IMPROVEMENTS IN REFINING OR PURIFYING SACCHARINE AND OTHER LIQUIDS, AND IN THE APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office of
the Cominissioners of Patents on the 7th November 1876. A communication
from abroad by Hector Legru, the younger, and Gaston Sencier, both of Paris,
in the Republic of France.
JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman. IMPROVEMENTS IN REFINING OR PURIFYING SACCHARINE AND OTHER
LIQUIDS, AND IN THE APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN." A communication from
abroad by Hector Legru, the younger, and Gaston Sencier, both of Paris, in the
Republic of France.
This Invention relates to the refining or purifying of juices, syrups, molasses, and
saccharine liquids generally, and of other liquids by incans of electricity, and it
consists essentially in causing a powerful current obtained from a battery or an
electro-magnetic engine to pass through the liquid, which current in passing from
one conductor to another partially decomposes the saline substances in solution.
Under the action of electricity the gaseous acids are liberated and the other
constituent elements of the saline portions pass through a porous partition, on the
other side of which circulates a current of water or other suitable liquid; they are
thus insulated in this liquid and separated from the saccharine solution which it is
desired to refine or purify. This system differs from the processes hitherto employed
inasmuch as that the salts are partially decomposed by the passage from the cir-
culating current of the solution to be refined or purified to the refining or purifying
liquid which is separated from it by a porous partition, and the action instead of
being slow and necessitating a considerable extent of permeable surface is on the
contrary rapid, and inay be produced in apparatus of limited dimensions.
In carrying out this Invention it is proposed to employ apparatus constructed and
arranged in the following manner, the details however being capable of variation
according to circumstances without departing from the principle of the Invention :-
This apparatus consists essentially of a trough of suitable length, and relatively
small in breadth, constructed of insulating materials, such for example as glass, gutta
percha, and the like, the two long lateral sides of which trough are formed or lined
internally with plates of retort charcoal, platina, or other substances adapted for
electricity and capable of resisting the action of the acids liberated. These
conductors are separated by a partition of porous carthenware or any other sub-
stance capable of fulfilling the same purpose, which partition extends along the

page_text: whole length of the trough in such a manner as to divide it into two compartments,
into one of which is introduced the liquid to be refined or purified, and into the
other water or other suitable liquid.
The saccharine juice, for example, enters one of the compartments of the apparatus
by a cock, and flows off on the opposite side by another cock, and the water flows in
the opposite direction in the other compartment in order to obtain a regular refining
and purifying action, entering by one cock and running off by another cock.
The two induction cocks are arranged above the trough in such a manner as to
prevent all electrical communication by this channel, whilst the eduction cocks are
arranged above the recipients or funnels which receive the liquids.
It will be understood that if in the apparatus constructed in this manner an
electrical current be caused to pass by putting the positive pole in communication
with the conductor situate at the side of the liquid to be refined or purified, and
the negative current in communication with the conductor.situate at the side of
the purifying or refining liquid, the greater part of the saline substances will be
decomposed and the gaseous acids will be liberated, the others remaining in solution
in the liquid to be refined or purified on the side towards the positive pole, whilst
the bases and metals will pass away towards the negative pole, passing through the
porous partition, where becoming oxidized by contact with the water they will be
carried off by the liquid current flowing along the compartment situate on this side
of the apparatus.