IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GAS
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Robert Mudge Marchant, of Kirby Street, Hatton
Garden, in the County of Middlesex, Oivil Engineer, for the Inven-
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Robert Mudge Marchant
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 7th November 1874.
I, ROBERT MUDGE MARCHANT, of Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, in
the County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature
of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GAS,"
to be as follows:-
-
My Invention consists in manufacturing gas by the application of
heat to a mixture of oil and water, and this I effect by boiling the.
mixed oil and water, or by first converting the water into steam and
then passing the steam into and through the oil. The oxygen of the
water or steam having a great affinity for the carbon of the oil combines
therewith and forms carbonic oxide in union with the hydrocarbons

page_text: obtained from the boiling of the surplus oil, leaving the hydrogen of the
water or steam free. I thus obtain highly combustible gases in com-
bination with the liberated hydrogen, which combination of gases may
be conveyed through pipes or otherwise and utilized for heating or illu-
minating purposes.
When required for illuminating purposes its lighting powers may be
perfected for application at the lowest temperatures by the addition and
intermixture of any suitable spirituous or other gas, or by the subjection
of the gas to the action of pipes in which a high tomperature is effected
in any known manner during its passage through them to any holder or
receiver.
.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Robert Mudge Marchant in the Great Seal Patent
Office on the 6th May 1875.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ROBERT
MUDGE MARCHANT, of Kirby Street, Hatton Garden, in the County
of Middlesex, Civil Engineer, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Seventh day of November, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four, in the
thirty-eighth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said Robert Mudge Marchant,
Her special licence that I, the said Robert Mudge Marchant, mỹ
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Robert Mudge Marchant, my executors, administrators, 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 King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of
Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF Gas,” upon :
the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Robert Mudge Marchant,
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

page_text: Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Robert Mudge Marchant, 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 thereof, that is to say:-
My Invention consists in manufacturing gas, as herein-after
described, from a mixture of oil and water, and this I effect by first
converting the water into steam and then either passing the steam into
and through the oil, or preferably by injecting oil into the steam; by
this last mode a definite saturation of the steam with the oil can be
more certainly obtained. I thus produce a highly combustible mixture,
the combination of which and its conversion into gas I perfect in the
furnace itself by means of the combustion of the gas itself therein, the
flame of the already perfected gas being made to operate on the conduit
pipe which conveys the continuous flow of the saturated steam to the
burners, so that it is highly superheated and in perfected combination
with the oil before it escapes from the burners.
For lighting purposes I further saturate such gas in its passage from
any holder (to which it may be conveyed in its completed state) to the
main pipe by passing the gas through any convenient receiver which
contains any spirit of the "gasoline" character so as to render it capable
by such addition of combustion for lighting purposes at low temperatures.
The manner in which I prepare and apply the oxygen and hydrogen
of water to the manufacture of the completed gas for heating purposes
is to inject and percolate oil into steam (raised from the water) at the
time of the passage of the steam through any pipe or pipes conveying it
to any furnace, in which furnace itself the steam so saturated with the
required proportion of oil is passed through a pipe in continuation of
such external piping, and is circulated through it in the flame of the
furnace so that the already saturated steam shall be superheated by the
action of such flame on the pipe containing it, and the gases of the
steam brought into perfected combination with those of the oil before the
gas so completed is delivered to the burners which are placed at the end
of such superbeating pipe. The burners are so arranged as to deliver
the gas in jets forwards to the flue outlet or fire-bridge, and in such
manner that according to the pressure of the steam (which can be regu-
•

page_text: lated by a cock in the external conduit pipe, and which cock is placed
at an earlier point of such pipe which passes the steam towards the
furnace than the point at which the oil is percolated into the steam) so
will be the forward draft in the furnace. This draft is of the greater
advantage because the combustion of the gas can be advantageously
effected without admission of cold external air for the purpose, the
oxygen in the gases of the steam itself being sufficient for combustion
when the oil saturation is properly regulated and reduced to a minimum.
If however too much oil be percolated by the injector into the steam
under such conditions the flame will be converted into smoke. The
quantity of oil to be applied is best regulated by the appearance of the
gas in the combustion chamber of the furnace which can be observed
through any peephole arranged for this purpose, and any deep yellow or
approximately red color should be carefully avoided by checking the
supply of oil to the steam as it shews an extravagant and otherwise :
objectionable consumption of oil. Any increase to the supply of oil to
the steam when the red color is produced in the gas will convert the
flame into smoke. Between a yellowish blue and pale yellow are the best
conditions of color for the application of the gas to heating purposes.
I would here remark that my Invention does not consist in the
simple burning of oil and steam in a mixture or combination effected
either by the process of natural delivery at one point or by the
process of saturating the steam with oil, by which processes the com-
bustion of steam has been effected in America and elsewhere; but
my Invention consists in the manufacture of gas from such mixture or
combination (however that mixture or combination may be obtained).
before the combustion is effected as a perfected gas, and I so convey and
utilize a mixture or combination of the necessary supply of oil to its
proportion of steam that a gas, of which the greater proportion is formed
from water and the smallest proportion practicable from oil, is obtained
before any combustion takes place. I effect this by mixing or combining
the required proportions of steam and oil in the manner herein-before
stated, and by passing such mixture or combination through a con-
tinuation of any conduit pipe, which continuation I convert into a close
retort and circulate within the furnace itself, on which pipe retort the
perfected gas in combustion (from a row of burners, all of which point
forwards to such retort and to the flue) is made continually to play so
as to perfect the gas or mixture which is in its passage to the burners by
the combustion of a portion of the gas which has been already perfected.

page_text: "
The mere combustion of steam and oil leads to an extravagant and
unnecessary consumption of oil, while the combustion of the perfected
gas so produced greatly reduces the quantity of oil otherwise required;
and when all external air is excluded reduces such consumption to a
necessary minimum, for as already stated under these circumstances
more than the necessary supply of oil in my method converts the gas
into a smoke which will only burn by admitting external air.
For illuminating purposes the gas can be similarly prepared and
perfected in any such furnace or in any furnace differently fired, if it be
preferred, and it can be delivered from such superheating pipe in the
furnace, and through any connecting pipe from such superheater to any
gas holder, from which when required for application it can be made to
pass through any convenient receiver containing "gasoline" or other
spirit so as to render it capable by its saturation with spirit of that
combustion for lighting purposes at ordinary atmospheric temperatures
for which without such further combination it is not applicable, and for
such purpose I prefer to use an ordinary compensating "wet gas meter,"
which I fill to the required level with spirit instead of with water, so
that in the meter itself and during the passage of the gas to the burners
such final application is administered to it.
For heating purposes I also effect the same result by conveying the
steam from any boiler by means of a pipe provided with a regulating
cock and superheating it in the manner already described, and then
delivering it from burners pointing forwards into the products or gases
obtained from coal, the combustion of such coal being maintained by
the forward draught of and by the oxygen in the superheated steam
itself.
The gases obtained from coal contain all the ingredients of oil, so that
the burning of steam in combination with these gases, as just mentioned,
is essentially the same as burning gas made from steam and oil, aș
herein-before described; thus all or nearly all external air can be equally
excluded for this operation and the coal burnt as in a retort and made to
give off its gases into which the superheated steam is continually
delivered.
The gases of the steam combine equally with the gases of the coal as
with those of any coal oil, and the continued combustion of the water
gas and coal gas so manufactured and combined and applied in the

page_text: furnace itself can be effected. Care must equally be taken not to check
the heat of the furnace by too large a supply of fresh coal at any one
time, such action producing a similar result to that already described as
arising from the supply of too much oil.
In witness whereof, I, the said Robert Mudge Marchant, have t
hereunto set my hand and seal, this Sixth day of May, One thou-.
sand eight hundred and seventy-five.