IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND OTHERWISE TREATING ORGANIC AND OTHER SUBSTANCES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bernhard Heinrich Remmers, John
Williamson, and Wallace Fairweather at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents on the 11th April 1882.
BERNHARD HEINRICH REMMERS, JOHN WILLIAMSON and WALLACE FAIRWEATHER
all of Glasgow in the County of Lanark North Britain
"IMPROVEMENTS IN
APPARATUS FOR DRYING AND OTHERWISE TREATING ORGANIC AND OTHER
SUBSTANCES."
This Invention relates to improvements in apparatus for drying or desiccating
and otherwise treating such matters as spent hops, fish offal, and other organic
refuse, for the obtainment of valuable products therefrom, and for drying mult,
grain, fruit, and other organic or inorganic substances.
The improved apparatus comprises a series of endless carrying webs or bands
fitted over each other within a drying house or chamber, and mounted either on
chains or wire ropes at each side passing over driving wheels, or carried direct by
driving and supporting rollers. These travelling webs or bands are made of lattice
boards, or of perforated zinc or brass, or of wire-cloth of copper, brass, or galvanised
iron, or of textile fabrics, or of other similar material. The bands extend the full
breadth and nearly the entire length of the drying chamber, a space being left
between the wall and ench successive band at alternate ends of the chamber, while
the alternate bands of the vertical series are traversed or driven in opposite
directions, so that the substance to be dried, which is fed on to the upper band
through a hopper, may be carried in layers from end to end of the chamber by
each land in succession. The last band of the series may either be made to carry
the dried material out of the chamber, or as is preferred, it may deliver it to a
screw fitted in a recess at the lower end or floor of the chamber, by which the
material is discharged to receptacles outside.
Between the rollers carrying the endless bands and transversely within the
space enclosed by these bands, there are fitted shallow horizontal flues or flue pipes,
preferably constructed of sheet metal and connected at alternate sides of the
chan.ber to form a continuous zig-zag flue, through which heated air or the products
of combustion from a heating furnace are passed and led to the chimney. The
furnace employed is by preference of the kind known as Perret's multiple-stage
furnace, by which a regular temperature may be maintained, and the furnace is

page_text: built on the floor of the drying chamber below the series of endless carrying bands,
the continuous flue above described being directly connected to it.
Hot air which may have been heated by passing through flues or chambers in
this furnace, or by means of a separate furnace, is led into the drying chamber
and discharged by preference below or on a level with the lowest of the series of
travelling bands, and a fan or other exhauster is fitted in communication with tho
upper end of the drying chamber to create a draught and cause the hot air to
traverse along from end to end of the chamber over the layers of material carried
by the bands. The material carried by the bands is thus dried, and if desired also
partially carbonised, by the combined action of radiant heat froin the flues within
the bands, and the hot air passing over the surface of the material and carrying
with it the funnes or vapour evolved.
"
In applying the improved apparatus for the drying of fish or fish offal, for the
production of "fish guano or manure, the material is previously boiled for the
separation and recovery therefrom of the oils and gelatinous products, and the
residue is partly freed from water or moisture by passing over a perforated band or
sieve and through one or more pairs of pressing rolls, from which it is delivered
into the hopper lending into the drying chamber. In trenting such material also
within the drying house, the fumes or vapour ovolved will contain a considerable
proportion of ammonia, which may be recovered as sulphate by leading the outlet
from the exhausting ſau into a tank containing sulphuric acid.
Or the fumes may be discharged into the heating furnace, where the water
vapour contained in them will be decomposed and produce ammonia by the com-
bination of the nascent hydrogen with the nitrogen of the furnace gases, the
ammonia thus formed being recovered from the waste products of combustion after
traversing the flue by any ordinary well known process.
In drying spent hops or other material containing a large per centage of liquid,
the liquid may be expressed by means of rollers as described, or by means of
bydraulic or other presses before the material is led into the drying chamber. Tho
spent hops thus dried may form bedding for horses or other animals and be used
to absorb urine and other matters. The bedding after use may be again passed
through the drying apparatus, and the fumes or vapours evolved recovered as
before described.
Other kinds of horse litter, such as peat moss, saw-dust, and the like, inay be
dried and treated for the recovery of valuable products within the improved
apparatus before and after use as bedding,
In drying malt or grain which may be apt to spread and pass over the sides
of the carrying bands, flexible sides or flanges are formed on or fitted to the bands,
or the bands are carried by ropes or cords which serve as retaining lips or flanges
on each side. Stirring and guiding blades are also fitted over the bands to stir
up and partially regulate the depth of the layers of material to be carried by
them. When drying such substances as malt, it is preferred to pass heated air
through the flues between the endless bands, and a regular temperature may be
maintained by diluting the hot air with a greater or smaller quantity of cold air.
Means may also be provided for automatically regulating the temperature within
the drying chamber when desired, by adinitting cold air with the hented air, and
by acting on dampers in the furnaco flue.
To avoid carbonising of the substances being dried when passing over the lower
bands where the heat from the continuous zig-zag fluo will be greatest, the lowor
bands may be driven at a higher speed than those above, and the speed may
be regulated by cone pulleys or otherwise. The flue may also be led through
between a number of the lower bands without passing through the upper on es of
the series.
In a modified arrangement of the improved apparatus, ¡the flues passing
transversely between the endless carrying bands are perforated at their upper sido
or formed with small openings capable of being regulated so that the heated air,
or hot products of combustion passing through the flue may in part escape through

page_text: these openings or perforations into the drying chamber directly under the carrying
bands and by passing through the bands may more readily effect the drying of
the material on them. This arrangement may be adopted generally when hot air
is passed through the heating flue, but when the products of combustion from a
furnace traverse the fluo the perforated arrangement can only be used in drying
such substances as are not injuriously affected by the smoke or hot gases of the
furnace used.
When the material to be dried is also to be bleached, deodorised, or similarly
treated, fumes of sulphur, chlorine, or other suitable re-agent, as may bo required
for the particular circumstances, are passed through the perforated flue along with
the heated air or hot products of combustion of the heating furnace.