IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND PROCESSES FOR DEODORIZING AND TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER REFUSE, AND MANUFACTURING THEREFROM MANURE AND OTHER SUBSTANCES FOR CHEMICAL AND OTHER USES."
Year: 1866

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Edward Noone, of No. 50, George Street,
Hastings, in the County of Sussex, Civil Engineer, for the Inven-
tion of "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND PROCESSES FOR DEODORIZING AND
TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER REFUSE, AND MANUFACTURING THEREFROM
MANURE AND OTHER SUBSTANCES FOR CHEMICAL AND OTHER USES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Edward Noone
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 25th April 1866.
I, GEORGE EDWARD NOONE, of No. 50, George Street, Hastings, in
the County of Sussex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND PROCESSES FOR
DEODORIZING AND TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER REFUSE, AND MANUFACTURING
THEBEFROM MANURE AND OTHER SUBSTANCES FOR CHEMICAL AND OTHER USES,". to
be as follows:-
This Invention relates to certain improvements upon the machinery
and process or processes set forth in the Specification of Letters Patent
granted to me on the 14th of November, One thousand eight hundred
and sixty-four, No. 2832, by which improvements a large amount of

page_text: ammonia is secured in the form of salammoniac or other ammoniacal
salt from liquid and solid sewage and other refuse matters; also the
solid matters of such sewage or refuse are purified by separating from
them grit, sand, stone, and other matters of little value.
My invention as applied to town sewage consists, ürst, in placing a
tank at or near the outfall of the sewer, divided into compartments with
percolating partitions and sluices to open and shut at pleasure. One
of the compartments retains the solid matter to be lifted to the machine
above, the others hold the liquid which is pumped out; part of it, by
preference the strongest part, is pumped into the machine just men-
tioned. This machine is what I term a washing apparatus, consisting of
one or more tanks or receivers divided by double partitions with space
between, one of each pair of partitions being fixed to the top, the other
to the bottom of the tank. In these tanks or receivers I produce agita-
tion of the liquid and solid matters raised from the tank below either
separately or together by means of one or more agitators acting either
mechanically, as by fans, beaters, plungers, or other suitable mechanical
arrangements of parts, or by jets of steam, air, or liquid thrown upon or
into the sewage to be purified. The sewage is allowed to flow over,
under, or through the partitions either regularly or intermittently from
tank to tank when more than one are used, leaving the heavier mineral
substances, such as grit and sand and other refuse behind, to be sepa-
rately removed from time to time as may be required. I sometimes use
heat in this process. The double partitions are sufficiently far apart to
prevent choking, and are arranged by preference so that the sewage
may flow over the top of the first partition, under the second, and then
ascend into the next compartment, leaving the sand, grit, and other
heavy refuse at the bottom of the tanks, which may be cleaned through
a man-hole or otherwise.
Secondly, I pass the sewage thus separated from the mineral and
other refuse matters into a tank subjected to heat where the organic
and other substances held in suspension are combined with lime or
lime liquor with or without soda or potash, the ammonia thus freed
passes to a condenser containing hydrochloric or other acid, where it is
retained, and the liquor thus made is afterwards converted into sal-
ammoniac or other salt of ammonia by means of evaporating pans or
otherwise. I cause the organic and solid matters generally thus sepa-
rated to enter a calciner or drying machine, as described in my Speci-
fication before mentioned, or instead of such calciner a chamber or
chambers heated by the direct action of fire or by hot air or steam.
I add to the calciner or hot chambers a dome top or shield supported
on pillars to prevent the vapour when condensed returning to the body

page_text: of the calciner or hot chambers on to the solid matter while being dried,
such condensed vapour being carried off by a canal round the lower part
of the dome or shield. This liquor with the other pumped-up sewage
water is passed to a main in connection with perpendicular pipes or
hydrants containing chambers with perforated bottoms charged with
lime, charcoal, animal black, gravel, or small stones, or other substances
suitable for filtering purposes, thus all subtances held in suspension
are made to subside. These percolating chambers are made movable
from the hydrants for the convenience of cleansing. The substances used
in filtering together with the filterings, when either or both, are of a fer-
tilizing nature, are mixed with the other purified solid matters. The
solids, when dried as described, are pulverized in a mortar or otherwise,
and screened to separate the fine from the coarse.
Thirdly, my Invention consists in compounding the dried purified
solid matter of sewage with ammoniacal salts obtained as above de-
scribed or otherwise in such proportions as may be desirable according
to the strength of the manure required; also in compounding the solid
matter of sewage either with or without the addition of ammoniacal
salts with natural or artificial phosphates or other chemical substances
of fertilizing properties, so as to make a compound artificial manure pos-
sessing the character required for the particular crop it is intended for.
"Fourthly, my Invention consists in a mechanical arrangement for
making the compound before described. This consists of a bin with.
several compartments, which contain the several ingredients to be com-
pounded. In each compartment a roller or chain wheel is fixed, round
which a chain passes. The chain carries small cups made to hold a fixed
amount and caused to dip into and take a portion of the pulverized con-
tents from the respective compartments up an inclined channel, at the
top of which the cups pass over a second chain wheel, and becoming
inverted discharge their contents into a general receiving chamber.
These contents then pass on to a screen or sieve having a reciprocating
or shaking motion, and are sifted and fall into a bin or receptacle below.
The cups are capable of being removed from the chain when cups of
larger or small capacity are required.
The various parts of the foregoing arrangements requiring motive
power may be moved by steam, water, or other prime mover, or where.the
scale of the apparatus is small by animal power or by manual labour;.
and in order to prevent any annoyance or nuisance arising from the pro-
cess I hermetically seal the whole of the apparatus from the outfall of or.
inlet from the sewer to the discharge of the calciner, where the solid
portion is returned dried and deodorized; and tlie waters pass purified
from the mouth of the hydrants. the

page_text: The foregoing arrangements or parts of them may be employed for
deodorizing sewage and other refuse for sanitary purposes irrespective
of the manufacture of manure, the resulting chemicals being used for
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said George Edward Noone in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 25th October 1866.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, J, GEORGE
EDWARD NOONE, of No. 50, George Street, Hastings, in the County of
Sussex, Civil Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fifth day of April, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, in the twenty-ninth
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto me, the said George Edward Noone, Her special licence that I,
the said George Edward Noone, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said George Edward Noone,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others from time to time and at all
times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and
Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN MACHINERY AND PROCESSES
FOR DEODORIZING AND TREATING SEWAGE AND OTHER REFUSE, AND MANUFACTURING
THEREFROM MANURE AND OTHER SUBSTANCES FOR CHEMICAL AND OTHE USES,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said George
Edward Noone, my executors or administrators, by an instrument
in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and
in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to
be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next
and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said George Edward Noone, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and
by the following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings
hereunto annexed, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to certain improvements upon the machinery
and process or processes set forth in the Specification of Letters Patent

page_text: granted to me on the 14th day of November 1864, No. 2832, by which
improvements a large amount of ammonia is secured in the form of sal
ammoniac or other ammoniacal salt, and the fertilizing constituents of
sewage are effectually separated from grit, sand, stone, and other matters
of little value, while from the greater efficacy of the manure and its
diminished bulk a corresponding advantage ensues to the agriculturist
in its application to the soil as well as economy in its transit. In the
present Invention I use lime or lime liquor, with or without sodator
potash, with the application of heat for the purpose of freeing the
ammonia and hydrochloric or other acids to condense the same into sal-
ammoniac in solution; also sulphate of lime and other known filtering
substances placed in proper chambers in pipes or hydrants for the pur-
pose of causing the removal of all solid matter suspended in the weaker
sewage which may not be pumped up to wash the solid and extract the
ammonia as hereafter explained.
My Invention as applied to town sewage consists; first, in placing at
or near the outfall of the sewer a tank divided into compartments, with
percolating and protecting partitions and sluices to open and shut at
pleasure; one of these compartments retains the solid matter to be
lifted to a machine above, as described in the Specification of the before-
mentioned Letters Patent, the other holds the liquid, part of which, by
preference the strongest part, is pumped up into the machine just men-
tioned. The remainder of the sewage water is caused to pass by gravi
tation, as hereafter explained, through pipes or hydrants charged with
filters. The machine above mentioned is what I term a washing
machine. If the tank at the outfall of the sewer is at a sufficient eleva-
tion the washing machine may be placed at a lower elevation, so that
the solid portion and part of the liquid portion of the sewage may be
caused to flow into it: The washing machine consists of one or more
tanks or receivers divided by double partitions with space between to
prevent clogging, one of each pair of the partitions being fixed to the
top and the other to the bottom of the tank. In these tanks or receivers
I produce agitation of the liquid and solid matters raised from the tank
below, either separately or together, by means of one or more agitators
acting either mechanically, as by fans, beaters, plungers, or other suit-
able mechanical arrangements of parts, or by jets of steam, air, or
liquid thrown upon or into the sewage to be purified; the sewage is
allowed to flow over, under, and through the partitions either regularly
or intermittently from tank to tank when more than one are used, leaving
the heavier mineral substances, such as grit, sand, stone, and other
refuse behind, to be separately removed from time to time through man-
holes in front of the apparatus or otherwise. I sometimes use heat in

page_text: this process. The double partitions are sufficiently far apart to prevent
choking, and are arranged by preference so that the sewage may flow
over the top of the first partition and under the second, and then ascend
into the next compartment, leaving the sand, grit, and other heavy
refuse at the bottom of the tanks to be cleared as before described.. >
Secondly, I pass the sewage thus separated by means of the parti-
tions, before mentioned from the mineral and other refuse matter into
a tank subjected to heat, and having a dome top and pipe communicat-
ing with a bulb condenser charged with hydrochloric acid. This I call
my ammonia tank, in which the organic and other substances held in
suspension are combined with lime or lime liquor, with or without soda
or potash, made by preference from sewage water pumped into a tank
for that purpose, which tank communicates with the ammonia tank and
supplies the required amount. The ammonia thus freed by the lime
liquor passes to the condenser charged with hydrochloric or other acid
and becomes salammoniac in solution; it is afterwards converted by
evaporating pans into crystallized salammoniac. A fresh charge from
the washing tank causes the organic and solid matter thus separated
from the ammonia to flow over and under another set of partitions into
a tank fitted with perforated plates or with an endless wire cloth work-
ing over 2 rollers in an inclined position, to which motion is given, the
solid sewage being in a kind of pulp form flows on to the wire cloth
and is taken up under a roller working on the surface of the cloth, which
presses the liquor from the solid sewage through the wire cloth into a
save-all; while the solid matter continuing its longitudinal traverse on
the wire cloth falls nearly dry into a calciner or drying chamber, as
described in the Specification before mentioned, or instead of such cal-
ciner a chamber or chambers heated by the direct action of fire or by
hot air or steam. I add to the calciner or hot chamber a dome top or
shield supported on pillars to prevent the vapour when condensed re-
turning to the body of the calciner or hot chambers on to the solid
matter while being dried, such condensed vapour being carried off by
a. canal round the lower part of the dome or shield. Instead of being
passed over a wire cloth or perforated plates to separate the liquor from
the solid sewage as before explained, the sewage may be strained by any
other known method in its passage from the ammonia tank to the cal-
ciner or hot chambers. The liquor resulting from the condensed vapour
from the calciner or hot chambers with the other pumped-up sewage
water which has passed through the save-all before mentioned falls into
a main in connection with pipes or hydrants containing various chambers
with: perforated bottoms charged with substances suitable for filtering

page_text: purposes, such as sulphate of lime, charcoal, and gravel, through which
the main body of the sewage water, as well as that which has been
pumped up-and passed through the tanks, is filtered by gravitation, and
all substances held in suspension are thereby removed. These percolat-
ing chambers are made movable from the hydrants for the convenience
of cleaning, and may be lifted by a windlass with sliding pulley fixed
over the mouth of the hydrants. The substance used for filtering,
together with the filterings when either or both are of a fertilizing nature,
are mixed with the other purified solid matter. The solids when dried
as described are pulverized in a mortar or otherwise, and screened to
separate the fine from the coarse.
I compound the dried purified solid matter of sewage with ammoniacal
salts obtained as above described or otherwise in such proportions as
may be desirable according to the strength of manure required, also I
compound the solid matter of sewage, either with or without the
addition of ammoniacal salts, with natural or artificial phosphates or
other chemical substances of fertilizing properties, so as to make a com-
pound artificial manure possessing the character required for the par-
ticular crop it is intended for.
Lastly, my Invention consists in a mechanical arrangement for making
the compound before described. This consists of a bin with several com-
partments which contain the several ingredients to be compounded;
in each compartment a roller or chain wheel is fixed, round which an
endless chain passes. The chain carries small cups made to hold a fixed
amount, and caused to dip into and take a portion of the pulverized con-
tents from the respective compartments up an inclined channel, at the
top of which the cups pass over a second chain wheel and becoming in-
verted discharge their contents into a general receiving chamber; these
contents then pass on to a screen or sieve having a reciprocating or shak-
ing motion, and are thus sifted and fall into a bin or receptacle below.
The cups are capable of being removed from the chain when cups of
larger or of smaller capacity are required.
The various parts of the foregoing arrangements requiring motive
power may be moved by steam, water, or other prime mover, or where
the scale of the apparatus is small by animal power or manual labour;
and in order to prevent any annoyance or nuisance arising from the
process I hermetically seal the whole of the apparatus from the outfall
or inlet of the sewer to the discharge of the calciner, where the solid
portion of the sewage returns dried and deodorized, and the liquid
portion passes purified from the mouth of the hydrants.
The foregoing arrangements or parts of them may be employed for
deodorizing sewage and other refuse for sanitary purposes irrespective

page_text: of the manufacture of manure, the resulting chemicals being used for
any purpose for which they may be suitable or treated as waste.
Figure 1 of the accompanying Drawings is a block plan showing the
arrangement and combination of the machinery and apparatus herein-
before referred to; Figure 2 represents the tank at the outfall of the
sewer, which tank is only represented in dotted lines in Figure 1. A is
this tank; it is divided by percolating and protecting partitions at B
into two compartments C, D, of which the compartment C retains the
solid sewage, while the liquid. sewage passes to the compartment D.
E is an inclined channel for a dredger or a chain carrying buckets, as
described in my former Specification before referred to, for lifting the
solid sewage from the compartment C into the washing machine or
tank F. G, G, are pumps for raising a portion of the liquid sewage
from the compartment D into the washing tank; H is the ammonia tank
into which the sewage is passed after having been treated in the wash-
ing tank; I is a dome top and pipe to the ammonia tank communicating
with a condenser J, charged with hydrochloric or other acid; K is the
lime liquor tank, the liquid being supplied thereto from the compart-
ment D by the pumps G; the tank K communicates with and supplies
the necessary amount of lime liquor to the ammonia tank H. The
ammonia freed by the lime liquor passes to the condenser J and becomes
salammoniac in solution; this is afterwards converted into crystallized
salammoniac by evaporating pans L. M represents a mortar and pestle;
N is the tank, fitted with an endless travelling wire cloth, on to which
the sewage in a pulpy states passes from the ammonia tank H. A roller
presses upon the sewage on this cloth and squeezes out the liquid portion
into a save-all below, while the solid portion passes on to the calciner O.
P, P, are the pipes or hydrants for filtering the liquor, and constructed
and arranged as before explained. The main body of the sewage water
which has not been pumped up from the compartment D, as well as
that from the save-all below the wire cloth, and that resulting from the
condensed vapour from the calciner O passes through the pipes or
hydrants P, P, and is thereby filtered, all substances held in suspension
being removed. Q is a bin formed with several compartments, into one
of which the dried solid sewage passes from the calciner O, while the
other compartments are supplied with the several ingredients to be
mixed with the sewage for making manure.
R is a chain wheel in each
compartment; the chains carry cups which dip into and take up the
contents, of the several compartments and discharge them into a general
receiving chamber S, below which is a sieve for sifting them into a
receptacle, T is the engine for driving the various parts; U, U, are
the steam boilers, and V, the ash-pit; W, W, are man-holes in the tank A:

page_text: And having now described the nature of my said Invention, and in
what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I do not con-
fine myself to the precise forms and arrangements of machinery herein-
before described, as the same may be modified in many ways without
departing from the main features thereof; what I claim as my "Improve-
ments in Machinery and Processes for Deodorizing and Treating Sewage
and other Refuse, and Manufacturing therefrom Manure and other Sub-
stances for Chemical and other Uses," is,-
First, the construction and employment of what I have herein-before
termed a washing machine, arranged and acting substantially as herein-
before described, for the purpose of separating sand, grit, stone, and
other heavy refuse from the sewage matters.
Second, the separation from the sewage matters of ammonia, and the
condensation thereof substantially by the means and in manner herein-
before described.
Third, constructing the calciner or hot chamber or chambers in which
the solid sewage is dried with a dome top or shield formed with a canal
for carrying off the condensed vapour, substantially as herein-before de-
scribed.
Fourth, the construction and employment for filtering liquid sewage
of pipes or hydrants formed with chambers having perforated bottoms
and charged with filtering substances, substantially as herein-before de-
scribed.
Fifth, the general arrangement of machinery substantially as herein-
before described for compounding dried solid sewage and other materials
for the manufacture of manure.
Sixth, the general combination of chemical and mechanical processes,
substantially as herein-before described, for deodorizing and treating
sewage and other refuse.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Edward Noone, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-fourth day of October,
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six.
GEORGE EDWP. NOONE. (L.S.)