AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING PEAT INTO COKE OR CHARCOAL
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Nicholas Demetrius Spartali at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 17th July 1876.
NICHOLAS DEMETRIUS SPARTALI, of Liverpool, in the County of Lancaster, Steam
Ship Agent. "AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR CONVERTING
PEAT INTO COKE OR CHARCOAL."
The object of my Invention is to convert raw, wet, or dry peat into coke, or
horoughly carbonised charcoal in a consolidated state; to this end the sods or
blocks of peat as they are brought from the bog are compressed in rolls or blocks
by a screw or hydraulic press, the peat is then placed in horizontal or vertical
retorts set in enclosed fire-brick furnaces with sloping fires, so that the flames
therefrom surround the retorts.
Instead of allowing the gases of the coking peat to escape from the retort
through pipes I retain them therein, and utilize them by causing them to permeate
the peat itself as it is being heated in the retorts.
The heat of the furnace and of the gases evolved from the peat itself in the
retort are sufficient to carbonise the peat thoroughly, and to embrace there with the
tarry substance and gaseous combustible matters contained in peat. A very small
pipe at the top of the retort can be provided with a valve, which may be made to
open or shut and allow such little escape of aqueous vapour only as is required to
prevent any accident.
By making my retorts horizontal in the shape of large cylinders I can press the
peat in the tubes as the mass is gradually charred by the gasses and the heat of
the fire. The charred mass is forced out in solid rolls of short length at the other
end of the retort; or if my retorts are placed vertically I provide them with feed
hoppers at the top, and a false bottom to allow the contents to be dropped from
below or through a nan-hole or man-hole doors at the sides of the retorts.
At a certain stage of the charring process the fires should be drawn to prevent
the peat inside the retorts from igniting, and if left for a short time to gradually
cool the gas will permeate the peat completely, and then the material can be
taken out.
To make coke (when the charring has reached an advanced stage, but long
before there is any danger of ignition) I allow the charred peat to empty itself into

page_text: cold water, or I use a jet or jets of cold water, which is thrown on the charred peat
when in a heap.
This carbonised peat is the best material that can be used for the manufacture of
best kinds of sheet or bar iron, such as Swedish iron, fire-resisting, and particularly
for boilers, and this process will be the means of reducing its cost very materially.
If sufficient pressure can be got out of the presses used for brick making, such
machine would be preferable, and part of my Invention consists in perforating the
material with holes, such holes in the solid masses of pressed or solid peat are
necessary before they enter the retorts, so that the gases will permeate the blocks,
particularly the compressed blocks, thoroughly into all the recesses and pores.
I may add a small quantity of liquid coal or shale tar in combination with the
peat before it is pressed to assist its agglomeration.
If the retorts are made of considerable length so as to extend beyond the fire-
place, the outer end may be kept cool, so that when the peat is pushed forward in
the retort, it will when it reaches this cool part of the retort be gradually reduced
in temperature and will be solidified by the pressure to which it is subjected in
order to force it out of the end of the retort.
Any convenient number of retorts may be arranged in one bench and heated by
the same fire.