Coal-gas for lighting

From Environmental Technology

[edit] Coal for gas lighting

Town gas is a generic term referring to manufactured gas produced for sale to consumers and municipalities. Depending on the processes used for its creation the gas was a mixture of caloric gases: hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and volatile hydrocarbons with small amounts of noncaloric gases carbon dioxide and nitrogen as impurities.

Prior to the development of natural gas supplies and transmission in the United States during 1940s and 1950s, virtually all fuel and lighting gas was manufactured, and the byproduct coal tars were at some times an important chemical feedstock for the chemical industries. The development of manufactured gas paralleled that of the industrial revolution and urbanization. The terms coal gas, manufactured gas and hygas are also common.