AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING SALTS AND OTHER SOLID BODIES FOR TREAT- MENT BY GASES OR VAPOURS
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edward Bramwell, of Ravenshoe, Cowley Hill,
St. Helen's, in the County of Lancaster, for the Invention of "AN
IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING SALTS AND OTHER SOLID BODIES FOR TREAT-
MENT BY GASES OR VAPOURS."
Sealed the 30th January 1872, and dated the 4th November 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edward Bramwell at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 4th November 1871.
I, EDWARD BRAMWELL, of Ravenshoe, Cowley Hill, St. Helen's, in
the County of Lancaster, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF PREPARING SALTS AND OTHER SOLID
BODIES FOR TREATMENT BY GASES OR VAPOURS," to be as follows:
The object of this Invention is to facilitate the treatment of salts and
other solid bodies by gases, or vapours, or by mixtures of both.

page_text: There are many reactions between salts and other solid compounds and
gases or vapours which could be turned to very important practical
account if sufficiently completo and intimate contact between the salts
or other bodies and the gases or vapours could be conveniently and
rapidly effected on the large scale, but no means of effecting such contact
with adequate completeness and facility have hitherto been devised. I
accomplish this object by placing the salt or other substance which is to
be acted upon by the gas or gases or vapour or vapours, or mixture of
both, in vessels, or chambers, or other receptacles furnished with false
bottoms, and making in the mass of the salt or other substance by
means of rods, bars, tubes, or plates of either metal, wood, earthenware,
or other material, according to the nature of the substance operated
upon, flues or passages for the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours, or
mixture of both, such flues or passages corresponding with the holes.in
the false bottoms. The rods, bars, plates, or tubes can be either of
uniform size throughout each part of their length, or they may taper
from one end to the other, and their transverse sections may be either
circular square angular, oval, or otherwise, as may be most convenient

page_text: rods, bars, plates, or tubes the flues or passages made by them will
remain intact, or sufficiently so for all practical purposes. I then with-
draw the rods, bars, plates, or tubes, and adjust the covers of the vessels
or chambers, and then begin to admit the mixture of sulphurous acid
gas, air, and steam into the first vessel or chamber of the series. The
said mixture then either rises up or passes down, as the case may be,
through the flues left by the rods, bars, plates, or tubes, and if these
have been placed at not too great a distance apart to permit of the ready
penetration of the gascous reagents through the thickness of salt
between one flue and the next, rapidly converts the whole of the salt
into sulphate. What portion of the mixture of sulphurous acid gas, air,
and steam which enters the first vessel or chamber is not absorbed
therein, together with the hydrochloric acid which is generated in that
vessel or chamber, passes from the first vessel or chamber into the
second vessel or chamber, and so on throughout the series, but this
last-mentioned arrangement constitutes no part of my Invention.
In cases, such as that of the manufacture of bleaching powder, in
which the material operated upon will not harden so much as common
salt will, I sometimes employ tubes perforated with small holes through-
out their length, and do not withdraw these tubes when the vessel in
which they are placed is charged with the material to be treated, but
pass into them the gas or vapour, or mixture of gases or vapours, or
both, and allow it to reach the charge by passing through the perfora-
tions in the tubes; or I employ in such cases more or less conical rods,
bars, plates, or tubes, and if by reason of the nature of the material to
be treated I cannot entirely withdraw them after the vessel is charged
without the said material so falling into the spaces made by the rods,
bars, plates, or tubes as to render those spaces insufficiently clear, I allow
the lower extremities of the rods, bars, plates, or tubes to pass through
and for some little distance below the holes or slots in the false bottom
of the vessel in which they are placed, and their upper extremities to
pass through the lid or cover of the said vessel; and then instead of
completely withdrawing the rods, bars, plates, or tubes after the vessel
is charged I simply raise them from time to time sufficiently to make a
passage or passages for the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixturo
thereof, but preferably not sufficiently to lift their lower extremities
quite out of the holes or slots. I can also in such cases employ flat, or
oval, or other rods, bars, plates, or tubes, leaving them in the vessel after

page_text: it is charged, and making them revolve slowly, either continually or
from time to time, on their longer axes.
I prefer that the rods, bars, plates, or tubes employed as above should
be placed vertically or nearly so, and that they should be put in the
vessels or chambers employed before the latter are charged with salt or 5
other substance, but they may be placed in any other position, and be
put in if preferred after the vessels or chambers are charged.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Edward Bramwell in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 2nd May 1872.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EDWARD
BRAMWELL, of Ravenshoe, Cowley Hill, St. Helen's, in the County of
Lancaster, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Fourth day of November, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, in the
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto me, the said Edward Bramwell, Her special licence that
I, the said Edward Bramwell, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said Edward Bramwell, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others,
from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend,
within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel
Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF
PREPARING SALTS AND OTHER SOLID BODIES FOR TREATMENT BY GASES OR VAPOURS,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Edward Bramwell,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my,
or their, or one of their hands and seals, should particularly describe
and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed in the
Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Edward Bramwell, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement :-
The object of this Invention is to facilitate the treatment of salts and
other solid bodies by gases, or vapours, or by mixtures of both.
There are many reactions between salts and other solid compounds
and gases or vapours which could be turned to very important practical
account if sufficiently complete and intimate contact between the salts
or other bodies and the gases or vapours could be conveniently and
rapidly effected on the large scale; but no means of effecting such
contact with adequate completeness and facility have hitherto been
devised.
My Invention accomplishes this object by forming in and through
the mass of the salt or other body, by means of rods, bars, plates, tubes,
or the like, applied as will herein-after be described, a number of flucs,
channels, or passages, into which the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours,
or mixture of both can be admitted, such gas or gases, or vapour or
vapours, or mixture of both being thereby brought into contact with a
very large surface of the salt or other body, and enabled to penetrate to
every part thereof.
In carrying out my said Invention I employ vessels, chambers, or
receptacles, in each of which I place a false bottom, pierced with holes
of such size and in such number as may best accord with the nature of
the salt or other body which is to be operated upon, and the depth to
which the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixture of both with
which it is to be treated can penetrate into it, the holes being the nearer
together the more difficultly penetrable the salt, and vice versa. Into
each hole in this false bottom enters the lower end of a vertical rod, bar,
1 plate, or tube, so shapen that it can pass through the hole for only a
few inches & then completely closes the hole. Each vessel is thus
furnished with as many rods, bars, plates, or tubes as there are holes in
its false bottom. The rods, bars, plates, or tubes may be of any material
which will sufficiently withstand the action of the bodies to be brought
into contact with them in each particular case. They may be, according
to circumstances, either of uniform size throughout the whole of their
length, except as regards the few inches passing into or through the

page_text: holes in the false bottom, or they may be made to taper from one end to
the other; and their transverse section may similarly be either circular,
oval, square, angular, or otherwise. Their upper ends should be attached
to a framework forming a kind of movable false top, which can be
raised or lowered at will, and by raising or lowering which the whole of
Into
the rods, bars, plates, or tubes will be raised or lowered also.
vessels thus appointed the salt or other body to be treated is charged to
a suitable depth, when the rods, bars, plates, or tubes are in such
position that the holes in the false bottom are completely closed by
them. The office of the rods, bars, plates, or tubes is to form channels,
flues, or passages for the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixture
of both with which the salt or other solid body is to be treated, the said
channels corresponding with the holes in the false bottom, but the
methods of procedure in order to the accomplishment of this object
by their means must necessarily differ in different cases.
When the salt or other solid body which is to be operated upon is of
such a nature that after it has been charged as above set forth into a
vessel appointed as above described it will not on the withdrawal of the
rods, bars, plates, or tubes fall into and fill up the spaces which they
tubes may be
had previously occupied, the rods, bars, plates, or
entirely withdrawn after the vessel is charged, leaving channels, flues,
or passages into and through which the gas or gases or vapour or
vapours, or mixture of both may freely enter and pass, such gas or
gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixture of both being admitted first
either into the space between the real bottom of the vessel and its false
bottom and then passing upwards or into the space between the cover
of the vessel and the top of its charge and then passing downwards;
but in other cases, such as that of the manufacture of bleaching powder,
in which, if the rods, bars, plates, or tubes were completely withdrawn,
the material to be treated would so fall into the spaces they had occupied
as not to leave sufficiently clear channels, flues, or passages for the gas
or gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixture of both, the entire with-
drawal of the rods, bars, plates, or tubes is not advisable.
In such cases I prefer to make the rods, bars, plates, or tubes to
diminish gradually in diameter from their upper ends downwards, and
then when the vessel is charged with the material to be operated upon
by means of a screw attached to the framework supporting the rods,
bars, plates, or tubes, and passing through the cover of the vessel, or

page_text: by means of any other convenient contrivance I slightly raise the rods,
bars, plates, or tubes, and thereby provide sufficient means of passage
for the gas or gases, or vapour or vapours, or mixture of both notwith-
standing that the rods, bars, tubes, or plates remain in the vessel. If
necessary I clear the passages from time to time by lowering the rods,
bars, plates, or tubes for a moment and then raising them again; or
instead of proceeding as just described I accomplish the same end by
employing tubes perforated with holes throughout their length, these
tubes being allowed to remain in the vessel, and the gas or gases or
vapour or vapours, or mixture of both reaching the salt or other solid
body through the perforations in them; or by employing flat or oval
or other rods, bars, plates, or tubes, and making them revolve slowly on
their longer axes either intermittently or continuously, as may be best
in each particular case.
I prefer that the rods, bars, plates, or tubes employed under this
Invention should be placed vertically or nearly so, and that they
should be put into the vessels in which the salt or other body is to be
treated before the said vessels are charged therewith, but it is obvious
that these details may be modified without interfering with the nature
of my Invention.
Having now described the nature of my Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I would have it understood that
what I believe to be new and original, and desire to have secured to me
by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is, the preparation of
salts and other solid bodies for treatment by gases, or vapours, or
both by forming in the mass of the salt or other body channels or
passages for the gases, or vapours, or mixture of both, substantially by
the means which are above described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edward Bramwell, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of April, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-two.