IMPROVEMENTS IN SMOKE CONSUMING AND INODOROUS FURNACES FOR EVAPORATING AND INCINERATING ALKALINE LYES, MOLASSES, AND FOR OTHER ANALOGOUS PURPOSES
Year: 1875

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Eugene Rabot, of Versailles, in the Department
of the Scinc and Oise, and Republic of France, for the Invention
of "IMPROVEMENTS IN SMOKE CONSUMING AND INODOROUS FURNACES FOR
EVAPORATING AND INCINERATING ALKALINE LYES, MOLASSES, AND FOR OTHER
ANALOGOUS PURPOSES."
Sealed the 15th February 1876, and dated the 19th August 1875.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Eugene Rabot at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 19th August 1875.
I, EUGENE RABOT, of Versailles, in the Department of the Seine and
Oise, and Republic of France, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN SMOKE CONSUMING AND INODOROUS FURNACES
FOR EVAPORATING AND INCINERATING ALKALINE LYES, MOLASSES, AND FOR OTHER
ANALOGOUS PURPOSES," to be as follows :-
The fumnes most used at present for evaporating and incinerating

page_text: straw pulp for paker making, of potash by means of the molasses of
sugar houses, the revivification of the soda or potash in various important
manufactures are generally furnaces on the "Porion" type, the smoke
and the offensive gasses from which render the neighbourhood of these
factories almost insupportable.
straw pulp for paker making, of potash by means of the molasses of
sugar houses, the revivification of the soda or potash in various important
manufactures are generally furnaces on the "Porion" type, the smoke
and the offensive gasses from which render the neighbourhood of these
factories almost insupportable.
With my improved system of furnace these nuisances disappear, it
differs from ordinary furnaces,
Firstly. In being smoke consuming.
'
Secondly. Because all the offensive gasses produced during the cal-
cination are completely destroyed.
Thirdly. Because it comprises two chambers intended to receive the
salt as it leaves the body of the furnace and completoly incinerate it.
Fourthly. Because the flame, the smoke, and the current of offensive
gasses hydrocarbonized, sulphuretted, &c., instead of at once going into
the chimney pass through a gas burning chamber, in which by their
combination with the oxygen of the atmosphero they are absolutely and
completely destroyed.
The flame as it issues from the second body circulates in the upper
part of the salt chambers and then passes into a central flue, to go from
thence into the evaporation flue, properly so called, and finally into tho
chimney flue. This latter passes bencath the entire furnaco which it
thus isolates, and preserves from the coolness of the ground.
Fire-brick columns are distributed about the flue arranged in quincunx
or irregularly so as to break and divide the current of gas to mix it
closely with an excess of air and ensure the complete combustion of the
hydrogenated and carbonated components of the smoko.
The excess of air required to ensure this combustion which makes the
furnace smoke consuming is introduced by the cast-iron doors of the
fire-place, which for this purpose are riddled with holes of, say from 1/3
to an inch in diameter.
The smoke consuming flue and the fire-bricks disseminated in groups
within it are kept at a red heat by the passage of the hot smoke issuing
from the furnace and the incinerating chambers. The combustion of
the gasses for which a red heat is indispensable is thus produced without
any expenditure of auxiliary fucl. by the simple effect of the intimate

page_text: admixture of the gasses and the air in a centre, which does not lower
their temperature and can only regulate it.
The object of these arrangements is, as above set forth, to destroy the
smoke at the same time as the disagreable and insalubrious smell dis-
engage from the chimneys of ordinary "Porion" and other furnaces,
and also from works for incinerating salts. This smell is due solely to
the hydrocarburetted and sulphuretted gasses contained in the smoke of
the furnaces and salt heaps, it is therefore only necessary to render the
combustion complete in order to cause the smell to disappear. The salt
chamber has also the advantage of contributing to the saving of fuel by
licating to a somewhat clevated temperature the underneath of the
evaporation fluc. The heat developed in the burning of the salt is thus
utilized, whereas it is completely lost when the salts are allowed to burn
in the open air. The loss by sulphatization is also much loss. This
system admits of various arrangements of the furnace to suit the space
at command either in height or superficial area, and according to the
kind of fire-place to which it is to be adapted.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Eugene Rabot in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 18th February 1876.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, EUGENE
RABOT, of Versailles, in the Department of the Scine and Oise, and
Republic of France, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date this Nineteenth day of August, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, in
the thirty-ninth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said Eugene Rabot, Her
special licence that I, the said Eugene Rabot, my executors, adminis-
trators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Eugene Rabot, 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 Kingdom of Great Britain and

page_text: Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "Im-
PROVEMENTS IN SMOKE CONSUMING AND INODOROUS FURNACES FOR EVAPORATING AND
INCINERATING ALKALINE LYES, MOLASSES, AND FOR OTHER ANALOGOUS PURPOSES,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Eugene Rabot,
my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under
my, or their, or one of their hands and scals, 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 Scal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
"
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Eugene Rabot, 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, reference being had to the accompanying two
Sheets of Drawing, and to the figures and letters of reference placed
thercon :-
The furnaces most generally used at present for evapourating and
incinerating alkaline lyes in various manufactures, such as the manu-
facture of straw pulp for paper making, of potash by means of the
molasses or "mélasse" of sugar houses, residuum left in the manufacture:
of sugar from sugar cane or beetroot, and in the refining of raw sugar,
the revivification of the soda or potash in various important manu-
factures and other analogous purposes are furnaces on the "Porion
type, the smoke and the offensive gasses from which render the neighbour-
hood of these factories almost insupportable.
"
With my improved furnace these nuisances disannear it differs from

page_text: the draught chimney pass through a gas burning chamber, in which by
their combination with the oxygen of the atmosphere they are absolutely
and completely destroyed.
The flame as it issues from the second body circulates in the upper
part of the chambers containing the matter to be treated, and then passes
into a central flue D, to go from thence into the evapouration flue,
properly so called, and finally into the chimney flue. This latter passes
beneath the entire furnace, which it thus isolates and preserves from the
coolness of the ground.
Fire-brick columns are distributed about the flue D arranged in
quincunx or irregularly so as to break and divide the current of gas to
mix it closely with an excess of air and ensure the complete combustion
of the hydrogenated and carbonated components of thic smoke.
The excess of air required to ensure this combustion, which makes
the furnace smoke consuming, is introduced by the cast-iron doors of
the fire-place, which for this purpose are riddled with holes of, say, from
½ to / of an inch in diameter.
The smoke consuming fluc, and the fire-bricks dissominated in groups
within it, are kept at a red heat by the passage of the hot smoke issuing
from the furnaces and the incinerating chambers. The combustion of
the gasses, for which red heat is indespensable, is thus produced
without any expenditure of auxiliary fuel by the simple effect of the
intimate admixture of the gasses and the air in a centre or medium
which does not lower their temperature and can only regulate it.
The object of these arrangements is, as above set forth, to destroy the
smoke at the same time as the disagreeable and insalubrious or noxious
smell disengaged from the chimneys of ordinary "Porion" and other
furnaces, and also from works for incinerating alkaline lyes and other
matters. This smell is duc solely to the hydrocarburetted and sulphur-
etted gasses contained in the smoke of the furnaces and in the organic
matter under treatment. It is therefore only necessary to render the
combustion complete in order to cause the smell to disappear. The
combustion chamber has also the advantage of contributing to tho
saving of fuel by heating to a somewhat clevated temperature the
underneath of the evapouration fluc. The heat developed in the burning
of the alkaline lycs or other matters is thus utilized, whereas it is

page_text: completely lost when these matters are allowed to burn in the open air.
The loss by sulphatisation is also much less. This system admits of
various arrangements of the furnace to suit the space at command,
cither in height or superficial arca, and according to the kind of firc-
place to which it is to be adopted.
The loss by sulphatisation is also much less. This system admits of
various arrangements of the furnace to suit the space at command,
cither in height or superficial arca, and according to the kind of firc-
place to which it is to be adopted.
These various arrangements are illustrated on the accompanying two
Sheets of Drawing.
I will now more fully set forth the principles upon which the con-
struction of my improved smoke consuming and inodorous furnaces is
based.
The destruction of the gasses charged with an excess of carbon and
of hydrogenated products has hitherto been almost impracticable in
large works, notwithstanding the numerous apparatuses which have
been tried in England as well as in France and Germany. Theoretically
the result seems easy of attainment; yet the requisite conditions of
success have led manufacturers to suppositions, researches, and costly
trials, in which difficulties have been encountered which have hitherto
never been satisfactorily overcome.
When there are only traces of carbonaceous matter coming directly
from the fire-place to be made to disappear, if this is nearly effected it
is and may be considered sufficient, there is a loss of fuel and of heat
but no insalubrity; but if the gasses produced do not come from the
fire-place, if they are the result of the treatment of the organic matters,
if they have a bad smell sufficiently pronounced to act upon the
respiratory organs even at considerable distances and cause a feeling of
discomfort and suffocation, which may in some cases be hurtful, it
becomes necessary to achieve the complete destruction of these gasses.
The difficulty is then much greater, and all the means hitherto tried
have given almost negative results.
:
The experiments which I have made upon the products of the com-
bustion of organic matters have proved to me that the strongest
smelling and most disagrecable gasses can neither be absorbed nor
condensed.
Whenever the combustion gives complex hydrocarburets of the type
CH+n very bad smelling and pestilential disengagements take a
place not to be restrained by condensers, which retain only the traces

page_text: oxygenated to burn alone the hydrogen and the carbon which pre-
dominate in their composition.
3°. To destroy them completely and transform them into compounds
free from disagreeable or noxious smell they must be mixed as
intimately as possible with an excess of oxygen without lowering their
temperature.
'
4°. The quantity of gas produced in a given time. The composition
of these gasses and the speed of the current as it issues from the furnaces
must be approximatively known. Such are the principal data upon
which is based the construction of my improved apparatus which may
be applied to every furnace in which organic matters are treated.
As previously set forth and shown on the accompanying Drawings,
the gasses as they issue from the furnace, properly so called, are sent
into a special chamber termed the combustion chamber, the dimen-
sions of which are calculated according to the dimensions of the
fire-places and the quantity of gasses produced. This chamber with a
system of flues, in which aided by a regulator, is effected the complete
combustion of the hydrocarbonised compounds of the smoko constitutes
an apparatus which may be adapted without great expense to all the
furnaces used in paper mills, potash works, wool washing, and other
works. This same apparatus may be applied to all manufactures which
by the action of fire upon organic matters produces noxious or trouble-
some gasses.
The destruction of the gasses in the combustion chamber and in the
smoke consuming flues, is due much less to the temperature of the
gasses themselves than to that produced by their combination with the
oxygen of the air arriving at a sufficient temperature. The result is
thus attained without any cost of auxiliary fuel by the simple effect
of the intimate admixture of the gasses, and the oxygen in requisito
proportion in a medium which does not lower their temperature but on
the contrary regulates it.
The gasses produce by their combustion a considerable amount of
caloric, which permits a considerable saving of ordinary fuel, which
may be easily ascertained; in short the entire theory of the combustion
of the glasses is based upon the following facts :-
-
1°. A volume of vapour of carbon, the combustion of which produces
two volumes of carbonic acid, disengages a quantity of heat repre-

page_text: sented by 8,080 units, that is to say, the quantity of heat necessary to
raise 1 degree the temperature of 8,080 times its weight of water.
2º. Experiment also shows that 2 volumes of oxide of carbon CO
which contain 1 volume of vapour of carbon C unite in burning at
1 volume of oxygen O, give thus two volumes of carbonic acid CO³ and
disengage 5,077 units of heat; consequently one volume of vapour of
carbon C in transforming itself into oxide of carbon CO has disengaged
a quantity of heat represented by 8080-5677-2403 units of heat.
These reactions are exactly produced in the combustion chamber, for I
cause to pass into this chamber heated to a red heat carbon and oxygen,
in proper proportions for forming oxide of carbon and carbonic acid.
Now one volume of carbonic acid which corresponds at ½ (CO³) dis-
engages as aforesaid 8080 units of heat, that is to say, 4040. This
same volume of carbonic acid meeting carbon vapour at a high tempera-
ture unites with it. One volume of carbon vapour is burnt, and two
volumes of oxide of carbon are formed, which in burning produce 2
volumes of carbonic acid, and disengage 5677 units of heat. Therefore
by these combustions simultaneously operated, two volumes of carbon C
produce 4040+5677=9717 units of heat. It is this caloric which I
utilize, whereas it is absolutely lost when the gasses are not destroyed.
2
I do not take into these calculations the variable quantity of hydrogen
which by its combustion also gives a considerable quantity of caloric.
I have analysed the smoke issuing from "Porion" furnaces modified
by my apparatus; the result of the analysis demonstrates very clearly
the destruction of all bad smelling or noxious gasses.
The following is the average composition of the gasses as they issue

page_text: Practical experience since that date has shown that this apparatus,
constructed upon my plans, works so as to cause the disappearance of
all the disengagements of disagreeable and noxious gasses, which render
the neighbourhood of paper mills, potash works, manufactories of
animal black, wool washing works, or others in which organic matters 5
are submitted to the action of fire so very objectionable.
In witness whereof, I, the said Eugène Rabot, have hereunto set
my hand and soal, this Fifteenth day of February, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-six.