Alternative fuel: the acetylene Mongé system

[Christophe]

Extract from the collection of Casimir Cépède, biologist. The article dates from 1940! It lacks technical details but apparently it would be a system that would generate acetylene (C2H2) in the vehicle to then transform it into another gas (?) Using alcohol ... A chambrin system before the hour?

The article does not say how acetylene is generated ...

What is the unit km.horse? I find it hard to grasp ... a car with an instantaneous power of 20 hp making 2 km therefore consumes 20 * 2 = 40 km.cv?

[Lietseu]

Hello, to my knowledge acetylene was commonly used at the time for vehicle lighting! So we sold carbide, which we immersed in water, which we moistened?

In the user, the carbide reacts with water to produce acetylene.

CaC2 + 2 H2O → C2H2 + Ca (OH) 2 + 31 calories
I saw them burn in lamps in the street (in India) 30 years ago, it lights up in an incredible way ...

I don't know where we can get it but I know that we still still use it for caving ...

[Bibiphoque]

Hello,
The production of calcium carbide is extremely energy consuming, it is necessary to reach the melting point of the two components.
http://usan.free.fr/spip/article.php3?id_article=53
@+

[Christophe]

Bravo Lietseu you saw right, in this article, that I have just become the same person again, he speaks well of a reaction with Calcium carbide to make acetylene.

According to the Bibi link (although there is no detail of the energy cost per tonne of CaC2) We therefore come back to the same problem as a sodium engine or one that makes H2 with aluminum ...





No future but interesting anyway I am still surprised by the very low operating costs announced by the inventor ... since CaC2 is energyvore therefore the complete energy loop less interesting (therefore more expensive) than oil ... a priori.

I am wrong?

[Bibiphoque]

Hello,
There are hardly any carbide production factories left, already you have to do cocking to be able to produce them, carbon footprint
@+

[I Citro]

Calcium carbide was indeed commonly used for lighting. We still often find in flea markets and garage sales acetylene devices therefore operating on calcium carbide.
The most common are portable lamps for lighting (on farms), blowtorches and also scaring cannons like the one below.

The carbide and the water are enclosed in a sealed container but separated in 2 separate containers. The water flows over the carbide by gravity, either through a "metering" valve or (in the case of the barrel above) through a "wick" which soaks in the water of the reservoir located above the carbide tank.

[Lietseu]

Yes that's how I imagined the thing, thank you citro, this is info

So I also have no idea what the carbide costs? nor elsewhere where to find it ...

But it looks a little bit on the Internet we should find I think

I don't have much merit, eh, Christophe, I was born in 1958 anyway and my father in 1915 so ...
As we were both crazy about mechanics (me more than him, by the way) we can't do it again


Greetings to all from Lietseu

[I Citro]

By recovering the barrel, I did not recover the carbide box because it was all rusty ...
My grandfather bought it from the agricultural cooperative ... but it was over 20 years ago ...

[Christophe]

What the hell were the scaring cannons used for? Big scarecrows?

[Lietseu]

Well, it's smart

it was to scare away (we thought) the birds that ate and still eat, the grains

The problem is that it scared away the insectivorous birds too
But don't worry, they didn't leave for long!
Are not all so stupid as we think

Hello from Lietseu, the friend of birds, of all living, as long as they are not "stupid" or "wicked"

ps: yesterday, I saw a doc on the reintroduction of Nighthawks, birds of meadows and fields, hunted, almost exterminated for their damage in cereals, when in fact, the menu of its pretty little beasts ... are the crickets and other insect pests of ... cereals