IMPROVEMENTS IN DRYING PEAT SO AS TO RENDER IT SUITABLE FOR FUEL OR FOR CONVERSION INTO CHARCOAL AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS, & IN THE APPARATUS FOR EFFECTING THE SAME
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Henry Cradock
Monckton at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with bis
Petition, on the 10th February 1872.
I, EDWARD HENRY CRADOCK MONCKTON, of Fineshade, Wansford, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
DRYING PEAT SO AS TO RENDER IT SUITABLE FOR FUEL OR FOR CONVERSION INTO
CHARCOAL AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS, & IN THE APPARATUS FOR EFFECTING THE
SAME," to be as follows:-
My improvements consist,-
Firstly. In placing peat pulped by well-known processes or by means
of the American conical pulper into suitable vessels, one or more of the
sides of which are capable of removal and being secured by suitable bars
with clamps and screws and made air-tight with any suitable material
as with slips of leather or vulcanized india-rubber. These vessels are
made with double bottoms, the upper bottom being perforated and covered
with suitable strainers, so as to admit of the water being drained or
drawn off, and leaving the pulp behind in a consolidated form either

page_text: partially or quite dry. The quantity of water in the pulp will regulate
the depth of the vessel thus (as the proportion is usually five of the
former to one of the latter). In order to make a cake of 6 inches in
depth, the vessel if once filled need not be more than 30 inches deep; if
however the pulp is continuously poured in above while the water is
withdrawn from below, the vessel need not be made nearly so deep. The
strainers placed over the perforated bottom may be made of any suitable
filtering material such as textile fabrics or punched or perforated metal,
even hay in default of anything better may be used; the perforated
bottom itself may be of wood, metal, or tile.
Secondly. In the introduction between the two bottoms or in the
lowest bottom of a tube with a stop-cock at or near its lowest end, which
will where there is a sufficient fall draw off the water below by its own
gravitation, this tube and space at the bottom of the vessel being
previously filled with water where there is little or no fall so as to utilise
this long descending tube (or in lieu of it a syphon rising up from the
bottom). A pump worked either by a steam or hot air engine, or a
water or wind mill must be used to draw off the water, which if the
pumping power is regulated to the supply of pulp it will effect as fast as
the pulp is poured in, or this process may be inverted by closing the top
of the vessel containing the pulp, and pumping hot or cold air upon the
surface of the pulp, or else air pressure may be applied above in com-
bination with an exhaust below.
Thirdly. In the drawing or forcing air hot or cold through the mass of
the previously partially dried pulp. If hot air is used it may be heated.
by passing it through lighted coal or coke, or by using air from a hot air
engine, the vessel being in the latter case covered in and having a hot.
air tube inserted in it; the peat may also be dried by being placed in a
current of hot or cold air.
Fourthly. In introducing into the bottom of the vessel containing
the pulp frames of the depth required for the dry cake constructed so.
that as the pulp descends it will accumulate in these moulds, which must
be made smaller or larger as they are required; these frames are formed
of any suitable material, as of iron, zinc, or wood extending across the
vessel, having projections from one or both sides; these wood pack
against each other, and when the pulp is dried could be unpacked, and

page_text: the pieces of hard peat be removed, any other similar suitable form of
frame arrangement can be made. When the cake is not required quite
dry the peat is removed in the state of dryness required, and the blocks
cut up by a circular saw or otherwise.