IMPROVEMENTS IN SUGAR CANE MILLS
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Bristow Hunt at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 7th
September 1874.-A communication from abroad by Baptiste
Lahaye Mathurin Brissonneau and Joseph Brissonneau, all of Paris,
France.
I, BRISTOW HUNT, of Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn, in the County of
Middlesex, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SUGAR CANE MILLS," (a communication to me
from abroad by Baptiste Lahaye Mathurin Brissonneau and Joseph
Brissonneau, all of Paris, France), to be as follows:-
:―
This Invention relates to a special arrangement of mill or multiple-
cylinder press for the extraction of the juice of the sugar cane or other
matter. This mill effects four or more pressures graduated at will and
successive at the same time, that an injection of some fluid at a certain
temperature or of a liquid or gas separate or mixed, moistens the cane
between the first and second pressure and between the second and third
and the third and fourth.

page_text: The mill consists of four pairs of cylinders separately driven, each pair
consisting of two rollers mounted horizontally and placed one above the
other. Between each pair of rollers is a cane trash carrier or tray
whereby the injection takes place as herein-after described, and in front
of the first pair is a feeding trough, and behind the last pair is a delivery 5
trough.
The injection takes place by causing the matter to be injected to pass
into a cane trash carrier or tray of a special form to which great
importance is attached; it is pierced at the upper part with oblique holes
in the direction of movement of the cane, and this injection by causing 1
it to swell gives it an advancing movement towards the following
pressure cylinders. The lower part of this trash tray is pierced with
vertical holes by which the injection takes place, and owing to the
direction of these openings lifts the cane, whilst the upper jet causes it
to advance, by this injection three results are obtained :-
Firstly. A partial maceration.
Secondly. A softening of the fibrous and cellular tissues.
Thirdly. A dilation of the sacchariferous cells.
1
These three actions facilitate in a great degree the flow of the
saccharine liquid under the action of the pressure, the clasticity of the 2
cano being less when it is heated, it results that it swells less after the
pressure and reabsorbs less of the juice, and the yield obtained is
greater than that resulting from the mills hitherto employed.
Cane mills with five and seven cylinders have been proposed and even
applied, the first having four pressures and the second six. . The 2
cylinders of these mills might or should be heated in the interior by
steam, in order to cause the cane already partially pressed to lose a
portion of its elasticity, and thereby to hinder it from reabsorbing a
part of its juice, none of these mills have produced results superior to
those of the three cylinder mills. On the contrary as the general 3
arrangement and action of the cylinders does not allow of the graduation
of the successive pressures, they give results inferior to those produced
by the three cylinder sugar mills generally used.
The sugar cane mills with three, five, and seven cylinders are and can
only be driven by one of their cylinders, either the upper or lower; the 3
result of the strain borne by each of the cylinders of these mills takes

page_text: place on the front part of the apparatus, and notwithstanding the
strength of their framing breakages or ruptures frequently happen,
which greatly interrupt the process of manufacture in all its parts,
besides which a single pinion of these three, five, and seven cylinder mills
supports the sum total of the motive power and a very speedy wear and
tear of the teeth of these pinions takes place, and consequently the
breakage of one or more of their teeth. This breakage inevitably causes
the rupture of other parts of the driving gear, and a considerable loss
and forced stoppage of the whole works.
The mill may be driven by water or by steam, by the former by means
of a hydraulic wheel or other arrangement, and by the latter by means
of coupled double cylinder engines so as to avoid "dead points," or even
by a single engine.
The engines may be horizontal, vertical, oblique, or on any other
known system which may be considered most suitable to the circum-
stances.