In carburetting poor coal gas with hydrocarbons from mineral oil it must be borne in mind that, as coal is undergoing distillation, a rich gas is given off in the earlier stages, but towards the end of the operation the gas is very poor in illuminants, the methane disappearing with the other hydrocarbons, and the increase in hydrogen being very marked.
In carburetting such a gas by injecting mineral oil into the retort, many of the products of the decomposition of the oil being vapours, it would be wasteful to do so for the first two hours, as a rich gas is being given off which has not the power of carrying in suspension a much larger quantity of hydrocarbon vapours without being supersaturated with them.
The wonderful carburetting power of benzol vapour is well known, a large proportion of the total illuminating power of coal gas being due to the presence of a minute trace of its vapour carried E in suspension.
The carburetting of low-power gas by impregnating it with the vapours of volatile hydrocarbons.
The methods of manufacture of steel by cementation, case-hardening and the Harvey process are important operations which appear to depend on the diffusion of the carburetting material into the solid metal.