The problem of smoke elimination

Series

Series Name: Mining Review 1st Year

Issue

Issue No.

Date Released

Jan 1948

Length of issue (in feet)

825

Stories in this Issue:

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 2

Summary

NoS Summary - The work of the Fuel Research Station in trying to eliminate smoke from ships’ furnaces is profiled. A machine has been made that can do it. This principle is now being applied on land in industry. Shots of the Lancashire boiler, which creates a lot of smoke. The new technique stops wasted fuel as well as stopping smoke.
COI Commentary - Nobody bothered much about smoke before the war, but when our food supplies depended on the convoys getting through, smoke on the horizon gave away the position of shipping to the enemy and was a potential danger.
At the Fuel Research Station, scientists of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research concentrated on the problem of cutting out smoke from ships’ furnaces.
The developed a device to admit extra air at the top of the fire when necessary. Thus the smoke, which consists of incompletely burnt fuel particles, was driven on to the flames and burnt up.
Most smoke is made immediately after the furnace has been fired or raked; at such times the heat is not sufficient for complete combustion. So these were the times when the stoker had to open his extra air jets for a while, until, as he could judge from his indicator hardly any smoke got through to the chimney.
In peacetime, smoke at sea is not very important except that it indicates waste.
On land it is different, though. Smoke pollutes the air we breathe, shuts out the sunlight, and defiles our cities with a daily-increasing deposit of soot and filth.
One of the worst offenders is the widely-used Lancashire Boiler. With certain types of fuel, whenever it is fired or raked, dense clouds of smoke billow out.
So the same principle was applied to the firing door of the Lancashire Boiler.
In the new design, air is supplied continuously through the two large jets. An extra supply can be admitted by opening this flap, through these holes, and round the main jets.
As the door is opened, the flap falls, and the right amount of air is admitted to ensure that all the volatile tarry matter is burnt.
As soon as the volatile matter has been burnt, the flap can be closed.
Important as it is to cut down smoke pollution, it is even more important to reduce waste of fuel in present times. So besides keeping an eye on visible smoke during boiler trials, everything must be accurately measured.
The fuel is weighed and its chemical composition and its heating value are determined in the laboratory.
The weight and the temperature of the water are taken.
The boiler is fired for a test period of anything from 8 to 24 hours and all the time a minute-by-minute record is taken of everything that happens:- steam temperature and pressure, the pull of the chimney, the air pressure over the fires, the temperature and composition of flue gases, and the density of the smoke.
These all show that, where there is smoke, heat is lost, not only in the form of unburnt particles, but also invisible gases.
So a simple device not only saves the air from pollution, but is also an aid to economy in the most precious of our raw materials - coal.

Keywords

Science and technology; Industry and manufacture; Mining; Fuels

Footage sources

Admiralty "I Don't Smoke" training film

Written sources

The National Archives INF 6 /390 Used for Synopsis
British Film Institute Databases
Viewing Copy - bfi screenonline
Hogenkamp, A. P., unpublished DPhil thesis pxiv.
BFI Screenonline synopsis ID No.721684

Credits:

Production Co.: Crown Film Unit
Camera: Denny Densham
Director: Graham Wallace
Camera: J. Jones
Cutter: Jocelyn Jackson
Cutter: John Legard
Producer: John Taylor
Director: Leon Clore
Commentator: Maurice Denham
Sponsor: Ministry of Fuel and Power
Sound: W. H. May
Camera: William Chaston

This series is held by:

Film Archive

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