IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLYING HEAT FOR GENERATING STEAM AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS MAY BE EMPLOYED TO OBTAIN POWER
Year: 1844

page_text: Apparatus whereby Gas obtained from Distillation of
Coal, &c. is, when combined with Atmospheric Air,
Inflamed and Applied to the Generation of Steam, &c.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JACQUES
BIDAULT, of Paris, in the Kingdom of France, Merchant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Ier
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Seventeenth day of July, in the eighth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Jacques Bidault, Her especial licence, full power, sole privilege and
authority, that I, the said Jacques Bidault, my exors, adñiors, and assigns,
or such others as I, the said Jacques Bidault, my exors, adñiors, or assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time, and at all
times during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick upon Tweed, the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPLYING HEAT FOR
GENERATING STEAM AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES, WHICH IMPROVEMENTS MAY BE
EMPLOYED TO OBTAIN POWER;" communicated to me by a certain foreigner
residing abroad; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso that
I, the said Jacques Bidault, shall cause a particular description of the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be inrolled in Her said Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited
Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more
fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Jacques Bidault, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described
and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had
to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked
thereon, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to the construction of apparatus whereby the gas
obtained from the distillation of coal or other material, is, when combined with at-
mospheric air, inflamed and applied to the generating of steam and for other pur-
poses; and also to obtain power to drive machinery, as will be more particularly,
.described. The combustible material from which the distillation takes place
may either be in a solid or a liquid state, placed in retorts or reservoirs. The
combination and construction of this generator with the furnaces may be varied
according to the nature of the fuel to be operated upon, and according to the
branch of industry to which it is to be applied. The atmospheric air which is
mixed with the gas may also be supplied by means of a pump or blowing appa-
ratus, or any convenient means. In order that the nature of this apparatus or
generator may be more readily understood, I have in the Drawing shewn it
applied to an ordinary boiler of a fixed engine, in which it is employed to
generate steam, although it will readily be understood that it may be easily
applied to other branches of manufacture where that is required.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING.
Figure 1 represents an end view of the apparatus complete; Figure 2 is a
longitudinal section, and Figure 3 a tranverse section; these sections are made
through the lines 1 and 2, and 3 and 4. A is the fire-place hermetically sealed
at each end by a screw, in a similar manner to the ordinary gas retorts; there
are five bars in these fire-places, which are supplied with the coke from which
the
gas has been extracted by the process of distillation. B, B, B, are three
metal retorts, which are to be filled with about two-thirds of coal; these are
luted at their ends according to the ordinary plan, and hermetically closed by
means of discs; these three retorts communicate with one another, and with
the tube E by means of branches, and of the tube C; q, q, q, are hollow cylinders,
supplied with air by any convenient apparatus through the tube D, and com-
municating by means of a common branch D¹ at their left end; these air cylinders
communicate at their right end with the cylindrical tube E by means of the
branch H; they are hermetically closed at their ends; E, E, are the chambers in
which the mixture of the gas and atmospheric air takes place. These chambers,
which pass through the water spaces, are connected with one another by means

page_text: of the branch pipes F, F, which run up to the upper part of the boiler where
there is a valve G applied, through which the inflamable gas and atmospheric
air would escape, with the steam from the boiler, through the pipe L. The
retorts B are supported by a brick arch N; the boiler I is placed between two
cylinders O and P, each end of the boiler is closed by means of a metallic plate
or discs; q, are manholes, for the purpose of cleaning out the boilers; another
disc or plate T covers at each end the space occupied by the retorts B, the
fire-place A, and the air chamber q, and the brick arch N. The air to assist
in the combustion of the coke placed upon the fire-bars is supplied through the
perforated tube u, which is to be connected for that purpose by a branch pipe
with the supply pipe D, or it may be supplied from the same source as the
supply pipe D; J is a tube through which the products of combustion escape;
but as the material to be preferred is coke, very little smoke is produced, which
is one of the advantages of this system; the tube may be connected by a branch
to the boiler, so as to pass away with, and to work the inflamable gas. The
fire-place A is supplied with fuel without any communication with the exterior
air by means of supply tubes x, x, each supplied with two registers or valves
y,; these will communicate at the upper part with a reservoir, not shown in
the Drawings, containing the coke from the retorts, and with the fire-place at
the lower part. When fresh fuel is required, the upper valve y should be opened,
when the coke would descend to the lower valve ; the upper valve should then
be shut and the lower one opened, when the fuel supplied will fall through
without any communication of the atmosphere taking place. By this system the
whole of the heat is retained, and no loss takes place from the continued open-
ing of the door, as practised in the ordinary plan. In mixing the atmospheric
air with the distilled gas, the quantity of air thrown in must depend upon the
quality or nature of the combustible material. The blowing apparatus may
also be varied from the one shewn in the Figure 4 in section. This apparatus
is shewn double, so that when part of it is drawing in the air, the other is
forcing it out. a, a, are vessels filled with water, in which are inverted vessels
b, b; these vessels are open at their lower ends; at their upper parts are two
valves c, c, opening downwards. These vessels are connected together by means
of a balance lever d, and they rise and fall alternately; and the air is drawn in
and forced into the respective tubes e, e, to supply the reservoir f. By means of
the tube h and a cock, the air may be supplied to the pipe u, for the purpose of
keeping up the combustion of the fuel, or the air to this pipe may be brought
from the pipe D by a branch pipe, as before explained.
I will now describe the mode of lighting the gas and atmospheric air; it
takes place in the chamber E. It may done be by means of a gas burner, by

page_text: incans of a tube from the chamber E coming against the front or sides of the
apparatus; but the mode I prefer to use, I have shown in the Drawing,
Figure 5. is a cylindrical chamber, containg water and sulphuric acid; mis
a bell-mouthed vessel, in the inner part of which are a series of bars n, on to
which are introduced through the plug o, pieces of zinc or iron. The vessel is
to be caused to descend, when the pieces of zinc or iron will come in contact
with the sulphuric acid and water, by which hydrogen is given off, which is
allowed to escape by the cock into the tube s, the end of which tube enters
into the chamber E, and has at the end of it a piece of sponge of platina, the
contact of which with hydrogen ligts the gas and air in the chamber E; this
is regulated by turning the cock 2, and allowing the hydrogen to escape; the
generation of the hydrogen only takes place at such times as the iron or zinc is
in contact with the sulphuric acid water. The action of the apparatus is as
follows-The fire-place being charged with coke, the furnace having arrived
at a great heat, the retorts will soon attain the necessary heat for the distillation
of the coal they contain, with which they will have been supplied according to
the ordinary method of filling retorts when making gas; the gas, as it is dis-
tilled, passes through the tube c into the chambers E, at the same time air is
being forced into the chambers 7, 7, and passes from thence through the branch
tubes H into the chambers E, to be mixed with the gas when it is lighted, as
before described; the heat is given off to the water in the boiler, and generates
the steam and passes off with the steam, and is employed by connecting it with
suitable machinery to obtain power. The pressure of injected air through the
furnace must always exceed the pressure of the power obtained. If the engine
is required to be stopped for a time, it will be necessary to stop the blowing
apparatus, which may be either attached to the apparatus or worked by it, or it
may be separate. The boiler should also have a safety valve M, and all the
usual apparatus.
Having thus described the nature of the Invention and the manner of per-
forming the same, I would have it understood that I do not claim the distilling
gas from coal or other fuel, nor the mixing atmospheric air with the products
of coal, they having been separately done before; nor do I confine myself to
the precise details of the apparatus shewn, nor to the materials of which the
different parts are made, so long as the character of the Invention be retained.
But what I claim is, the mode of generating gas and burning it with atmo-
spheric air in an apparatus as herein described for the purpose of pro-
ducing steam power or heat, or light, and for other purposes, according to the
branch of metallurgical, mechanical, physical, or chemical industry, to which
it is to be applied.

page_text: And secondly, I claim the mode of obtaining power by employing the use of
the products of coal and gas combined with steam as herein described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Jacques Bidault, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Eighth day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.