water gas

A gas produced by passing steam over hot coke to give hydrogen and carbon monoxide: H₂O + C ? CO + H₂. This process yields a gas of high energy content, but it is endothermic, and is thus often made concurrently with producer gas, so that the reaction is spontaneous. The resulting ‘semiwater gas’ has a lower energy content.

Water gas is a process by which hydrogen is produced by the combining of steam and coke gas in the following chemical reaction:

CO + H2O --> Lowe developed and patented a process by which large amounts of hydrogen gas could be generated for residential and commercial use in heating and lighting. Unlike the common coal gas, or coke gas which was used in municipal service, Water Gas provided a more efficient heating fuel.

The process was discovered by the passing of high-pressure steam over hot coal, the major source of coke gas. This process created a thermo-chemical reaction of applying hydrogen, in the steam, to carbon monoxide, in the coke gas. The reaction produced carbon dioxide and pure hydrogen which after a process of cooling and "scrubbing," passing through water vapor, left just a pure hydrogen gas.

The process spurred on the industry of gas manufacturing, and gas plants were established quickly along the Eastern seaboard of the United States.