IMPROVEMENTS IN EXTRACTING METALS AND SULPHUR FROM ORES, AND IN APPARATUS FOR THESE PURPOSES
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Walter Watson Hughes, of 48, Porchester Terrace,
Bayswater, in the County of Middlesex, for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN EXTRACTING METALS AND SULPHUR FROM ORES, AND IN APPARATUS
FOR THESE PURPOSES."
(Void by reason of the Patentee having neglected to file a Specification in
pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Walter Watson Hughes at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd November 1880.
WALTER WATSON HUGHES, of 48, Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, in the County
of Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN EXTRACTING METALS AND SULPHUR FROM
ORES, AND IN APPARATUS FOR THESE PURPOSES."
This Invention has for its object improvements in extracting metals and sulphur
from ores, and in apparatus for these purposes.
For the purpose of carrying out my improvements I employ, first, what I shall
call my reducing furnace, which may be made either round, square, or oval, or any
other shape, and of any required size.
But prefer to employ one made considerably longer than it is broad, with
small fire places in both sides and ends.
These fire places are placed a few inches above the bottom of the furnace, and
have iron doors or other materials at their mouth for regulating the quantity of air
entering to the fire.
I use the necessary quantity of any sort of fuel that may best conduce, in
conjunction with the sulphur, if there be any in the ores, to promote the rapid
reduction of the contents of the furnace to a molten or liquid state. The furnace is
of any necessary height, and is arched over the top, and the flue or flues for carrying
off the ascending sulphur or gases are placed where most convenient for that
purpose, and so as to be in connection with the chambers for collecting the sulphur
and other gases.
When the furnace is filled for the purpose of the contents being melted or run
down to a liquid state, the charge will generally contain a metal or metals having a
sufficient quantity of sulphur in it or therein to help to run down the charge, and
the necessary silicious matter to prevent the iron contained in the charge from
....מ'

page_text: injuring the bottom or sides of the furnace, or the bottom or sides of any of the
furnaces through which the molten contents of this furnace have to pass, and be
operated upon by a greater or less heat.
All the above named materials with the fluxes or other matters that may be
required to make a convenient or profitable charge should be thoroughly mixed
together before being put into the furnace.
The molten metal and slag from the furnace will run in a constant stream into
the converter furnace or furnaces; which stand upon a lower level or upon a level
sufficiently low to allow of the stream entering the furnace about the line of
tuyers. By the force of gravity it descends through an open space in the side wall
of the furnace.
The tuyers are so placed in the furnace, whether blowing more or less, either
upwards or downwards, that the blast from one tuyer shall carry the metal and
slag as they enter the furnace onward to the next tuyer, and so on to the next
tuyer.
The tuyers are so placed, whether blowing upwards or downwards, as to give a
slight circular motion to the whole of the contents of the furnace.
The converter furnace may be made either round, square, or oval, or any other
shape, but I prefer it being made round, and of a size suitable to the strength or
weight of the blast, and to the quantity of the molten metal and slag continuously
running into it.
'
The metal or metals and slag after the former has been oxidised may be run off
at different levels from the top of the contents of the furnace, or the light slag
alone may be run off at the top, and the heavier contents rise up through an open
space in the wall of the furnace to a point at or a little below where the slag runs
out, so that they will run into the separating or refining furnace together; or the
metal may be tapped off from the bottom of the furnace.
•
The height of the furnace is in proportion to its diameter, and it is covered over
with a circular roof, and has a flue for carrying off the sulphur and other gases at
the most suitable place for leading to the chainber or chambers for collecting the 3
sulphur, sulphuric acid, and other gases.
The converter furnace may be worked by either hot or cold blast upon the
Bessemer principle.
There may be openings in the sides to let in cold air when required to cool
contents.
3
I call my third furnace the separating or refining furnace, because if the heavy
slag is not wanted to be kept by itself for the iron it contains, it and the light slag
will be run or drawn off together, and only the copper and other heavy metals
left in the lower part of the furnace, and which may now be refined and run out.
The metal and slug from the convertor runs into this furnace through an opening .4
in the wall.
The furnace is in the form of an ordinary reverberatory furnace, and with sides
sloping inwards towards the centre of the bottom.
A channel one or two inches deep and six to eight inches wide is run lengthways
in the bottom of the furnace, having a small basin at one end from which may be 4
dipped up with a ladle any heavy metal accumulated in it.
The copper and other material from this channel when ladled up are treated in a
small furnace or large pot in the usual way for any of the richer metals.
Two converter furnaces are attached to one reducing furnace, and two separating
or refining furnaces to each converter, and the converter can be tapped off at the 5
bottom when required.