of Polluted Water and Refuse Matters.
Year: 1885

page_text: of Polluted Water and Refuse Matters.
I THOMAS HENRY COBLEY Manufacturing Chemist of Dunstable in the County
of Bedford do hereby declare the nature of my invention for IMPROVEMENTS IN
THE MANUFACTURE OF VITRIOLISED ASH AND APPLICATION OF SAME TO THE
DEODORISATION AND PURIFICATION OF POLLUTED WATER AND REFUSE MATTERS
to be as follows:
=
The utilisation of Ashes and Cinders or any analogous substance containing
Iron and Alumina in a burnt or calcined state to form by the method or process
hereinafter described a Compound Precipitant for treating Sewage matter and foul
or polluted water.
The method or process by which I carry out my Invention is as follows. The
Ashes or Cinders being freed from other rubbish such as Glass Metal, Stone, Bricks
or other extraneous matter by sorting or screening are burnt in heaps, mounds,
hearths or other contrivances with an admixture of Pyrites dust or other Sulphurous
material and Common Salt such admixture being sprinkled in during the time of
combustion or as found convenient Under ordinary circumstances the minimum
amount of this admixture should be about one tenth of the weight of the Ashes or
Cinders and of this admixture the Common Salt should form one third part more
or less. When burnt out the mass is ground up or admixed with one fifth its
weight more or less according to its composition of Common Sulphuric Acid or
its equivalent in Waste Acid from any source after which it is allowed to digest
with or without the addition of heat, water or steam. Or the product of the
destructive combustion Ashes and Cinders, or the Ashes alone after grinding or
fine sifting may be treated with a mixture of Common Sulphurio Acid or Waste .
Sulphuric Acid from any source such Acid being previously admixed with a
saturated solution of Common Salt. The common Salt employed to be equal in
weight to one fourth of the Sulphuric Acid used (dry weight of Salt) more or less
Where Waste Acid is used such as Tar Acid the Common Salt should be added in
a dry state. This admixture of Chloridised Sulphuric Acid should be in proportion
of one fourth common Sulphuric Acid (including or holding 25º, Common Salt) tọ

page_text: the weight of Ashes used. Where Hydrochloric Acid is cheaply and conveniently
procurable it may be substituted for Common Salt for mixing with the acid. The
materials thus described are intimately admixed or ground up together and after-
wards left to digest with or without the aid of water, heat or steam.
Sulphurous Acid fumes may be utilised where it is found more economic and
convenient to do so by condensing them in the mass of moistened Ashes.
"
In applying the Vitriolised Ash or Compound Precipitant to Sewage treatment
or the purification of polluted water it is reduced to a liquid or thin pulpy state by
the addition of water and run on to the mass or in the mass of liquid under
treatment in the ordinary manner under brisk agitation. To assist in the more
perfect deposition of the flocculent particles produced by this action I employ
preferably Carbonate of Lime in a fine state of division such as Chalk "rubble
ground, the waste Lime from Soap Works and other sources with or without the
admixture or addition of Caustic Lime especially where there is much colouring
matter to remove or the same may be effected in any other known or convenient
Dunstable.
manner.
Improvements in the Manufacture of Vitriolised Ash, and
Application of same to the Deodorisation and Purification
of Polluted Water and Refuse Matters.
I THOMAS HENRY COBLEY, of Dunstable, in the county of Bedford, Manu-
facturing Chemist do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :—
1
This invention relates to the production of a compound precipitant which may
be termed a chloro sulphate or sulphite of alumina and iron for treating sewage
matter and polluted water and which is formed from ashes and substances a
containing alumina and iron in a calcined state by the method or process herein-
after described.
The method or process by which I carry out my invention is as follows:
I take the ashes of boiler furnaces, domestic fires or similar material which
usually contain alumina and iron and place them upon the hearth of a furnace
after having previously mixed them with certain proportions of sulphurous
material such as spent oxide from gas works or pyrites smalls and common salt.
I subject the mixture to a calcination at a dull red heat, the most suitable furnace

page_text: for this purpose being what is known as a "blind" furnace such as is used for
chloridising cupreous pyrites cinder.
The proportions of admixture should be taken according to the quality or
constituents of ashes or material employed but should not be less than ten to
fifteen parts of sulphurous material and five to seven and a half parts of common
salt to one hundred parts of ashes; when properly calcined the material is removed
from the furnace and ground up in a suitable mill such as a common mortar mill
or edge runner with a further addition to each one hundred parts of calcined
material of 16 parts more or less of common sulphuric acid being chamber acid of
not less strength than one hundred and twenty degrees Twaddle admixed with
about five per cent common salt; after being well ground the mass is left to digest
or is baked upon a tile hearth at a temperature not to exceed two hundred degrees
Fahrenheit. In adding the liquid acid and salt the salt should be dissolved in
equal parts of water and then added to the acid.
I have found a more expeditious way of forming or making this compound
precipitant which is as follows:
:
I take the ashes or similar materials and first screen and sift them through a
fine sieve so as to remove the cinders and extraneous matter; I then grind them
up together in a common mortar mill or edge runner with common sulphuric acid
and salt in the following proportions (by common sulphuric acid I mean ordinary
chamber acid of not less strength than one hundred and twenty degrees Twaddle).
The proportions are not less than twenty five per cent of acid to dry weight of
ash increasing with the amount of alumina and iron present in the ash up to fifty
per cent, the proportion of common salt being one fourth more or less of the acid
employed.
The common salt is mixed with equal weight of water and this added to the
ash before or during grinding taking care to cause the salt to be disseminated
through the mass; the sulphuric acid is then added and ground with the mixture
until it begins to stiffen; it is then removed from the mill and allowed to digest.
Where the material is wanted for immediate use, or in the form of a cake, it is
spread upon a hearth formed of clay tiles and baked at a low temperature, about
two hundred degrees Fahrenheit being sufficient.
In the case of ashes produced by the burning or calcination of town refuse or
mixed ashes by a "destructor" or in clumps or mounds the whole may be ground
up together and treated as before described.
Or, where preferable for economy's sake, the ashes are ground up with ten per
cent more or less of common salt and then placed on trays or shelves in towers or
chambers constructed on the principle of a common gas scrubber and the fumes
from any convenient sulphurous material such as spent oxide from gas works,
pyrites smalls together with steam passed through the mass so as to form a chloro
sulphite of alumina and iron. When saturated the mass is allowed to digest or is
baked upon hearths in the manner hereinbefore described. In all these modifi-
cations what I aim to produce is a compound which is a chloro sulphate or chloro
sulphite of alumina and iron, combined with other elements as above mentioned,
which is produced in an economic manner for the purpose of forming a cheap and
efficient compound precipitant and deodoriser for the treatment of sewage matter
and polluted water.
The hereinbefore described product may be advantageously applied to the
treatment of sewage matter and polluted water in the form of cake, especially in
the case of sewage works, where the use of machinery has to be dispensed with
upon economical grounds. It is in such case simply placed in a trough with
discharge perforations provided with strainers over or through which the sewage
matter or polluted water is made to pass. Or it may be used in the ordinary way
by grinding it up with water and allowing the liquor to pass in a thin stream
under brisk agitation into the sewage discharge.
Where there is much dye or colouring matter present I employ preferably
carbonate of lime, ground chalk, chalk rubbles or waste lime from soap works or

page_text: other convenient sources, to assist in the more perfect deposition of the colouring
and suspended matter and apply it in a milky state as a thin fluid which is run on
after the compound precipitant has been added.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is:
1. The production of a compound precipitant and deodorizer from the materials
described by burning the said materials in connection with sulphurous matter and
common salt and afterwards treating the same with liquid sulphuric acid and
common salt as herein described and its use for the purposes indicated.
2. The production of a compound precipitant and deodoriser from the materials
described by treating them with liquid sulphuric acid and common salt in the
manner described and the use of such compound for the purposes indicated.
3. The production of a compound precipitant and deodorizer as described by
saturating the materials described mixed with common salt with sulphurous fumes
and steam and the use of the compound for the purposes herein set forth.
4. The use of carbonate of lime in connection with the compound precipitant
hereinbefore described with or without the admixture of caustic lime for depositing
dye or colouring matter in polluted water substantially as hereinbefore described.
5. The employment for the purposes of treating sewage matters or polluted
waters of the vitriolised ash manufactured substantially as above described.
Dated the 0th day of June 1886
G. F. REDFERN,
Agent for the Applicant.