IMPROVE- MENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CRUSHING SUGAR CANES, AND IN APPARATUS FOR EVAPORATING SACCHARINE FLUIDS
Year: 1851

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
DE MORNAY, of Mark Lane, in the City of London, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fifth day of August,
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, in the fifteenth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Edward De Mornay, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, Her especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I; the said Edward
De Mornay, my exors, admors, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Edward De Mornay, my exors, adññiors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and
in the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, and also in Her
said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN MACHINERY FOR CRUSHING SUGAR CANES, AND IN APPARATUS FOR
EVAPORATING SACCHARINE FLUIDS;" in which said Letters Patent is contained
a proviso that I, the said Edward De Mornay, shall cause a particular
description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner tho
same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and

page_text: seal, to be inrolled in Her Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part
recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had,
will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Edward De Mornay, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described
and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being
had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked
thereon, that is to say:
My Invention consists in such an arrangement of rollers used in mills for
expressing the juice from the sugar cane that I am enabled to perform the
work more efficiently than in the roller mill at present used, without requiring
greater motive power. In the common horizontal three-roller mill the rollers
are all of the same size, and placed as shewn in Figure 5. The canes enter
the mill at g and leave it at e, consequently in this mill the canes descend after
receiving the first squeeze. A trash returner is used to conduct the canes
from 9 to e, and, owing to the relative position of the rollers A and B, some of
the juice expressed at e rests on the roller B, and is carried round with it as it
revolves.
The objections to this arrangement are the following:-
Firstly, as the cane after having been subjected to the first squeeze descends
with the expressed juice, it becomes again more or less saturated with it by its
tendency to re-absorption. This primary squeeze is consequently partially use-
less as a means of depriving the cane of its aqueous saccharine contents, so that
if the rollers are used as expressing rollers a large amount of power is expended
without corresponding advantage. To prevent this large expenditure of power
inadequately productive of good, these rollers are not generally set close
together, the lower roller being consequently rather a feeding than an expres-
sing roller.
:
Secondly, the trash returner is injurious to the good working of the mill,
absorbing power, and lacerating the "megass," because the but partially
crushed canes are forced against the trash returner and compelled suddenly to
take another direction; the 'trash returner also prevents the cane, during
its passage from the first to the second squeeze, from performing a constantly-
increasing curvature, which the powerful pressure of the second squeeze would,
by elongating the canes, incline it to do, thus actually at intervals causing parts
of the cane to pass between the rollers, at the second squeeze, doubled' up.
Thirdly, as the juice expressed at e rests on the roller B, and is carried

page_text: round with it as it revolves, it is carried past the pressing parts and is absorbed
by the relieved and expanding megass.
<<
To overcome in a great measure these imperfections I have invented two
mills, which I term the single and double acting roller mills. The single mill,
see Figure 1, gives but one effective squeeze, as in the common three-roller
mill, but I substitute for the large lower roller on the feed side of the mill one
or more small feed rollers, and by these means I dispense with the trash
returner; and by increasing the number of feed rollers I can bring the two
horizontal expressing rollers as near as desired to the same level, which would
obviate in a great measure the defect observable in the common mill, of the
roller B carrying on some of the juice past the pressing parts at e, where it
becomes absorbed by the relieved "megass." The double mill gives two
effective squeezes (see Figures II.) by two pairs of rollers being so placed with
one or more feed rollers that the "megass" ascends, after each separate
pressure, between the two pairs of rollers. In this mill it may be advisable to
place a table or trash returner between the first and second pair of rollers,
to prevent the small trash from falling into the juice below, but as the canes
would be very much crushed at the first squeeze, this would not be objection-
able, as in the common three roller mill.
The accompanying Drawings show the arrangements of my single and double
acting roller mills.
.
Figure 1 shows the side and end elevation and section of the single mill.
A, B, are two large rollers, three feet in diameter, which I term the expressing
rollers, for they express nearly all the juice from the cane under operation;
and I prefer the parts to be of the sizes herein given, but the same may be
varied. C is a small roller, twelve inches in diameter, and D a roller fifteen
inches in diameter. These two rollers I call feed rollers, their chief object
being to carry the canes to the expressing rollers A and B, but as I. do not
allow so much space between the outer surfaces of the feed rollers and the
outer surface of the roller A as would admit of the cane passing quite unbroken,
some juice is given up by the canes under operation before they are passed
between the rollers A and B. The rollers A, B, C, and D, have pinions
attached to them, as in the common mill, E being the pinion keyed on to the
shaft of the roller A, and H one of the other pinions, which is keyed on to the
shaft of the roller D. The red circles shew the extreme circumference
of pinions. L, L, L, L, is the frame of the mill, and M, bed plate. 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
are the brasses in which the bearings of the roller shaft work.
n, n, are the
caps; p, p, p, p, the bolts; and 7, 9, 7, 9, the nuts for bracing up the express-
ing rollers A and B. N is square end of roller shaft B, for receiving a spur

page_text: wheel, or hollow end of a tail bar, to communicate motion to the mill, but the
motion may be given to any of the other rollers first, or a spur wheel may be
made to work into any of the four pinions for communicating motion to the
mill. The caps n, n, are made each of several plates of wrought iron, and the top
of the brasses, where the caps press against them, are made arched, so as only to
bear against the caps at the middle. The object of this arrangement is to give
a slight degree of elasticity to the caps, so that when woody and accumulated
portions of the cane are passing the expressing rollers they should pass without
requiring so great expenditure of power as would otherwise be required. r is
a feed table, and sa guard to prevent the juice from running outside the
receptacle made in the bed plate for it.
I do not deem it essential that there should be more than one feed roller-
nor that there should not be more than two feed rollers, as will readily be
understood by reference to the diagrams Figures 3 and 4.
Some of the advantages of my improved mills over the common mill are
the following:-
Firstly, the nipping parts of the rollers are brought nearer together, and the
trash returner is dispensed with.
Secondly, by the addition of more feed rollers, to obviate the inconvenience
of supplying the mill with canes, the roller A may be brought as nearly to a
level with the roller B as is desired, by which means the juice expressed from
the canes, while passing between the rollers A and B, fall more perpendicularly
from them, and less can be reabsorbed by the "megass" as it becomes
relieved of pressure beyond the point e. And,
Thirdly, this mill occupies less space than the ordinary mill with expressing
rollers of equal size.
Firstly, what I claim as new, in my single mill, is the introduction of a feed
roller C, of less diameter than the expressing rollers A and B.
Secondly, what I claim as new is the introduction of several feed rollers.
Figure II. shows the side and end elevation and section of the double mill.
A, B, are a pair of expressing rollers, and E and F two feed rollers, which
together form the single mill, but the canes in this mill, after passing between
the rollers A and B, are carried on in an upward direction along the guide r
until they are laid hold of by a second pair of expressing rollers C and D; the
inegass then revolves with the roller D and is precipitated on the opposite
side, as shewn in the Drawing. L, L, L, L, are cast-iron cheeks, containing
the brasses 0, 0, 0, 0, o, o, in which work the bearing of the roller shafts. M
is the bed plate. n, n, n, are caps to cover the upper brasses. s and u are
guides to disattach pieces of trash from adhering to rollers A and C, and to
"

page_text: guide them in the proper direction. In both the single and double mill I can
bring all the rollers, whose pinions do not work directly into one another,
nearer together, by increasing the number of pinions; some of the roller shafts
would in this case have a pinion at each end, but this is not essential to my
Invention.
.
To give motion to my double mill a spur wheel can be made to work either
into the pinions attached to the shafts of rollers B and D, or into those attached
to the shafts A and C, or other suitable means to communicate motion may be
adopted. One or more of the feed rollers may be made to work without
pinions to them, merely by the friction caused by the canes passing between
their surfaces and the surface of the upper expressing rollers, and if a sufficient
size be given to the expressing rollers they might be made also to work withour
being geared to each other by pinions.
What I claim as new, in my double-acting roller mill, is the introduction of
one or more feed rollers, the one placed nearest the expressing rollers being
of less diameter than the said expressing rollers, in conjunction with two pairs
of expressing rollers so placed, that the canes receive two squeezes as they
pass through the mill, and in such a manner that at each operation the juice
is forced out in a downward direction, and the pressed canes ascend as the
rollers revolve and leave the juice, and consequently do not, as at the first
squeeze in the common three-roller mill, again come in contact with the
flowing juice.
The second part of my Invention is an improvement of another mode of
expressing the juice from the cane while upon a sugar press patented by
Mr. Bessemer, dated the Seventeenth day of April, One thousand eight hun-
dred and forty-nine. He forces the canes by means of a plunger through a
parallel tube throughout, or a tube parallel for some distance and contracted
towards the end where the trash is ejected. I propose having a tube whose
sides shall diverge for some. distance towards the extremity where the megass
is expelled, and that afterwards it. shall be either parallel or slightly con-
tracted. He introduces all the cane into the tube in the same direction, so
that all the pieces lie parallel to each other. I introduce the pieces of cane
into the tube in such a manner that they lie in alternate layers, having the
fibre of the cane of any other layer nearly, if not quite, at right angles to the
intermediate ones. By the tubes being parallel the canes under operation
receive less effective pressure as they recede from the plunger; thus, when
the canes are deprived of the greater part of their juice, and would require
all the power to oblige them to give up the remaining portion, they are far
from the plunger, and receive a greatly decreased pressure. By the canes
ト

page_text: in the tube lying parallel to each other, the lateral resistance is nearly all on
the sides where the canes press lengthwise, and very little on the top and
bottom sides where the canes press endwise. The piece of cane also when
subjected to the first blow of the plunger is ready driven wedge-like into the
already crushed pieces of cane, causing very great lateral pressure.. I pro-
pose constructing the tube in two pieces, which will be bolted together, the
larger orifices being in contact and the smaller orifice of the piece of tube
nearest the plunger placed so as to receive the end of the plunger as it cuts
off and crushes the canes. If the other half of the tube is also tapered the
small end will be furtherest from the plunger, and where the megass will be
rejected, it may be found by experience that this half the tube should be made
parallel, but this would not take away the novelty of my Invention, which
consists in producing a more beneficial action in the cane press, by having
that part of the tube nearest the plunger with diverging sides instead of
parallel sides, the smaller orifice receiving the canes and the plunger propel-
ling them from the smaller to the larger part. The length on each side of
tube will depend on the degree of dryness to which it may be desirable to
give the megass, and also the cropping of the canes, as described.
In concentrating cane juice in an open vessel according to the third part
of my Invention, I employ a long shallow vessel with strong parallel sides and
ends; the bottom of this vessel may be flat, but I prefer that the bottom
should form an inverted arch running lengthwise of the vessel. This vessel
has a cock at the lower end to draw off the concentrated liquor, and at the
other end the cane juice is admitted. On commencing work this pan may
be filled either with water or cane juice, and as soon as it is expedient to draw
off what may be in the pan the cock for that purpose is opened; a partition is
inserted close against the opposite end, which partition though fitting closely
is moveable, and runs on wheels on a tramway on the sides of the pan, and
a cock for the purpose of admitting the cane juice is opened. Immediately
the concentrated liquor commences running out at one end and the cane juice
running in at the other, the moveable partition will travel along the pan, thus
preventing the fresh juice mixing with the other; two or three such partitions
may be used. This pan can be used simply as an evaporating pan, or the
juice may be purified in the first compartment by the introduction of lime
or other purifying agent, as is at present practised in the common open and
separate pans. I have also another concentrating pan where I obtain rapid
evaporation at low temperature:-I construct a long shallow vessel and insert
a series of wires so as to run across it near the bottom. This vessel I set in
brickwork in an inclined position over the furnace, so that the juice enters at

page_text: the most elevated end, runs down the pan and out at the other end, deprived
of nearly all the water but that of chrystallization, it is then run into an-
other pan to be deprived of the little superabundant water that it may still
contain; the wires cause such an impediment to the progress of the juice that
it becomes divided and atmospheric air is mixed up with it, causing rapid
evaporation at low temperature.
In witness whereof,. I, the said Edward De Mornay, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Tenth day of September, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.