IM- PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DESULPHURIZING, ROASTING AND DRYING ORES
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Samuel James Thomas at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 29th February 1876. A communication
from abroad by Lewis Cawell, of Hampton, King's County, New Brunswick.
SAMUEL JAMES THOMAS, of 26, Great St. Helens, in the City of London.
"IM-
PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR DESULPHURIZING, ROASTING AND DRYING ORES."
The main object of the Invention is to thoroughly roast or dry pulverized ores
with rapidity, and this object is attained in the manner which I shall now proceed
to describe.
A. hollow cylinder, consisting of a lining of fire-brick or other refractory material,
contained within a shell of plate iron is employed, or the lining may be otherwise
bound, so as to render the structure substantial and permanent. The cylinder has
a cover and rests on an annular plate supported on columns, a central shaft passes
through the cylinder and has its upper bearing in the cover. Within the cylinder,
and extending entirely across the same, are a number of circular stationary plates
arranged at equal distances apart, these plates alternating with discs which do not
extend to the interior of the cylinder. The discs have central clutch-like hubs
adapted to the shaft, and the hub of one disc is connected to the hubs of the discs
above and below by sleeves, which embrace the shaft and pass through openings
in the stationary plates. The lowest disc of the series is arranged to revolve as
closely as possible to the annular plate on which the cylinder stands, and the hub
of this disc is clutched to a fixed collar on the shaft, or has clutch-like projections
adapted to recesses in the hub of a bevil wheel on the shaft, which is driven from a
horizontal shaft through the intervention of another bevil wheel. The clutch-like
hubs of the several discs and the connecting sleeves form a continuous tube driven
from the bevilled wheel at the lower end of the series, and the series of discs is
driven from the said wheel through the medium of this tube and the central shaft
is subjected to no torsional strain, its sole purpose being to maintain the discs in
their proper lateral positions concentric with the cylinder. prefer to make the
upper surface of each disc slightly convex or inclined downwards from its centre to
the outer edge. On the uppermost disc rakes bear, each having arms hinged to
lugs on the under side of the cover, these rakes have a tendency to move the
pulverized ore to the edge of the disc, whence it falls into the flanged plate below.
This plate I prefer to make slightly concave or inclined from the edge downwards
towards the central opening. Rakes similar to those above are hinged to the under
side of the disc, and bearing on the plate tend to move the pulverized ore inwards
[Price 2d.1

page_text: towards the central opening, whence it falls into the second disc, and the ore by
the movement of the discs and action of the rakes is made to pursue this zig-zag
course until it reaches the lowest disc from which it is raked into an annular
channel and so to the outlet opening.
The pulverized ore is introduced into the cylinder through an opening in a
hopper at the top of the cylinder, the hopper being provided with a rotating screw
which agitates the ore.
Heated products of combustion from an adjacent furnace or furnaces are intro-
duced into the cylinder, and passing upwards in a zig-zag course neet and are
brought into intimate contact with the pulverized ore as it descends through the
same course, the products of combustion finally escaping through an outlet to a
proper dust chamber or chimney.