The
addition of 1 to 2 per cent. of air, according to Mauricheau-Beaupre,
suffices to double the purifying capacity of one charge of the material,
while a larger proportion would achieve its continuous revivification.
Epurene is said to purify 10,000 to 11,000 litres of crude acetylene per
kilogramme, or, say, 160 to 176 cubic feet per pound, when the acetylene
contains on the average 0.05 per cent, by volume of phosphine.
For employment in all acetylene installations smaller than those which
serve complete villages, a solid purifying material is preferable to a
liquid one. This is partly due to the extreme difficulty of subdividing a
stream of gas so that it shall pass through a single mass of liquid in
small enough bubbles for the impurities to be removed by the time the gas
arrives at the surface. This time cannot be prolonged without increasing
the depth of liquid in the vessel, and the greater the depth of liquid,
the more pressure is consumed in forcing the gas through it. Perfect
purification by means of fluid reagents unattended by too great a
consumption of pressure is only to be effected by a mechanical scrubber
such as is used on coal-gas works, wherein, by the agency of external
power, the gas comes in contact with large numbers of solid surfaces kept
constantly wetted; or by the adoption of a tall tower filled with porous
matter or hollow balls over which a continuous or intermittent stream of
the liquid purifying reagent is made to trickle, and neither of these
devices is exactly suited to the requirements of a domestic acetylene
installation.
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