, that is to say, when a
cylinder is apparently filled quite full, only 20 per cent, of the space
is really occupied by the solid body, the remaining 80 per cent, being
available for holding the liquid or the compressed gas. If all
comparisons as to degree of explosibility and effects of explosion are
omitted, an analogy may be drawn between liquefied acetylene or its
compressed solution in acetone and nitroglycerin, while the gas or
solution of the gas absorbed in porous matter resembles dynamite.
Nitroglycerin is almost too treacherous a material to handle, but as an
explosive (which in reason absorbed or dissolved acetylene is not)
dynamite is safe, and even requires special arrangements to explode it.
In Paris, where the acetone process first found employment on a large
scale, the company supplying portable cylinders to consumers uses large
storage vessels filled, as above mentioned, apparently full of porous
solid matter, and also charged to about 43 per cent, of their capacity
with acetone, thus leaving about 37 per cent. of the apace for the
expansion which occurs as the liquid takes up the gas. Acetylene is
generated, purified, and thoroughly dried according to the usual methods;
and it is then run through a double-action pump which compresses it first
to a pressure of 3.
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