IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WASHING OR SCRUBBING GAS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Easton and Henry Woodall
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd November 1879.
WILLIAM EASTON, of the Alexandra Foundry, Kirkstall Road, in Leeds, in the
County of York, Engineer, and HENRY WOODALL, of Leeds, in the County of
York, Gas Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR WASHING OR SCRUBBING
GAS."
This Invention has for its object improvements in apparatus for washing or
scrubbing gas.
For this purpose we employ a tank of oblong form with an axis passing through
it.. The tank is divided by transverse partitions into several compartments, and
there are openings in the partitions surrounding the axis. At the ends of the tank
there are stuffing boxes forming gas tight joints around the axis. The tank is
provided with a cover, which can be lifted off when it is desired to obtain access to
the interior. The cover has descending flanges all around, and also transverse
flanges corresponding to the partitions in the tank. These flanges when the cover
is in its place dip into water troughs provided to receive the flanges both around
the upper edge of the tank and upon the top of the transverse partitions. The
lower part of the tank beneath the axis contains water or the liquid to be employed
in washing or scrubbing the gas. The liquid may enter continuously or inter-
mittently at one end of the tank, whilst the gas to be purified is admitted at the
other. The liquid fills the first compartment and reaches the hole in the partition
which separates this compartment from the next, it then overflows into the next
compartment, and this when full similarly overflows into the following compartment,
and so on.
The axis has mounted upon it a series of drums, which at their lower parts dip
into the liquid contained in the several compartments of the tank. The interior of
each drum is packed with pieces of wood so arranged as to leave only narrow
channels between them, but nevertheless sufficient to permit the liquid and gas to
pass freely, and a clear space is left around the axis. In place of pieces of wood
other packing may be employed, which will present an extensive service to the gas
and cause it be divided into minute streams. The compartment into which the
gas first enters contains one of these drums; it is placed close against the partition
which separates this compartment from the next, so that the gas can only pass by
entering the drum at the periphery and passing amongst the packing to the centre,

page_text: and so to the opening in the partition. Passing through this opening the gas finds
itself in the interior of another similar drum, from which it can only escape by
passing amongst the packing outwards from the centre to the periphery.
In order to pass on from this compartment to that beyond the gas is compelled
to enter at the periphery of another drum, and so to reach the opening in the
partition around the axis. In this way the gas passes from compartment to
compartment until it reaches the end of the tank. Each intermediate compartment
contains two drums, one by which the gas is admitted to it, and the other by which
it escapes. The rotation of the axis whilst the lower parts of the drums dip into
the liquid in the tank keeps the whole of the packing material in a thoroughly
moistened state, and the gas and liquid are thus brought into contact under
conditions very favourable to the action of the one on the other.