The good old gas grill. An almost given to be tucked away in every American back yard. Some of these grills get better treatment or at least more frequant use than others, but what we most overlook and underapreciate is that all import tank of gas. The tank of gas that most of us reach for when we think, "let's grill out." I've gone ahead and culled a few facts about the fuel for the fire, propane.
Propane is a three-carbon alkane, normally a gas, but compressible to a transportable liquid packaged into the familiar 20 pound tanks now commonly available.
Propane was first isolated as a volatile component in gasoline by Dr. Walter Snelling in 1910. By 1913 his method of processing and producing propane was issued a patent and he helped establish the American Gasol Company, the first commercial marketer of propane.
Propane is derived from other petroleum products during oil or natural gas processing. The processing of natural gas involves removal of butane, propane and large amounts of ethane from the raw gas, in order to prevent condensation of these volatiles in natural gas pipelines.
After it is produced, North American propane is stored in huge salt caverns located in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta; Mont Belvieu, Texas and Conway, Kansas. These salt caverns were hollowed out in the 1940s,[7] and they can store 80 million or more barrels of propane.
The outdoor gas grill was invented in the 1960’s in Little Rock, Arkansas by William G. Wepfer and Melton Lancaster while working for ARKLA, the Arkansas Louisiana Gas Company. Wepfer, a graduate of the U.S.Naval Academy, was Director of Marketing, charged with finding new ways to sell natural gas to ARKLA residential customers, and therefore bought a basic charcoal grill and re-designed it in the Wepfer's garage so that natural gas provided the fuel for the grill.
Propane is a popular choice for barbecues and portable stoves because its low boiling point of −42 °C (−44 °F) makes it vaporize as soon as it is released from its pressurized container. Therefore, no carburetor or other vaporizing device is required; a simple metering nozzle suffices.
All these facts are from Wikipedia, and the hyper-links will lead you there as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment