View from W showing purifier

Description View from W showing purifier

Date 14/8/1970

Collection Papers of Professor John R Hume, economic and industrial historian, Glasgow, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 766079

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Girvan Gas Works, Gas Lane, Girvan, South Ayrshire This shows the old purifier house, with one of its purifier boxes. This contained moist iron oxide spread on wooden grids. When the washed gas passed through the oxide the hydrogen sulphide in it was oxidised to sulphur and water. On the left is a pile of the coke left after coal had been gasified. To prepare coal gas for customers the tar and ammonia were removed, and were saleable. This left hydrogen sulphide as the last unwanted impurity, which was removed in purifiers, as seen here. Girvan Gas Works closed in the mid-1970s when the town was connected to the Gas Grid. This was one of the last coal-gas works in Ayrshire, and still used hand-charged retorts in 1970. It was relatively large because of the number of summer visitors, most of whom stayed in boarding houses. The retort house had an opening to the street, allowing the operation of the works to be viewed by small boys. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference H35/70/48/33

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/766079

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap