IMPROVEMENTS IN THE METHOD OF, AND APPARATUS FOR, OIL-PRESSING
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frank Wirth at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 29th January 1883. A communication
from Rudolph Traumann a person resident at Mannheim in the Empire of
Germany
FRANK WIRTH, of the firm of Wirth and Company, Patent Solicitors, at
Frankfort on the Main, in the Empire of Germany
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
METHOD OF, AND APPARATUS FOR, OIL-PRESSING" [A communication from Rudolph
Traumann a person resident at Mannheim in the Empire of Germany]
The method heretofore generally adopted of expressing oil from oleaginous seeds
or beans consists essentially in putting the raw material into wrappers, or press-
cloths and folding them into parcels, stacking these parcels one over the other with
a press plate between each two of them, and subjecting the whole series of parcels
to the action of a hydraulic press. But the use of press-cloths is open to great
objections; apart from their very high price and liability to wear out rather
quickly, these cloths take up a good deal of room in the press, because they are
always turned over four times, which gives five thicknesses of cloth to each parcel.
Hence the quantity of raw material which can be put into the press at each
operation is reduced by the extent to which the layers of cloth crowd it out; also
the pressure applied is rendered incomplete by the thick pads, formed between the
several parcels of raw material, by the press cloths, and thus it has hitherto been
impossible to extract all the oil from the material operated upon.
Also when press
cloths are used, portions of the raw material will bulge out at the edges of the
parcels, and this portion of the material not only escapes the pressure applied, but
in addition to that, it soaks up the oil running from the portion actually pressed
The object of the present invention is to remedy these defects
According to the said invention, instead of the manifold wrappers or press cloths,
simple press mats are used, which, without being turned over at the edges, are laid
in between layers of raw material of suitable depth and quite unenclosed, that is to
say these layers are to be in direct contact with the air at their edges. These
mats, like the press cloths, are made of horse hair web or of any other pervious
fabric. As they require only one third the quantity of material to forin them they
are much cheaper than the press cloths, and never being folded they are very
CD 071

page_text: durable, take up but little room, and help to extract at the first pressing, a far
greater quantity of oil, in fact nearly the whole of the oil is pressed from the
material operated upon
To prevent the raw material from protruding laterally (where nothing hinders)
in a regular form during the pressing it will be necessary when press mats are
used to let the press table rise very slowly. By this means the edges of the
material in the press will keep firmly together, while the oil will run out freely
through the mats, which are very advantageously placed for the purpose, as their
free edges extend beyond those of the stuff operated upon
Preferably the ascent of the press table should not exceed one millimetre per
second; although with soine descriptions of grain, and also in cases where the
quality of the oil is not of so much consequence, a higher rate of speed may
be used
In order to obtain perfectly regular cakes I sometimes set the material with
boxes or shapes in between the mats and then, when a heap has been formed
to remove the box, and replace the same by a frame the depth of which however
should not exceed those of the cakes or else the frame should be of so yielding a
character, that in contracting and expanding, it will follow the vertical strain of
pressure in such a manner, as to ensure enclosing the cake on all sides
In these frames, under slow upward motion of the press table, and with the use
of the mats, the material operated upon will be found to set uniformly, and
perfectly dry, regular cakes, without rough edges, will be obtained
The plates of metal or of some other suitable substance which are commonly
inserted between the several parcels of material in the press, must also be used in
the above described arrangement, and in such a manner that one of these rigid
plates should lie top and bottom between each two layers of material and the
adjacent mats
By means of this invention the mais can be fastened to the upper and the under
To this end
surfaces of the plates by cords, basket work, or other suitable means.
the plates are provided at their edges with perforations through which the cord or
the like can be platted to hold the mat and plate together. With this arrangement
a great saving is effected in the time required to fill a press