Acetylene and the Beginnings of Welding Engineering

The historical development of acetylene runs parallel to the history of carbide from which it was initially formed after the addition of water. 

The first reference to carbide and acetylene came from the Irish chemist Edmund Davy in England in 1836. When trying to produce metal potassium by heating a mixture of calcined potassium tartrate with charcoal, he obtained a black mass as by-product - i.e. calcium carbide - which reacted with water and formed a combustible gas. In a scientific report he described the characteristic properties of acetylene in detail. At that time, he called the gas bicarburet of hydrogerf, which means more or less double carbon bond of hydrogen . 

In 1860, the Frenchman Berthdot again came across the gas discovered by Davy and investigated its properties more thoroughly. He named it acetylene and determined its chemical formula as CjHj. He also recognized that this gas formed the first element in a range of hydrogens whose formula he determined as C H2 2  

Berthdot also succeeded in producing acetylene from organic raw materials, i.e. from hydrocarbons and was thus to aU intents and purposes one of the founders of organic chemistry. 

At that time, acetylene won from carbide was very much in demand as it burned with a bright shining flame. Its luminance easily surpassed that of candles. 

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