Two Products fron: Rice Straw:
Scheme to be Submitted to Burma Company In a lecture on Industrial (including Power) Alcohol," delivered before the Indian and Colonial Sections of the Royal Society of Arts Sir Charles Bedford referred to a scheme for employing rice-straw as the raw material.
He stated that for some time past, realizing that the attention should be concentrated on waste vegetable my s rather than on as contemplated of elephant or Savannah grasses and of lofly) immature bamboos as a joint source of; alcohol and paper, and during the Jast two years he has initiated and directed experimental work on: these_materials on the laboratory and distillery scale.
The idea of using rice-straw as a source of alcohol was suggested 19 him in 1913-19 by Mr. Arthur Campbell Rogers, who was content to leave all further work in the matter to him. Burma was decided upon as the most likely sphere for operavious, because rice (an annual crop covering a large acreage) is the staple commodity there, and is grown chiefly in an immense deltaic region freely intersected with tidal waterways which furnish the cheapest form of transport for bringing} the raw material to the distillery and removing the finished products. to convenient marketing centres or ocean ports.
The support. necessary for carrying out experiments on a miazufacturing scale was secured from the Burmzh Oi Company, and a distillery with the necessary laboratory and other adjuncts was erected at their refineries at Rangoon. The experimental work has been carried out there and in Eng-jand, and the lecturer stated that shortly i id be far enough advanced for initial requirements.
Lance Capita, Wastep.
The raw materials to be used are not confined to rice-straw, but several othe obtainable locally ious times of the year in requisite amounts. will be utilized so that the plant may be kept at work throughout the year. "It may now be said with safety," Sir Charles Bedford declared, that the result is satisfactory (and it is also the considered opinion of the various Jeading commercial and technical experts in England and France with whom I have been in touch), and that there is no doubt that alcohol can be made from rice-straw on commercial lines, under the conditions employed There are, he said. special: features in the scheme which allow of the production of very valuable! by-products (hitherto unused) which will very materially reduce the cost of the production of alcohol, and vests of raw material, fuel, fresh difficulties have been placed on a/ University, Tokio. His crime was satisfactory basis.
He hopes shortly to put the matter officially be-j fore the board of the Burmah Oil
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.