Acetylene

From Encyclopediak

Acetylene, a colorless hydrocarbon gas found in small quantities by direct union in the electric arc; also when water is poured upon a mass of calcium carbide, acetylene is set free in large quantities. When generated in an apparatus properly constructed, and cooled, purified and mixed at the burner, with sufficient air to support combustion, a very beautiful light of great illuminating power is produced, by which even colors can be judged as well as in the sunlight.

Acetylene is highly explosive when confined even in small quantities, particularly when mixed with air and ignited, or when subjected to sudden pressure. When prepared from the commercial calcium carbide, this gas is generally impure; the odor and the supposed poisonous properties are due largely to these impurities.

Acetylene is now chiefly used for lighting automobiles, railroad cars, churches, offices and public buildings. It is generated from automatic machines which mix water and the calcium carbide in suitable quantities. It is furnished in tanks under pressure, and in connection with oxygen under pressure in tanks, in a special form of blowpipe, it produces the oxy-acetylene flame, which is largely employed to weld steel, and for many minor purposes in working metals. Calcium carbide is a hard, grayish, slaglike mass procurable commercially in lumps of varying sizes. It is produced by a mixture of pulverized limestone and coke fused in the intense heat of an electric furnace. Extensive factories for the making of it are located at Niagara Falls and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., where water power is used to generate the high voltage required in these electric furnaces.