IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DRYING OF PEAT, AND ITS MANUFACTURE OR PREPARATION INTO PEAT FUEL, AND IN THE APPLICATION OF THE SAID FUEL TO THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON FROM THE ORE, SOME PARTS OF THE SAID IMPROVEMENTS BEING ALSO APPLICABLE FOR DRYING OTHER MATERIALS OR SUBSTANCES, AND IN APPARATUS CONNECTED THERE WITH
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Christopher Brakell at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
8th October 1872.
I, CHRISTOPHER BRAKELL, of York Street Chambers, Manchester, in
the County of Lancaster, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE DRYING OF PEAT, AND ITS
MANUFACTURE OR PREPARATION INTO PEAT FUEL, AND IN THE APPLICATION OF THE
SAID FUEL TO THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON FROM THE ORE, SOME PARTS OF THE
SAID IMPROVEMENTS BEING ALSO APPLICABLE FOR DRYING OTHER MATERIALS OR
SUBSTANCES, AND IN APPARATUS CONNECTED THERE WITH," to be as follows:-
Peat or turf contains a very large per centage of water, and the
particles are generally so minutely intermingled that they can only be
separated by gradual evaporation. To do this by open air drying
through the action of the winds and sun is a very slow process and can
only be done during a few months in the summer season. While to
evaporate so large a proportion of moisture by artificial means has
hitherto been very expensive, it having been always premised that the
evaporation or drying required the application of great heat, which,

page_text: means a large consumption of fuel, whereas I maintain that it can be
better, quicker, and more economically done by means of a large volume
of dry air or gases, which need not necessarily be of a high temperature,
hence the necessity of my said improvements.
In the preparation of peat fuel for what may be termed ordinary
purposes or purposes for which it is not necessary to subject it to
pressure or to condense it, I proceed as follows:-I prepare stoves or
drying chambers of, say for example, twenty feet long, four feet broad,
and two feet in height. These stoves are made alongside of each other,
and connected with each other at both ends, and at one end of each stove
is a furnace or fire-grate, which can be closed or partly so from the
atmosphere. The first of the row of drying stoves is connected with the
Inst one by piping or a flue in connection with which is a fan or blower,
and it will be understood that the whole can be closed or partly so
from the outside atmosphere. Inside of each stove I place a travelling
endless lattice.
The mode of working is as follows:-The peat being cut, say for
example, in cakes of ten inches square and two inches thick, is brought
to the stoves, and the doors of the stoves being opened the cakes are
placed on their edges on the lattices, the cross bars of the lattices having
pegs for the purpose of supporting the cakes vertically, the lattices are
caused to travel or move forward until each stove is filled with the peat.
The doors are then closed and the furnaces having fires lighted in them
the fan is set to work and causes the air or gases to circulate con-
tinuously through the stoves. Beginning with the first stove, the air or
gases which get charged with moisture from the peat are passed through
the furnace, which takes out the moisture so that the gases are dry and
ready for the second stove, where they again get charged with moisture
and are passed through the furnace dry to the next stove, and so on.
From the last stove the gases are passed to the first through the fan
and furnace and so continually circulate. The furnaces are closed or
partly so from the atmosphere, that is to say, the hot moist gases pass
through a closed furnace grate, but I apply a perforated plate near the
dead plate of the furnace, which will be in connection with the atmo-
sphere for the purpose of igniting the gases which have passed through
the fire.
Instead of passing the moist air or gases through a furnace as

page_text: as to convert the moisture into what may be termed superheated steam,
and if I pass it through the furnace the oxygen will combine with the
carbon of the fuel, and the hydrogen will be ignited through the air
entering at the perforated plate referred to.
The lattices pass round a wheel and shaft at each end and aro
supported at the sides and middle. I can also use waggons to be run
into the stoves on rails in place of the endless lattices.
Instead of having a row or range of stoves as described, with a fire-
grate or furnace for each, I need only have one fire-grate or furnace for
the lot; for instance, I make the range of stoves with a door at both
ends of each stove, one door for feeding in the wet peat, and the other
door for discharging the peat when dried. Under or above each end of
the stoves is a flue or pipe from which there is a connection to each
stove. These two cross flues or tubes are connected with each other by
a flue or tube running parallel with the stoves. In this parallel flue I
place an exhaust and discharge fan and also a fire-grate or furnace,
and the fan being set to work, the air or gases are drawn through all
the stoves in one directon, enter the cross flue at the one end of the stoves,
from which they pass through the parallel parallel connecting fluo and
through the fan by which they are forced through the furnace when
being dried, they pass into the cross flue at the opposite end of the
stoves from which they pass through openings therein to each stove,
and passing through the stoves are again passed through the fan and
furnace, and in this way the hot gases are kept in continual circulation.
In this arrangement the wet peat can be fed in at one end of the stoves
and discharged at the other end when dried by causing the endless lattice
to move or travel.
In another method of drying I place the peat in a stove or drying
chamber which is fitted with a furnace or fire-grate at, say one end, and
at the other end I place a fan which being set to work causes the
atmospheric air to be drawn through the furnace and made dry and
capable of absorbing moisture, so that in passing through the peat it
will readily evaporate and absorb the moisture from it. Instead of
blowing the moist air so exhausted direct into the open air, I discharge
it through another tube of larger diameter than the fan discharge which
is in connecton with the stove, and in this manner I draw off or pass
through the stove more air or gases than actually pass through the fan

page_text: the air discharged from the fan acting like an ejector, and drawing or
causing the air or gases from the stove to follow its current, being in
"induced current," the result being that a
smaller fan
fact an
requiring less power to work it may be used.
In another arrangement instead of having the peat cut in cakes
and placed vertically on the lattice as explained, I have the peat cut
roughly from the bog and passed between rollers running at different
speeds, which will mix the peat and deliver it in a thin stream on to the
lattice (which in this case does not require the vertical pegs), the lattice
being caused to move slowly forward the peat is delivered continuously
at the other end of the stoves sufficiently dry. It is then if necessary
passed through rollers running at different speeds, which reduce it to a
rough powder, and it is afterwards pressed by suitable machines into
blocks of any required hardness. If necessary these blocks may be
afterwards passed through stoves, as already described, so as to extract
any moisture remaining.
I wish it to be understood that I can use the various methods of
drying or evaporating moisture, as described, in the drying of other
materials or substances besides peat.
The peat prepared as described can be used for the smelting of iron
ore, or it may first be charred or made into charcoal; and the charring
ovens I propose to make something like the manner of coke ovens,
except that up the centre of each charring oven I place a flue or tube of
iron or fire-clay. Through this central fluo or tube I pass air which is
thereby heated and dried, and apply the same for drying the peat in the
stoves already described. The hot gases from the peat in process of
charring I also apply to the drying stoves.
Instead of applying the hot air from the central tubes of the charring
ovens to the drying stoves, I use the central tubes for heating the air as
passes from the blowing engine or machine to the smelting furnaces.
it
The hot gases from the smelting furnace I apply for heating the
boilers required to work the blowing engines, or where water power is
available, and steam power therefore not necessary for this purpose, I
apply the said hot gases to the drying stoves already described.
0
To promote a speedier smelting of the iron ore I propose to crush the 3
ore into pieces sufficiently small, and mixing the same with the

page_text: powdered peat, press it into blocks, which blocks I either charge direct
into the smelting furnace, or first char them as above described.
In these various drying processes I prefer to apply a fan of special
construction, which takes the air in at one side only of the disc in a line
with the axis and discharges it at right angles to the axis, and the shaft
and disc of the said fan will be supported by bearings on one side only
of the disc, or in other words the disc will overhang.
This construction of fan is well suited for passing hot air or gases,
and I propose to make it with broad vanes, so that it will circulate at a
low pressure a large volume of air or gases and require little power to
work it.