IM- PROVEMENTS IN IMPREGNATING ILLUMINATING GAS WITH HYDRO-CARBON VAPOR
Year: 1859

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Absterdam at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 10th May
1859.
I, JOHN ABSTERDAM, Mechanical Engineer, of the City of New York,
United States, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN IMPREGNATING ILLUMINATING GAS WITH HYDRO-CARBON VAPOR," to
be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to impregnate illuminating gas with vapors
formed by some hydro-carbon liquid of a high boiling point, such as
coal oil or spirits of turpentine, so as to obviate the difficulty arising from
gas impregnated as usual with vapors formed from very volatile hydro-
carbon liquid, such as naphtha, which condenses with the slightest change of
temperature, so that not only the benefit expected from the same is lost, but
the deposit formed by condensing vapors in the pipes is an impediment to the
passage of the gas; and this Invention consists,-
First, in the use of vapors obtained from hydro-carbon liquids of a high
boiling point, such as coal oil or spirits of turpentine, for the purpose-of
impregnating air or illuminating gas.
And the Invention also consists in a peculiar apparatus through which the
gas is passed, for the purpose of impregnating the same with these vapors,
which apparatus consists in a series of chambers, divided into a number of
passages, which are lined with cloth or other similar material or porous fabric,

page_text: and which, when they are partly filled with the desired liquid, raise the same
by absorption or capillary attraction, so that it forms into vapors, which, when
the gas is passed through these passages, is absorbed, and that on account of
the large quantity of vapor thus absorbed the illuminating power of the gas is
sufficiently enhanced, notwithstanding the subtleness of these vapors, which
are formed at a temperature considerably below the boiling point of the liquid
from which they emanate.
In order to fully explain what I have above spoken of as the vapors of a
not very volatile hydro-carbon liquid, I will state that the vapors evolved from
a liquid at a temperature below the boiling point, are the more subtle the
greater the difference between the temperature at which the vapors are formed
and between the boiling point of said liquid, for if this difference is con-
siderable only a small quantity of liquid forms into vapor in a given space, and
this small quantity expands and fills the whole space just the same as the denser
vapors formed from a larger quantity of liquid at a temperature nearer to its
boiling point. And on account of the larger amount of latent heat contained
in vapors formed from a liquid of a high boiling point, such as spirits of
turpentine or coal oil, they (the vapors) do not condense so readily, and still
the gas by passing through a large atmosphere of these subtle vapors absorbs
a sufficient quantity of the same to sufficiently enhance its illuminating power.
This large atmosphere I obtain quite readily by my apparatus, which consists
of a large number of narrow passages lined with cloth or some other similar
material, and which, when partly filled with spirits of turpentine, coal oil, or some
other similar hydrocarbon liquid of a high boiling point, absorb a portion of the
liquid, and raise it by capillary attraction, so that a very extended evaporating
surface is obtained, and that the gas by being passed through these passages
absorbs a sufficient quantity of these vapors that my object is fully obtained.