An Improved Process of and Apparatus for Distilling and Refining Petroleum and other Hydrocarbons, applicable also for Distilling and Refining Animal, Vegetable, and Fruit Oils, Saccharine Juices, Syrups, Essential Oils, and other substances.
Year: 1891

page_text: Date of Application, 6th Jan., 1891-Accepted, 28th Feb., 1891
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
'
An Improved Process of and Apparatus for Distilling and Refining
Petroleum and other Hydrocarbons, applicable also for Distilling
and Refining Animal, Vegetable, and Fruit Oils, Saccharine
Juices, Syrups, Essential Oils, and other substances.
We, HERBERT EDWARD RYCROFT, of The New York Produce Exchange,
New York City, County and State of New York, Commission Merchant, and
ALLAN MASON, of No. 89, Willoughby Street, in the City of Brooklyn, in the
County, of Kings and State of New York, United States of America, Broker, do
hereby declare the nature of this invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in 'and by the following
statement
The object of our invention is to provide an improved method of, and also
improved apparatus for continuous fractional distillation by which the operation
may proceed in a continuous uniform and contemporaneous development of the
fractional parts and separate collection of the same without residue in the retort or
still, by which more regular and uniform treatment of the crude oils is secured,
better and more uniform products are obtained and much present waste of heat
time and material are avoided, and by which any one desired' product may be
obtained, that is to say, the grades of separation are controllable at the will of the
operator in the case of hydrocarbons and other substances which it is desired to
separate into fractional parts, and whereby also such as are to be retained in one
product may be treated with advantages all' as hereinafter fully described reference
being made to the accompanying drawings in which:
P
Fig. I represents my improved apparatus partly in side elevation and partly in
sectional elevation.
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I
Fig. 2 is a similar view of the same in a modified arrangement.'
We provide the continuous and preferably 'vertical, coiled (as in Fig. 1) pipe
retort made in as many different successive sections or chambers' a, b, c, d, as the
number of fractional products we wish to make, but it may be in a direct course as
in Fig. 2, each successive section being arranged a 'little lower than the one pre-
ceding and in a separate chamber or space 1, 2, 3, 4, &c., of the furnace divided by
partitions z, or by contracted flues 22, through which the sections are connected
by descending bends or pipe portions d', and having a goose neck e¹, branching off
from each section at or about where the turn into d', begins, also another goose
neck from the other bend d², when the retort sections comprise two lengths of coil
in each furnace chamber as we propose to make them," said "goose necks each
connecting with a separate condenser f, which discharges into a settling trough a¹,
through a pump g, if desired for drawing on the vapour and maintaining a vacuum
in the condenser. From the settling trough the products may be run off into any
approved receptacle b'.
i
.a.
With each section of the retort provision is made for suitably heating the same
by fire heat produced in the furnace h, below or it may be a separate fire in each
compartment or by steam heat in a surrounding jacket k¹, or both as preferred and
with an enclosing sand jacket ², as in Fig. 2, if desired to regulate the heat, but
we prefer to utilize the heat from furnace, with chimney y, and dampers a,
contrived to admit the heat or to exclude it from the respective chambers and with
air passages and valves wo, to grade the heat of the successive sections' as much
higher than that of the preceding sections and to regulate the same, 'as is requisite
for the different grades of products required. The successive sections may be
101

page_text: longer according as the heavier products require longer time of exposure to heat,
but the same result may be obtained with sections of uniform length by corre-
spondingly greater intensity of heat.
The heat may enter either chimney through a passage v, the other being closed
by its damper x, and be turned from the chimney into the next chamber above and
therefrom through the chimney at the other side into the next chamber and so on
in regular succession or it may be shut off at any time from any one chamber when
the chamber may happen to be too highly heated and conducted past into the next
chamber, and if it is desired to cool down any chamber quickly, air passages w,
may be opened to allow air to enter and draw through into one or the other of the
chimneys for that purpose and when it may be desired to produce different
temperatures in some of the different sections than may be had by the passage of
the heat through them in regular order, as for instance, to check it in the first and
third without change in the second and fourth, the arrangement of flues and dampers
is such that the heat may be shut off from the third and first chamber while
continuing its course through the fourth and second sections.
Into the upper or front end of the first section a, of the retort thus contrived we
cause the oil to flow in a continuous and regulated stream through a suitable feed
pipe i, from the storage reservoir or tank j, which stream is received on an
impinging jet of steam which we use for its beneficial effects in facilitating the
atomizing of the oil by direct impingement of the steam jet on the oil as it enters
the different sections of the retort for aiding separation by mechanical action of the
impact of the solid jet of steam on the stream of oil.
The oil thus instantly atomized on entering the retort sections is by the
atomizing jets impelled along the hot interior of the retort towards the fall d¹, the
temperature of which is graduated to the requisite power for vaporizing
the lighter grade of product required and the running oil falls down into the next
section through connections d¹.
Whilst the vaporized portion subject to the vacuum in the condenser or
condensers passes over into it or them according as the section i is connected with
one or more condensers, the oil falling into the next section passes through a
funnel or gate n, which is a kind of trap to prevent the flow of vapour from one
section to another of the retort and is again received on an impinging jet and
distilled with greater heat suited to develop the next grade of product and
so on to the last section which discharges any heavy oil tar or other residue that
may remain unvaporized into any suitable receptacle or it may be a tar still o,
whilst yet in a fluid state so that instead of carbonization of the lower portions of
the oil on the bottom of the still and causing operations to be suspended from time
to time for removing the tar, coke or other resulting product, my still is self-
cleaning and operative indefinitely.
It is also continuously and contemporaneously operative in each section, there
are no stages of periodical cessation as in the old process, nor variations in the
qualities of the different sections such as result in the old process during the
changes of temperature in the progress of the different stages of cooking.
This invention is substantially the application in fractional distillation of the
process employed for producing one oil by James Grant and Allan Mason and
described in the Letters Patent of the United States of America granted to them
April 6th, 1886, No. 339,545. In that process it was demonstrated that with
suitable heat applied to the retort and with steam from 212 to 300 F. intimately
commingled by the forcible conjunction of streams or jets of steam and oil and by
a vacuum condenser to rapidly and continuously conduct the oil through the retort
to prevent accumulation in bulk and to effect the instantaneous exposure to heat by
expansion of the oil through the medium of the steam, the entire substance of the
oil may be vaporized at once and be recovered as one oil of superior quality and
high fire test the impurities being distilled out and taken up by a peculiar affinity

page_text: of the water for them and certain undesirable portions, and separating with the
water by gravitation.
In this case we have contrived to separate said process into several progressive
steps according to the number of grades into which we wish to effect separation
and produce one grade by each step converting, as before, all the oil without
residue in the retort, but in fractional products instead of one product, and to this
end we provide a steam injector k, with each section of the retort and in such
relation to the inflowing oil that the steam jet impinges on the oil and
facilitates its evaporation and the attenuation of the vapour as above described, but
in this case I gauge the quantity and force of the jets, also the heat of the
jets and of the retorts to effect the partial separation as desired in each section
instead of the entire evaporation at once.
By the mechanical effects of the steam, and also by the divisional devices of the
retort we are able to make separations largely independent of the grades of
separation due to different temperatures of heat alone, for instance we can take off*
a first grade say 110 fire test and all the rest in a second grade or in as many more
as we wish continuing the process destructively or I can grade the products same as
usual by the old process.
In the first section the injector is arranged in suitable proximity to the mouth of
the feed pipe to impinge the steam on the oil and in the others the injectors are
similarly arranged relatively to the issue from the traps n, as shown for the same
purpose.
If greater mechanical action than one steam jet will effect may be required in
those advanced sections of the retort where the heat is generated and the oil more
dense, we will arrange one or more steam nozzles therein for the purpose.
By the term continuously flowing stream we do not mean to limit ourselves to
the strict construction thereof for we consider that a regular intermittent feed will
in some cases and with some grades of oil be desirable, for example it will be
more feasible to feed a viscous oil by intermittent measures of a large volume than
by a small continuous stream, and in such case and probably others too it may be
desirable to have like intermittent progress of the oil along the retort all of which
we include in our continuous process.
When the oil enters a section of the retort the steam impinges on it directly and
together at the entrance and instantaneously expands together with the portion of
the oil that is vaporable by the pre-established degree of heat in said section, this
vapour being immediately removed without further accessions as by the gain of
additional vapour of higher gravity that would accrue by delay in the retort and
without condensation therein-to the condenser, is a more specific and definite grade
than heretofore attainable.
The remaining oil is quickly forced along by the steam and in the atmosphere of
the same so as to avoid settling and deposit on the bottom of the retort, into the
next section in which the operation is repeated in the next higher degree of
temperature corresponding to the next grade of separation and so on throughout
the series of sections.
It is to be noted that the essential feature of our invention is the instantaneous
separation of the vapour from the rest of the oil in such manner that no portion of
the oil gets more action by the separating influences of the steam and heat than
another, which is the reason why our distillates are exactly uniform in quality
and in this respect differ from all others not liberated by instantaneous action, for
instance, such as in which the oil enters the heated retort by flowing into a long
perforated pipe out of which some of the oil is immediately expelled by fine steam
jets in close proximity to the passage of the next retort and some vapour there
produced, whilst other portions of the oil are supposed to continue for a
considerable length of time along the pipe subject to the action of numerous fine
jets passing through it so that very uneven action takes place and grades of
corresponding inequality are produced, moreover the flow of oil not vaporized in
the retort is unequal along the same, and probably none at all in the portions of the

page_text: retort more remote from the inlet and exit of the oil, which largely tends to
cause deposit in the same, which is also the case in the fine perforations' of the
oil pipe.
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For refining such oils, syrups or juices as are to be recovered-in one product, the
process will be substantially the same except that the impinging steam jets which
will generally only be used in some of the upper sections of the retort, will be less
forcible, it being then undesirable to separate the substances under treatment into
fractional parts. The steam jets then facilitate the separation of the water during
the earlier stages of the operation, and the separation of both from the liquid
are facilitated by the condensers; whilst the application of the heat is graduated
as to time and degree in the separate sections of the retort same as in the
fractional distillation.
We are aware of the Letters Patent of the United States of America to
Van der Weide No. 53,062, in which there is a system of flues so contrived that if
dampers were employed the heat could be turned off from one or more of the
sections of the still beginning with the upper end of the series, but this is not what
is accomplished by our system of flues and dampers, ours being contrived to cut out
or regulate the heat in any one or more of the section without interruption or change
in the rest either above or below.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion, and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what
we claim is:-
1. The process of continuous fractional distillation of petroleum and other
analogous oils in repeated steps of continuous succession and increased heat in
which the previously unvaporized oil is successively treated, which consists of
introducing the oil and steam together and causing the instantaneous junction of
the same collectively in an atomized condition in the several heated chambers
successively, instantaneously separating in the several chambers the portions
vaporable by the respective temperatures, accelerating the movement of both
the vaporized and unvaporized oil along the retort chambers to their respective
exit passages by the impulse of the steam jets, exposing the vaporized portions
all alike to the same conditions of time and heat in the respective chambers,
similarly exposing all the unvaporized portions therein, and likewise and instan-
taneously removing both the vaporized and unvaporized portions to the condensers
and successive sections of the retort respectively, so that all portions of each have
like exposure to the heat and steam in the respective chambers substantially as
described.
2. The combination in a still for continuous fractional distillation, of the continuous
pipe retort comprising a series of successive chambers each having the oil inlet and
a steam injector at the receiving end impinging the steam jet directly on the
entering stream of oil so as to instantly atomize it in one body and project the
same along the chamber to the opposite end, and each section having a vapour
exit and an oil exit thereat through which the vapour and oil respectively escape,
the one to the condenser and the other to the next section of the retort, the
arrangement being such that all of both the vapour and the unvaporized oil have
like exposure as to heat and time in the respective sections of the retort sub-
stantially as described.
3. The combination in a still for continuous fractional distillation, of the con-
tinuous pipe retort comprising a series of successive chambers each having the oil
inlet and a steam injector at the receiving end impinging the steam jet directly on
the entering stream of oil so as to instantly atomize it in one body and project
the same along the chamber to the opposite end and each section having a vapour
exit and an oil exit thereat through which the vapour and oil respectively escape,
the one to the condenser and the other to the next section of the retort the
arrangement being such that all of both, the vapour and the unvaporized oil have
like exposure as to heat and time in the respective sections of the retort, the

page_text: furnace underneath said pipe retort made in separate sections each containing a
section of the retort, the flues at the opposite extremities of the chamber and the
passages and dampers causing the regular or irregular traverse of the heat products
through the successive sections of the furnace substantially as described.
Deted this 6th day of January 1891.
PHILIP M. JUSTICE,
Associate Agent.