Improvements in Apparatus for Evaporating, Distilling, or Concentrating Liquids.
Year: 1890

page_text: Date of Application, 17th Oct., 1890
Complete Specification Left, 16th July, 1891-Accepted, 22nd Aug., 1891
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Evaporating, Distilling, or
Concentrating Liquids.
I, THOMAS EDWARD WILSON, of No. 40 Rue de la Gare, Lille, in the Republic
of France, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:
My invention relates to apparatus in which steam or other vapours or hot air or
other gases, such for instance as hot products of combustion from fires or furnaces,
are applied to evaporate, distil or concentrate liquids which are spread in thin
layers over extended surfaces so as to be more rapidly and thoroughly acted on by
the heating medium. For this purpose, in the most simple form of the apparatus,
a vertical chamber is divided into two compartments by a corrugated plate of metal,
preferably metal such as copper which is a good conductor of heat, the ridges and
furrows of the corrugations being horizontal.
The compartment on the one side of this corrugated plate is supplied with the
heating medium, on the other side of the plate the liquid to be treated is caused to
descend in a thin layer, undergoing evaporation as it descends, and, in order to
promote the evaporation, this compartment may be connected to any suitable
exhaust apparatus by which the pressure in the compartment can be reduced.
According to a modified arrangement, the vertical chamber is divided into three
compartments by two corrugated plates, having the space between them supplied
with the heating medium while the liquid flows down the outer sides of the plates.
Several sets of the apparatus may be arranged in combination with suitable pumps
or elevators by which the liquor delivered at the bottom of one evaporator, more
or less concentrated, can be raised to supply another so as to undergo farther
concentration.
The apparatus may also be arranged so as to act as double or multiple effect
evaporators, that is to say, the vapour evolved from the liquid treated by one
evaporator may serve as the heating medium for another evaporator. In order to
distribute the liquid over the corrugated surface it is preferably fed through the
perforations of a horizontal pipe within which there is another pipe that can be
turned more or less round so as to regulate the area of passage through the
perforations.
nul 17th low of October 1890
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Apparatus for Evaporating, Distilling, or
Concentrating Liquids.
I, THOMAS EDWARD WILSON, of No. 40 Rue de la Gare, Lille, in the Republic
of France, Engineer, 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 :-
My invention relates to apparatus in which steam or other vapours or hot air
or other gases, such for instance as hot products of combustion from fires or furnaces,
are applied to evaporate, distil or concentrate liquids which are spread in thin
layers over extended surfaces so as to be more rapidly and thoroughly acted on by
the heating medium. For this purpose, in the most simple form of the apparatus,

page_text: a vertical chamber is divided into two compartments by a corrugated plate of metal
preferably metal such as copper which is a good conductor of heat, the ridges and
furrows of the corrugations being horizontal.
The compartment on the one side of this corrugated plate is supplied with the
heating medium, on the other side of the plate the liquid to be treated is caused to
descend in a thin layer, undergoing evaporation as it descends, and, in order to
promote the evaporation, this compartment may be connected to any suitable
exhaust apparatus by which the pressure in the compartment can be reduced.
According to a modified arrangement, the vertical chamber is divided into three
compartments by two corrugated plates, having the space between them supplied
with the heating medium while the liquid flows down the outer sides of the plates.
Several sets of the apparatus may be arranged in combination with suitable pumps
or elevators by which the liquor delivered at the bottom of one evaporator, more
or less concentrated, can be raised to supply another so as to undergo farther
concentration.
The apparatus may also be arranged so as to act as double or multiple effect
evaporators, that is to say, the vapour evolved from the liquid treated by one
evaporator may serve as the heating medium for another evaporator. In order to
distribute the liquid over the corrugated surface it is preferably fed through the
perforations of a horizontal pipe within which there is another pipe that can be
turned more or less round so as to regulate the area of passage through the
perforations.
Fig. 1. of the accompanying drawings is a longitudinal section, Fig. 2. is a
.transverse section, and Fig. 3 is a sectional plan of one form of single effect
evaporating apparatus according to my invention. A is a casing made with remove-
able end covers A' A having at the top an outlet A³ for escape of vapour, and an
inlet A for steam or other hot operating fluid, and having at its bottom perforations
leading into a space A' with an outlet for concentrated liquid. Within the casing,
attached steam tight to two flanges B1 B2 are two corrugated sheets C¹ C² of thin
metal preferably copper.
The flanges B B2 are accurately fitted to the corrugations; this may be done
in a sound and inexpensive way by first making each of the flange plates with
openings through it which the corrugated sheets can freely enter or with a slot wide
enough to admit the ridges of the corrugations, laying this plate on a level bed,
placing the end of the corrugated sheets in the slot and then pouring molten metal
preferably solder that fuses at a moderate temperature into the spaces between the
openings in the plates and the corrugations.
It is of advantage in the first place to tin the inner edges of the opening in the
flange plate and the end of the corrugated sheets so that the solder makes a steam
tight junction with them.
The flange B is bolted to a junction piece B³, having in it partitions B*, and the
flange B is bolted to the inner flanges A' of the casing, after which the cover A2 is
put on, this cover having partitions A' which alternating with the partitions B
cause the steam or other hot operating fluid supplied at A' to take a zig zag
course through the spaces within the corrugated sheets C¹ C² as indicated by the
arrows in Fig. 1.
A small outlet C³ is shewn for escape of water of condensation when steam is
employed. When a hot gas which does not condense is used as the heating medium,
the outlet is necessarily made larger. The liquid to be concentrated is supplied to
a socket D made with stuffing boxes through which passes a tube E this tube being
fitted so that by means of a handle H or otherwise it can be turned round within an
outer tube F, as shewn in transverse section to an enlarged scale by Fig. 4.
Along each of the tubes the outer tube F and the inner tube E there is a row of
holes which can be brought into coincidence, or which by partly turning the inner
tube round can be more or less throttled or entirely closed. The liquid issuing
through these holes when they are open or partly open trickles down in a number
of small streams upon the upper corrugations of the sheets C¹ C2 and spreading

page_text: over their length flows down the corrugated surfaces exposed to the heat conducted
through them from the steam or hot gas within.
The liquid thus more or less concentrated reaches the bottom space A³ of the
casing whence it can be pumped or led to successive evaporators of like kind. The
vapour issuing at A³ may be employed as the heating medium for another evaporator,
and this may be repeated several times so as to work evaporators of double, triple
or multiple effect as the case may be.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, I hereby declare that I make
no general claim to the use of a corrugated metal surface heated on the one side
for evaporating a liquid flowing over its other side in a thin layer as such corrugated
surfaces have been employed in the form of cylinders and tubes for that purpose,
but what I claim is :-
Apparatus for evaporating distilling or concentrating liquids consisting of two
thin corrugated sheets of conducting metal fixed back to back, with the ridges and
furrows of their corrugations straight and horizontal, and presenting between
them spaces through which circulates steam or other hot fluid while outside
the liquid treated flows over them in a thin layer, substantially as described.
Dated this 16th day of July 1891.
ABEL & IMRAY,
Agents for the Applicant.