IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS AND APPARATUS FOR THE DISTILLATION AND RECTIFICATION OF HYDROCARBON, AND OTHER VOLATILE OILS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION, left by William Alexander Lyttle at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 27th
March 1866.
17
I, WILLIAM ALEXANDER LYTTLE, Officer of the Secretary's Department,
General Post Office, London, do, hereby declare the nature of the said Inveṇ-
tion for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS AND APPARATUS FOR THE DISTILLATION
AND RECTIFICATION OF HYDROCARBON, AND OTHER VOLATILE OILS," to be as
follows:-
I refrigerate the oil vapours produced by the coal or other retort, or oil
still, in a manner similar to that in which the steam is condensed in a con-
densing steam engine, viz.,. by the admission of cold water into the receiver or
condenser of the retort or still. For this purpose I make use of any desired
retort or still, and to this. I connect by means of a pipe a receiver so con-
structed that a "rose," or other jet placed inside it at its top for the admission
of cold water will be at such a distance from the bottom of the receiver that
the cold water will have a sufficient fall to admit of its exercising an efficient
cooling influence on the oil vapours, whether the water may be made to fall
as a shower or simply to run down the inner surface of the receiver as water
is generally allowed to run down the sides of a urinal. The bottom of this
receiver should either be open and dip like a gasholder into a reservoir of
water, or else should be provided with openings for running off the accumu-
lating water and oil. It is evident that by making openings in the receiver
or in the above-mentioned reservoir at different levels the oil and water can
be drawn off separately.
..

page_text: With this arrangement can be combined, if desired, an exhausting apparatus
by centrifugal or other pump for diminishing the pressure of vapour or gas
in the retort or still, and the same exhausting apparatus can also, if desired,
be made the means of introducing and dispersing the condensing water in the
receiver. For instance, supposing the receiver to be a cylinder of wide
diameter placed vertically, the pipes or main from the various retorts or stills
can be made to terminate in the hollow axis of a centrifugal pump, the axis of
which shall be the axis of the receiver, or in any other position with relation to
the receiver, and a pipe for the admission of cold water may also enter the hollow
axis of the pump. If this end of the water pipe is perforated or otherwise
opened, and the water is allowed to flow, it is evident that 'the pump in its
rotation will not only suck in and exhaust.the vapours from the retorts or
stills, but also suck in and scatter the cold water from the water pipe. The
water may, however, be admitted by an arrangement, as already described,
independently of the centrifugal pump's action..
. If shelves suitably inclined and placed across the receiver, are arranged
underneath each other, so that below the space between two shelves there shall
be a similar shelf at a short distance, and so on downwards, it is evident that
'the water will be dispersed and delayed in its fall, and so exercise the greatest
possible cooling influence on the oil
vapours.
"
"The great advantage of this. Invention is, that by means of it it is possible
to condense and remove the oil vapours quickly and effectually, whilst at
the same time guarding effectually against the great waste and danger
arising (in the case of petroleum and coal oil) from the solidifying in tubular
or externally cooled receivers of parafine and other volatile substances which
are not liquid at the ordinary atmospheric temperature. The water used thus
in condensing the oil vapours may be run off to cool in ponds, or in any other
desired manner, and may then be used over again in the condenser; and
when it has become sufficiently rich in the soluble products of distillation,
such as ammonia, it may be suitably treated for the recovery or utilization of
those products.