Iм- PROVEMENTS IN THE COMPOSITION OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL, WITH THE MACHINERY EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE THEREOF
Year: 1855

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Blunt, of Wanstead, in the County of
Essex, Gentleman, and Joseph John William Watson, of Wandsworth,
in the County of Surrey, Doctor of Philosophy, for the Invention of "Iм-
PROVEMENTS IN THE COMPOSITION OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL, WITH THE MACHINERY
EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE THEREOF."
Sealed the 29th June 1855, and dated the 11th April 1855.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles Blunt and Joseph
John William Watson at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents,
with their Petition, on the 11th April 1855.
We, CHARLES BLUNT, of Wanstead, in the County of Essex, Gentleman,
and JOSEPH JOHN WILLIAM WATSON, of Wandsworth, in the County of Surrey,
Doctor of Philosophy, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE COMPOSITION OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL, WITH THE MACHINERY
EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE THEREOF," to be as follows:-
The nature and intention of our said improvement consists, firstly, the
employment of glutinous, viscous, or other cohesive agents in composition with
screenings, the small of coal, or carbonaceous substances; the composition of
the said fuel, and the machinery suited to and specially constructed for the

page_text: manufacture thereof with reference to such material, forming substantively one
Invention.
Secondly, the said machinery or mechanical construction and arrangement
consists of centrifugal apparatus, by which we reduce and prepare the mucilage
and materials composing our artificial fuel.
Thirdly, the mechanical construction and arrangements of passages, conduits,
or channels distributed in radiating lines in and around the basin of the
machine, by means of which we direct and compress such materials, affording
them their requisite consistency.
Fourthly, the mechanical construction and arrangements of iron or other
moulds in connection with the said channels or conduits arranged around the
circumference of the basin of such machine, and by which we effect the
spherical, spheroidal, or other suitable and convenient forms in which it is
desired to produce the blocks, balls, or bricks of fuel.
We use the first in the application of viscous, glutinous, or other cohesive
agents in the manufacture of the material of our new fuel; the second, in the
application of centrifugal force to effect the commingling, reduction, and
mixture of the compound or components so employed in the production of
artificial fuel; the third, the compression and directing of the mass towards
and into the moulds; the fourth, the obtaining regulated pressure according
to and following the speed at which the machine may be driven, by which we
effect the requisite precision of form and delivery.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Charles Blunt and Joseph John William Watson in the
Great Seal Patent Office on the 10th October 1855.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wе, CHARLES
BLUNT, of Wanstead, in the County of Essex, Gentleman, and JOSEPH JOHN
WILLIAM WATSON, of Wandsworth, in the County of Surrey, Doctor of
Philosophy, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Eleventh day of April, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, in the eighteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto us, the said
Charles Blunt and Joseph John William Watson, Her special licence that we,
the said Charles Blunt and Joseph John William Watson, our executors,

page_text: administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the said Charles Blunt and
Joseph John William Watson, our 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 "IH-
PROVEMENTS IN THE COMPOSITION OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL, WITH THE MACHINERY
EMPLOYED IN THE MANUFACTURE THEREOF," upon the condition (amongst others)
that we, the said Charles Blunt and Joseph John William Watson, (or one of
us,) by an instrument in writing under our hands and seals, or under the hand
and seal of one of us, 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 Joseph John William Watson, on
behalf of myself and the said Charles Blunt, do hereby declare the nature of
our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be
particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement,
that is to say-
Allusion is made by us, in the first place, to a Patent, bearing date the
Twenty-first day of August, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight
hundred and fifty-four, entitled "an improved description of artificial fuel,"
because we, the Patentees, declare this our present Specification to be our
Specification of new machinery, compositions, and combinations specially bear-
ing upon, carrying out, and further augmenting the applicability, usefulness, and
economy of the said Invention. It will therefore be necessary that we herein
set forth so much of our former Invention and Patent for "an improved
description of artificial fuel" as may be necessary to elucidate and exemplify
the constructive uses of our "machinery employed in the manufacture thereof,"
and in the applicability of our "improvements in the composition of artificial
fuel," such new matters being the subject of our present Patent, and of which
we declare this to be our final Specification. So much, therefore, of the
Specification for artificial fuel to which we refer, as being in some degree
necessary to the clear and ready understanding of our present Patent and
Specification, as well as from other documents, are as follows:-
"The fuel denominated cellular or spherical may be shortly described. It
consists of hollow or cellular spheres, or of speroidal or other forms, varying
from two inches to six inches in diameter. These spheres or balls of fuel are
composed of the small of screened coal, or other small coal, found at the pit's

page_text: mouth in incalculable quantities, and although possessing the character of
being the more unctious or finest portion of the coal raised from given workings,
is either entirely wasted or consumed in the most wanton disregard of its value,
the quantities being enormous, varying from one-third to one-fourth of the
quantity of coal drawn."
"Our improvements consists in the introduction of a cellular, spherical, or
spheroidal form to the fuel, whereby great facility of combustion is obtained,
and the whole or larger portion of the products consumed."
"The various forms of our cellular and spherical fuel which we propose to
adopt, and which will (reference being made to the Drawings of the same which
accompany this our Specification) best exhibit our principle of construction,
and the entire novelty thereof."
"The illustrative Drawing of Blunt and Watson's Patent for an improved
description of artificial fuel," deposited and filed by them with their final
Specification of such Patent in the Great Seal Patent Office, will be found
to contain the various modifications of cellular fuel referred to in their Patent,
numbered respectively from one to fifteen.
Having thus referred to the artificial fuel itself, which it is intended shall
be made from and manufactured by the composition, and the machinery, which
is the subject of this our present Patent, we shall proceed to describe and
ascertain the nature of our said Invention, according to the requisition made
and provided in relation to patents for inventions; and we do this altogether
and distinctly by itself, as a full and proper compliance with the condition of
our grant of Patent ("amongst others "), by this our instrument in writing
under our hand and seal, particularly describing and ascertaining the nature
of our said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and
as if we had in no way introduced the description of our present Patent,
by reference to any other or former Patent, or other thing or document
whatsoever.
The nature and intention of our said improvement consists in the employment
of glutinous, viscous, or other cohesive agents in composition with the screenings
of coal, or other small coal or carbonaceous substances; the entire composition
itself and components thereof being specially suited to the machinery employed
in the manufacture or fabrication of the spheres, spheroids, balls, blocks, cakes,
cylinders, or bricks of fuel, or other suitable shape and convenient forms in
which it may be desired to produce the fuel, the machinery specially constructed
for the manufacture thereof with reference to the components and composition
of such fuel. Although the material of our composition for "an improved
description of artificial fuel," and "the machinery employed in the manu-

page_text: facture thereof," from substantively one Invention, yet are both Inventions
distinct; thus, the material of the fuel may be employed by us in any modifi-
cation of our improved machinery, to be herein-after particularly described, as
well as that the particular organization or express example of our improved
machine herein specified is itself calculated to manufacture artificial fuel from
many of the known components of such artificial fuels now existing and
employed.
Proceeding with our final Specification in the order in which our improve-
ments stand in the title of our Provisional Specification and of our Letters
Patent, we take first our "improvements in the composition of artificial fuel,".
which we declare to be as follows:-We purpose confining ourselves strictly
to the facts elucidated by us in our experiments, and the results practically
obtained by our experience in working the same, without going into physical
or chemical details.
And we here take occasion to remark, that we shall claim to use in the
proper place in this our Specification our improvements in the composition of
artificial fuel, irrespective of its applicability to our own or any other description
of machine whatsoever, which is or may be the subject of a Patent, such
composition being intended and calculated for fabrication by hand as readily
as for manufacture by machine. In the preparation of the small of coal
screenings or other carbonaceous matters, it has been found necessary to employ
among the ingredients of their composition caustic lime; thus; in one artificial
fuel, which we here take occasion to refer to, we find caustic lime, gypseous,
and aluminous clay forming so large a portion of the whole compound as
to damage in a very great degree its properties of combustion, independent of
rendering it unfit for engineer or domestic purposes, by reason of its friability
and ash, its properties of clogging the furnaces and fire bars where employed,
and, lastly, its want of calorific power as a fuel. We have introduced these
practical remarks in the composition of the particular artificial fuel to which
we refer, because these ingredients are common to many other fuels, and it is
the avowed employment of which ingredients in a novel and particular manner,
and combined with other substances, "that they bind or hold the mass together
in the blocks or forms in which it is made," that we obtain in our fuel that
perfect homogenity, hardness, and figure, which are in all cases and under all
circumstances preserved to it, together with a total avoidance of odour or smell
of any kind, the impossibility of abrasion, spontaneous combustion, crumbling,
or softening under any degree of heat short of from three hundred and fifty to
four hundred degrees.
We now proceed to detail our process of manufacture, which is as follows:-

page_text: We take of the small or screenings of coal from the pit's mouth or elsewhere
as much as may be designed to manipulate and manufacture; let this be screened
or reduced by a revolving sieve or other process to the degree of fineness it
may be desired that the spheres of fuel should present; saturate this mass
with water in which quick lime has previously been dissolved. It will then be
found that the water has taken up the quantity of lime due to its own volume,
the amount so taken up being precisely that which is required by us in our
preliminary preparation of the screenings or the small of coal. The screenings
after being thus prepared should next be subjected to stirring, and in all cases
in the open air, if possible; this should be done to an extent or point which
shall leave the mass so saturated decidedly humid, without its remaining or
being very wet. Although the small coal subjected to this operation may. be
used at once, that is, further prepared by being subjected to its necessary and
succeeding operation, viz, the final admixture of the whole body of small
coal so prepared by the stirring into it the vicous, glutinous, or cohesive agents
employed to bind and hold the mass together homogeneically, yet has it been
found in practice and desirable, and therefore to follow as a rule, that the
coal or screenings, after the preliminary saturation in lime water, here referred
to, has been properly carried out, it should remain as little time as possible
before the second operation be performed. And further, that where time,
convenience, or cost may determine the expediency, the process of repeating
the saturation of the screenings or the small of coal may be so repeated with
great advantage, such repetitions of the process giving for result that a much
smaller actual amount of gluten or other cohesive agent is then required to
bind the mass than would be demanded were the process of saturation per-
formed sparingly or only once.
The cohesive materials which we employ in
addition to the lime water are the various clays and soft shales which are found
in contact with the coal and carboniferous stratas as well as acgillaceous marls
and marl stones. The cementitious materials of the coal shale when ground
or "pugged" in water form an excellent binding material with the lime for
the balls; with these materials we always use a certain portion of gluten, glue,
or other form of coarse gelatine, wheat gluten, or other vegetable gluten,
which may be obtained from any of the known sources of these materials.
Whenever it is desired to carry out the second process, an iron pan of eight
feet six inches in diameter by four feet six inches or five feet in depth should
be employed; such pan that is of such capacity, whether of cast iron or con-
structed of boiler plate, will be found best calculated for the purpose. The
sides of such pan should be vertical, or nearly so, and firmly held or set, that
shaking or vibration may be. altogether avoided, the perfect admixture of our

page_text: fuel requiring considerable power in the apparatus employed in stirring and
manipulating it, and which could not be practically effected were not the pan
rigidly held in its place. A trap or shutter should be placed in the bottom of
the pan, of two foot six inches long by one foot six inches wide, through which
the material would be delivered into a hopper communicating with the top
of the centrifugal machine, as indicated in the Drawing. A sweep attached
to the vertical shaft of the stirrer, to be herein-after described, would dis-
charge the contents of the pan in a few revolutions of the sweep immediately
upon the removal of the trap or shutter provided for that purpose. Having
thus described the pan itself, and the self-acting mode in which it may be con-
structed to discharge its contents, we proceed to describe the other portions,
the vertical shaft, the stirrers, motion, &c. The vertical shaft itself should be
of wrought iron, three inches in diameter, descending immediately into the
centre of the pan, without, however, actually touching the bottom. The shaft
would be held in its place by a collar or cross stay passing over and held on
to the top of the pan, and would receive its motion from a bevil wheel two
foot six inches in diameter, driven by a pinion of ten inches, such bevil wheel
being affixed to the top extremity of the vertical shaft, supported by plummer
blocks, hanging carriages, and collar in the usual manner, the motion being
taken directly from the engine through the agency of riggers and driving
band. From the vertical shaft should radiate three or more arms in wrought
iron, placed at different heights upon the vertical shaft, so as to divide the
height of the pan and its contents into as many divisions as there are arms
employed. Descending from these arms, and affixed by nuts strongly screwed
on, should be placed six or eight wrought-iron stirrers, of ten inches in length
by two inches in breadth; one of which should be placed upon or near the
extremity of the arms, and the rest equally divided in its length, the length of
the radiating arms themselves being the semi-diameter of the pan, short a suffi-
cient clearance from the sides of the pan. The stirrers being a blade form,
should upon two of the arms be so set and have their faces so arranged as to
direct and turn the material of our fuel during its admixture and manipulation
in an outward direction, while those upon the other arms would be so set as to
turn and direct such material inwards, effecting and giving by which arrange-
ment a continuous and universal motion thereby to the mass not otherwise to
be obtained. It will now be perceived that we give a particular description of
this apparatus, because it actually forms a leading portion of our means of
manufacture, and is imperatively called for to the true and practical under-
standing of our new composition. Of the mucilage or material employed by

page_text: us, we take any gluten or cohesive agent which is soluble or reducible in water
or otherwise, the sources of supply being known and as various as they are
inexhaustible, the quantities required to bind and hold the mass together
varying with its quality; and whether such gluten be animal or vegetable, or
whether any and whatever cohesive agent is or may be employed, operates in
no degree against the fact that such glutinous or cohesive agents used
intimately and by manipulation with the screenings or the small of coal after
such screenings shall have been subjected to the process of saturation, as before
described, gives to the material substances a dense and compact character,
amounting when further subjected to the action of our centrifugal machine a
condition amounting to a degree of hardness nothing short of coal itself in its
solid form; the peculiar features of the fuel thus produced being, that the
section of a sphere or other mass exhibits a moleicular arrangement or con-
gelation of its constituents by such centrifugal action as to give the appearance
to it of an actual crystilization having resulted to its particles.
We now proceed to specify and describe our centrifugal machine itself,
and the means we adopt to produce the spheres or spheroids, bricks,
balls, or cakes of fuel from the composition herein described and referred
to, or from any other class or character of composition employed in the
manufacture of artificial fuel. The apparatus, although exceedingly simple,
will require the reader to refer to the Drawing which accompanies this
Specification. He will there find that the appearance of complexity at
first suggested resolves itself into a repetition of parts, and that what is
true of one pair of mould plates is also of the entire machine. We at once
refer to the Drawing, which is sectional, the line of section being taken
through the centre of the vertical shaft, and consequently through the
centre of the machine, the basin of the machine being six feet in diameter,
or of other convenient dimensions, and is constructed in seginents bolted
together on the under side by rib pieces of iron, constructed of wrought, (the
materials used may be either wood, or iron, or other metal, or any of these
substances combined), or by flanges, if of cast. Twenty-two or any other con-
venient number of these pieces or divisions from the bottom of the machine.
At the extremity of each segment, and held in their places by wrought-iron
stay frames, which entirely surround the machines, and to which also a portion
of the lid or flange is affixed, are firmly attached the fixed side plates, of which
there are any convenient number (according to the diameter of the machine),
within the cylinder of which the fixed side plates lean inwards, so that the top
of the machine is of less diameter than the periphery of the bottom, on which

page_text: are a series of flanges, varying in number according to the diameter of the
machine. These flanges form guides and stays to a series of boxes, which are
restrained by them against the side plates, and form a series of segments to
an inner and moveable cylinder, which they themselves compose. These
boxes consist of two parts joined together by pegs, as shewn in the Drawing,
in each of which are sunk hemispherical moulds made of copper sheeting,
zinc, sheet iron, or other metal. In one of the hemispheres is a core of metal
in the form of a cone, which projects the eighth of an inch or so into the
opposite hemisphere. The hemispheres fit accurately to each other, and
opposite to the point of the core in the one hemisphere is a small aperture in
the other hemisphere, which when the box is in situ communicates with the
interior of the cylinder, and gives access for the fuel. The boxes are retained
in their place by a moveable flange, which is kept down by snugs, bolted on to
the guides or flanges, and through which is passed a cottar and drop pin, or
any other secure form of fastening. We do not confine ourselves to any par-
ticular size for the boxes or the hemispheres, but we prefer the size to be for
the latter three and a half inches, and we contain as many of them in the boxes
as space will admit of. Near to and around the base of the conical cone in the
one hemisphere we insert a piece of fine wire gauze, which at the same time that
it permits the water effectually to drain away from the fuel paste, it effectually
restrains the paste from passing through its meshes. We do not, however,
confine ourselves to the use of these boxes as constructed in the manner
described, but occasionally use ring boxes or annuli, in which the position of
the hemispheres is reversed, the cone being downward, and the access to the
mould gained by means of an aperture made at the point of junction of the
hemispheres. These annuli or ring boxes may either be made in segments or
in whole circles, in both of which cases their number will be regulated by the
size of the machine, and particularly its depth, which we prefer to be about two
feet four inches at the side plates, and two feet eight inches near the shaft.
There is yet a third form which we employ in constructing the machine, and
which consists, to describe it shortly, of having the hemispheres which do not
contain the cores sunk into fixed side plates, while those which contain the
cores are attached by hinges at the bottom to the lower periphery of the
cylinder, and fastened against the flange or upper periphery by means of
snugs and cottars. When the shutters are in a position with the fixed plates,
the two hemispheres, from the perfect mould and the ingress of the fuel
paste, is by small apertures at the back and in the centre of the hemispheres
sunk into the fixed side plates.

page_text: At this
The use of the machine is as follows:-While the fuel paste is being
delivered into the cylinder through the hopper, the machine is made to rotate
slowly; but after the last portions have been delivered, the speed is gradually
increased up to one thousand five hundred revolutions per minute.
speed the paste is flung violently from the centre to the sides, where, meeting
with the apertures leading to the moulds, it enters, and is moulded into the
spherical form, becoming gradually dryer and harder as it is more and more
subjected to the enormous pressure occasioned by the centrifugal action, which
condenses the particles of the paste into the smallest possible compass, and
drives off the water, which returns into the body of the machine, or finds its
way by ducts through the into the outer fixed casing or jacket, which, as a guard
against accident, always envelopes and surrounds at a distance of a few inches
the revolving cylinder. After the machine has been in action from ten to
twenty minutes, according to the nature of the fuel paste operated on, it is
stopped, and the boxes, annuli, or falling mould plates removed, and the fuel
extracted from the moulds, when it is dried in a warm chamber, and in twenty-
four hours is ready for use.
The general references to the Drawing which accompanies this Specification
are as follows:-
Fig. 1. A is the vertical shaft of the machine; B is the disc or bottom,
composed of segmental plates rivetted together, and secured and strengthened
by the knife blade girders G; C are the fixed side plates or outer skin of the
machine, constructed for the sake of lightness of stout wiring, strengthened
by vertical ribs inserted between the meshes of the wire casing; D is the
flange comb or disc plate, keyed on to the shaft A, and attached to the radial
strap E; E is the radial strap, attached to the extension bars F, which are
bolted or otherwise secured to the upper periphery of the wired case C;
G is the knife blade girder, strengthening the bottom and supporting the ribs
of the wire casing C and the guides to flanges M; H is the lid or moveable
flange, hinged on to the rib C by the hinge K, and secured by the snug I and
the cotter with drop pin Q; I is the snug, bolted on to the moveable flange H;
K is the hinge by which the moveable flange H is attached to the rib C;
L is the mode of strengthening the junction of the guide M and the extension
rod F; M is the guide and stay for the box S, S; N is the case or jacket
for preventing dispersion of the water which escapes from the moulds I, I,
through the duct Z; O is a fragmentary view of the hopper by which the
fuel paste is delivered into the cylinder; P is a snug, attached to the extension
bar F, through which the drop pin and cotter Q secures two segments of

page_text: the moveable flange H; Q are the drop pins which secure the flanges H;
P, P, P, P, are the cones in the interior of the spherical moulds I; S is the
box containing the spherical moulds I, I, I, I, I, which communicate with
the interior of machine by means of the apertures T; Z is a duct leading
off the water which escapes through the box S, S, from the moulds I, I,
into the jacket N.
Fig. 2 shows the box S, S, in plan, together with the apertures which
communicate with the moulds I, I, as well as the arrangement of the snugs
and cottars J, Q, by which the moveable flange H prevents the mould
boxes S, S, from flying out of the machine whilst in action; M, M, in this
Figure shews the means whereby the mould boxes are restrained in their
places by two guides or stays.
Fig. 3 shews a segment of the ring box or annulus arrangement, in which
the core P is inverted, the moulds separating vertically.
Having thus described the nature of our said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, we would here have it to be understood
that although we have herein set forth a particular example and instance of
express organization in shewing and describing the same, and various arrange-
ments more or less in detail of the forms and configuration of the said
machine, and in which it is composed by us in carrying out our said Invention,
yet we say that we present the same in this our Specification rather as modes
of elucidation of the principle of construction than and in accordance with
the requisition made to that effect in the grant of our Letters Patent, as
giving one positive mode of modification or organization for those principles of
construction, than as exclusively and strictly confining ourselves to or giving
them as the only definite and positive modes of practical construction in which
our said Invention is to be carried out; but that we claim them generally in
the manner and as they are herein stated, but not confining ourselves to the
minute precision of organization, such combinations, or such definite and fixed
applications, provided that and so far the peculiar character of any or either
part of the said Invention and machine, as well as the entirety thereof in its
general principle of construction and practical use, be used, retained, or put
in practice under any change of form and configuration, any transposition of
its parts, or modification thereof whatsoever; it being distinctly understood
and taken as our substantive and positive claim of novelty and of our
Invention in regard to this our Patent is, the formation of the blocks of the
fuel by a centrifugal machine with passages into or through their bulk and
substance for the express purpose of admitting currents of the surrounding

page_text: atmosphere thereto, after the manner described or under any such modification
thereof as may be substantially the same in both as relates to the machine
itself and the fuel manufactured by it in design and effect.
In witness whereof, I, the said Joseph John William Watson, have
hereunto set my hand and seal, the Tenth day of October, in the 5
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-five.
JOSEPH J. W. WATSON. (L.S.)