Improvements in the Manufacture of Fuel Briquettes.
Year: 1896

page_text: Date of Application, 5th Sept., 1896
Complete Specification Left, 18th Jan.. 1897-Accepted. 5th Oct. 1897
Improvements in the Manufacture of Fuel Briquettes.
I, PAUL RAOUL DE FACCHEUX D'HUMY of 136 Prince's Road Liverpool in the
County of Lancaster, Civil and Naval Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this
invention to be as follows: --
This invention has for its object the manufacture of a cheap hard tough briquette
of extremely high calorific power.
I take fibrous matter such as cocoa-nut fibre peat, refuse of cotton mills, fine
pitchpine, or other wood shavings or other like fibrous matter and soak them in a
solution consisting of fatty matters, caustic alkali, nitrate of soda or other highly
oxygenating salt, crude petroleum or other cheap hydrocarbons, resin, and pitchpine
sawdust or other vegetable fibrous matter or cellulose, heated together to boiling
point then cooled to near solidification and dissolved in the requisite quantity of
water or in the said fuel before solidification until the fibre is entirely impregnated.
The matter is now dried in any convenient manner and is mixed in a mixing machine
with powder of coal, charcoal, coke, or other inflammable matter and gently heated
by steam or other means until the whole mass has assumed a malleable consistency.
I now pass it through roller mills and form it into sheets. These sheets are united
by any suitable binder such a pitch and are cut into shapes of the right size and
submitted to a briquette press and pressed. In the briquette press I may insert
thin sheets of wood strawboard paper or other material the size of the sides top and
and bottom of the mould and surround the block to be pressed with them. When
the block is pressed therefore it is faced by a thin clean covering convenient to
handle.
I, PAUL RAOUL DE FAUCHEUX D'HUMY, of 136 Prince's Road, Liverpool, in the
County of Lancaster, Civil and Naval Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement:-
This invention has for its object the manufacture of a cheap, hard, tough
briquette of extremely high calorific power. I take the concentrated fuel formed
from fibre, caustic alkali, and hydrocarbons, as described in my Patent No. 20156

page_text: of 1896, dissolve it in the requisite quantity of water to produce a saturated
solution and add thereto in a mixing machine, powder, dust, or small granules of
coal, charcoal, coke, or other combustible material; or while this concentrated fuel
as described in my aforesaid specification is still hot and nearly boiling I mix with
it the aforesaid powdered material, in each case using just sufficient of the binding
material to form a plastic mass with the small coal or the like. I then pass the
mixture in the heated state or after heating by steam or otherwise to a malleable
consistency through roller mills and form it into sheets about one-fourth of an inch
thick, though the exact thickness is comparatively immaterial, the thinner the
better so long as they will hold together while being manipulated. It is preferable
to form several of these sheets at the same time by means of pairs of rollers. These
sheets are smeared in any desirable manner with a binding material such as pitch
and if they are all formed at the same time are passed with a binding material
through another pair of rollers and thus condensed into a sheet. They are now cut
into the right size for briquettes by means of wires or otherwise and are allowed to
cool in this form or submitted to a brick press and pressed. In the briquette press
I may insert thin sheets of wood, strawboard, paper or other material the size of the
sides top and bottom of the mould and surround the block to be pressed with them.
When the block is pressed therefore it is faced by a thin clean covering convenient to
handle. This may be done in manufacturing other briquettes provided that they
are plastic or adhesive during manufacture.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. The manufacture of fuel briquettes by mixing coal, coke dust or other mineral
or organic combustible refuse with artificial fuel such as described in my Patent,
No. 20156 of 1896 rolling into sheets, uniting where requisite by a binding material,
pressing together and forming into briquettes, substantially as described.
2. In the manufacture of fuel briquettes lining the mould or the rough briquette
with strawboard, paper or the like before pressure, whereby the briquettes are formed
with a tough and clean exterior convenient to handle as described.
Dated this 15th day of January 1897
WM. P. THOMPSON & Co.,
Of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London, Patent Agents.