Efficiency of the Trent process in cleaning coal

During the war certain suggestions concerning power production were made by Mr. Walter E. Trent to the War Inventions Board, and at the request of the War Department, facilities for experimental work were provided on the grounds of the Bureau of Standards. The Experiments were along the line of controlling the conditions of combustion in a closed space. In order to reduce slag troubles, experiments were carried out for removing ash from powdered coal. After the war, work along this line was continued, resulting in the Trent Process, which agitates or beats together powdered coal, water and oil. A new technology has previously been given to ore preparation by the use of small quantities of oil in water with froth flotation, and although the methods, results and mixtures of the Trent Process were quite different, yet the same physical phenomena of differential wetting was used, and the possibility of there being interesting results in fuel technology was evident. A cooperative agreement was entered into, whereby the Bureau of kines was to investigate the underlying physical and chemical facts and make them public, and the Trent Process Corporation, was to pay the cost of the investigation.