Direction: Modern Plant in Ward Road One of the results of the War was that the Germans, driven by the shortage of raw materials to find so many substitutes, realized the importance of, and found new applications for, so-called liquid air, which led to the enormous development of its production in bulk, and, in consequence, to valuable improvements in manufacturing methods. Through the enterprise of an entirely British company, these advantages will now be made fully available to the users of oxygen in China. This company is Steel Drums, Ld., of 51 Fenchurch St., London, and Shanghai, whose managing director, Mr. H. Bridges, is at present in Shanghi An up-to-date plant is being set up in Ward Road and is to be completed in a fortnight's time.
The prominent part which oxygen has come to play in manufacturing, structural and repair work in the iron and steel—industries makes an acquaintance with the evolution of this wonderful gas of great interest to all persons connected with engineering and shipbuilding. School-day experiments in the laboratory by which small quantities of oxygen were obtained will be in the minds of many readers, but, with one negligible exception, there is no apparatus on the market for the chemical production of this gas, as the quantity thus obtained is insufficient for industrial purposes and the cost is far too high.
Two methods, broadly speaking, only are employed nowadays, viz., (1) electrolysis of water, (2), atmospheric air, of which, unless hydrogen is required at the same time, the latter is both cheaper and better from the oxygen point of view.
The extraction of oxygen—liquid and gaseous—from the air may be briefly summed up as:—High-compression, up to 3,000 lb. per sq. in.; expansion to liquefying point, minus 194 degrees Centigrade; and rectification. Curiously enough, notwithstanding the spadework done for this newest industry by British men of science, there exists no British machine of practical design at the present time, though as far back as 1857 William Siemens took out an English patent for an invention substantially comprising the leading features of the best modern machines.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.