Page 31 - Gi flipbook September 2018

Norwich in the 1960s
A TIME OF by giving each tube its own burner to

replace the large central one.
Another problem came from the
CHANGE lean gas calorific value (CV), which was
too high and, despite catalyst changes,
could not be controlled for long.
It was found to be the fault of the
sodium oxide desulfurising material.
This was replaced with Luxmasse
iron oxide pellets, which completely
Barry Wilkinson, Gas Historian, presents the story of Jon removed any sulphur compounds
Read, a former gas man from Norwich who was forced from the propane feedstock.
to adapt rapidly to a changing gas industry with the This proved to be successful and,
introduction of catalytic reforming in the 1960s by using the desulfurised propane,
the CV remained acceptable and the
reformer catalyst enjoyed a long life,
n the 1960s, the industry at Norwich moved us over to further very rarely needing a recharge, as far
changed rapidly. new technology. as I can recall.
Many of us went through Some of us expected the proven ICI There were many more small
the changes willingly when we reformers, built at other places, to be problems, which we solved as they
I moved rapidly from over 100 our salvation, but it was not to be. The arose. We were now in a new era
years of coal, coke and tar to the decision was taken to install three Otto of technology for us on the ground,
forefront of producing gas from oil continuous reformer units, supplied by having moved from Victorian gas
and catalytic processes. Simon Carves, using propane feedstock engineering to a more modern system.
In Norwich, we went from the pumped to our site from Felixstowe, Eventually, the old gas works
Onia Gegi technology, installed at where it arrived from Texas. closed for good and the Otto and
Thetford, over to the state-of-the- Problems initially arose from the MS reformers took on the load very
art Woodall Duckham micro simplex method of heating the reformer tubes reliably with a thermal efficiency of
cyclic reformer. It produced 3.2 from the top with combustion products about 93 per cent. Meanwhile, the
million cubic feet per day with little exiting via a flue gas fan at the base. electricity industry was then generating
effort, apart from a problem with This caused uneven furnace heating its fuel at about 30 per cent efficiency
gum production at one stage. and distorted reformer tubes, due to in their coal-fired plants.■
The emphasis by the Gas Council difficulties in balancing the flue gas fan
on advertising high speed gas and the to the burner input. A redesign was ■ A version of this article first
inevitable closure of coal gas plants carried out, which solved the problem appeared in The Historic Gas Times

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History.indd 2 14/08/2018 19:55