IMPROVEMENTS IN COLLECTING OR CONDENSING AND UTILIZING THE FUMES GIVEN OFF BY FURNACES USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN OTHER METALLURGICAL OPERATIONS, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS MAY ALSO BE APPLIED TO THE COLLECTING OR CONDENSING OF FUMES FROM OTHER SOURCES
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Oldham, Henry Penn,
and Charles Eades at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition, on the 19th April 1866.
We, WILLIAM OLDHAM, Artist, and HENRY PENN, Artist, and CHARLES
EADES, Experimental Chemist, all of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick,
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
COLLECTING OR CONDENSING AND UTILIZING THE FUMES GIVEN OFF BY FURNACES
USED IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COPPER AND IN OTHER METALLURGICAL OPERATIONS,
WHICH IMPROVEMENTS MAY ALSO BE APPLIED TO THE COLLECTING OR CONDENSING OF
FUMES FROM OTHER SOURCES," to be as follows:-
In the manufacture of copper large quantities of sulphurous acid are
evolved, which with other fumes are thrown into and contaminate the atmo-
sphere in the neighbourhood of the works, and in the manufacture of brass
and alloys containing zinc much of the zinc is volatilized and converted into
oxide of zinc, which passes into the atmosphere.
Our Invention has for its object to collect or condense these and other
fumes for the purpose of preventing the contamination of the atmosphere by
the said fumes, and to utilize any valuable products which may be contained
in the collected fumes.
Our improvements consist in the following arrangements:-We construct
in the flue, through which the fumes to be collected or condensed pass, a
chamber containing a wheel with vanes. The said vanes have a scoop-like
form, and when the wheel is made to rotate rapidly its lower side dipping in

page_text: water or other liquid, the said liquid is thrown or splashed about the chamber,
and divided into a spray, which is thrown on the walls of the chamber,
and which rapidly absorbs from the air passing through the chamber any
matter contained therein which is soluble in or which may be condensed by
the liquid in question.
In applying our Invention to furnaces used in the manufacture of copper,
we employ water in the chamber, which being thrown about by the said
wheel effectually condenses the sulphurous acid in the air passing through the
chamber. The solution of sulphurous acid may be drawn off from time to
time, and utilized by being saturated with a base, and thereby converted into
a sulphite of the base employed; or the sulphurous acid obtained may be
applied to any other purpose to which it is applicable. In collecting the oxide
of zinc produced in melting alloys of zinc, and in other processes where zinc is
melted, we pass the air containing the oxide of zinc through the chamber in
the flue, which chamber we charge with bydrochloric or dilute sulphuric acid.
The acid spray produced by the wheel in the chamber dissolves the oxide of
zine, and forms therewith a solution of chloride of zinc or sulphate of zinc,
which may be utilized by being evaporated and used in the form of zine salt;
or the said salt may be reduced and metallic zinc obtained therefrom. In place
of or in addition to the wheel described in the chamber for forming a spray for
condensing the oxide of zinc fumes, steam may be passed into the said
chamber for condensing or assisting the condensation of the said fumes.
Where acids are employed in the chamber we make the wheel of a material
not acted upon by the acid employed. The wheel is driven by a steam engine
or other convenient motive power.
The application of our Invention to the collecting of other fumes differs
in no essential respect from its application to the purposes herein described.