declined from 93 percent in 1900 to 1.5 percent in 1938, and by 1938, only 450 beehive ovens and 80 Coppice non-recovery ovens remained in use. The last British beehive ovens at Victoria Whinfield colliery in County Durham, were shut down in 1958.

By-Product Coking Plants in Britain: an Outline History by Dr D. G. Edwards

Alansplodge (talk) 12:31, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

This suggests very similar paces in the UK and the US. Although beehive coke production was environmentally damaging, this was not a likely consideration in the individual producers' decisions to convert. The economic considerations (maximizing profit) may have led at the same times to the same outcomes on either side of the Atlantic.  --Lambiam 14:53, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

@Alansplodge: - that's a most interesting link. Edwards must be concentrating on plants used purely for coking, he mentions collieries and steelworks, rather than plants run for the town gas. for instance he states (p 69) that The start-up dates of the plants, ... range from 1882 ... which is clearly incorrect for gas production. Later on the same page he states The three built at gasworks ... and gives dates of 1912, 1931 and 1950. Compare this to Barty-King who includes as an appendix a description of the the Gas Light and Coke Company's gasworks in Horsefeyy Road, London which is dated 1830s and includes a description of the stokers pulling the coke out of the furnaces to a cellar below. Indeed, at the start of chapter 3 (p 41) Barty-King mentions the royal charter that the Gas Light & Coke Company obtained on 30 April 1812 to lay pipes in the streets of London and Westminster.

What would be very interesting would be to find out the proportion of private coke-works to that of the gas and coke companies. Edwards' 1882 date might be a little surprising for Abraham Darby who in the 1690s witnessed coke being used for malting and later famously used it to smelt pig-iron. Very odd! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:21, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

I read it that Edwards was writing specifically about "by-product coking plants" (aka slot-ovens?) by reference to the title of his article. However, I know almost nothing about coke production, except that I used to go skiing on an old coke-works slag heap at Beckton Alps. Alansplodge (talk) 17:06, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

[un-indent] Thanks, everyone! So, late 19th century for the first installations, and the first 40 years or so of the 20th century for widespread adoption -- right? And yes, I was concentrating on the production of metallurgical coke, not town gas -- and yes, it was without doubt economic factors (the ability to recover and sell many valuable chemicals, as well as the fact that slot ovens could produce more coke in less time and usually (but not always) with better quality) rather than environmental reasons which caused the general change-over (up until the mid-20th century pollution was seen as an unavoidable price of industrialization, so the people in the big cities mostly just put up with it -- only if it was something super nasty (like HCl gas from the Leblanc process soda-making plants) was there a large public outcry and consequent legislation!) 2601:646:9882:46E0:1CFE:39D7:62CF:ECBA (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

References

Energy, Joule and Watts-second

A moving object or a mole of ideal gas in thermal equilibrium has a constant energy over time, for example 10 Joule. For an electric current with a power of 10 Watts (10 Joule/second) , in 1s we will count 10 Watts-second, in 2s 20 Watts-second.

We clearly see there that there is a temporal difference between Joule and Watts-second energy. Why it doesn't show up in wikipedia articles ?

How could we qualify this difference? Malypaet (talk) 22:02, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

If it's superconducting and disconnected from power it's the same electrons being double, triple counted and so on, if the circuit is to do most useful things it'll stop working by the time the joules run out. If room-temperature superconducting electromagnets are ever invented they could be be turned into a toy that only needs to be connected to power once to levitate a permanent magnet against gravity indefinitely in a place that never reaches 20 Celsius or above. Not very useful as there are already toys that levitate things with permanent magnets. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:29, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

An electric current has no power of itself. It's just a flow of charge. If there's current passing down a potential difference, for example through a resistor, energy gets converted, for example into heat, equal to the voltage times the current every unit of time. The rate at which energy gets converted is a power. In an object moving at constant speed, no energy gets converted or moved from one system to another. There just is an amount of energy. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:28, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

If there is no resistor , there is no current. So current is linked to power, the flow of charge acting as an energy cargo. Also in space between the sun a direction with no obstacle to the infinity, you can have a flow of photon passing into a power meter indicating power, and then the energy is only converted in the instrument of measure, right ? Malypaet (talk) 10:32, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Have you heard of superconductivity? An electric current through a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source.  --Lambiam 08:22, 6 June 2023 (UTC)