AN IMPROVED METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT OF APPARATUS FOR MAKING COKE FROM PEAT
Year: 1875

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Conradı at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition. on the 10th
April 1875. A communication from abroad by Charles William
Kesselor, of Greifswald, Germany.
I, HENRY CONRADI, of 7, Lower James Street, Golden Square, in the
County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "AN IMPROVED METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT OF APPARATUS FOR MAKING COKE
FROM PEAT," to be as follows:-
=
The main features of the improvements I am introducing into the
system of burning peat coke, as at present carried on, consists in
transforming it into a continuous process by means of continuous self-
acting portable furnaces, collecting the gases, using them over and over
again, and using the same water over again for the purpose of excluding
the atmospheric air, and also for the cooling process.
1. Instead of using as usual a number of trenches arranged in various
parts of the furnace yard I carry out the whole process by the circular
arrangement of one trench only, above which a circular road or tramway
is laid, so arranged that its steep gradients or inclines give automatically

page_text: exclusion of the atmospheric air. As the different parts of the
tramway are made of such a length as to correspond with the time
required for each manipulation, so that the furnaces shall be moved
to the place where they are required, according to the process they aro
to undergo, furnaco No. 1, will at this moment reach the horizontal
portion of the line. This portion is below the level of the furnace yard,
and the trench thus formed is consequently always full of water; the
furnaces are now obliged to pass through this water one after the other,
the entire length of this portion of the way being laid to such a length
that each furnace must stop therein for about 2 hours, the time
necessary for the cooling process. The furnaces again ascend the
incline C, D, where they reach the drying platform, to be submitted to
the drying process; they are afterwards unloaded by opening the bottom
plates so as to allow the material to drop into the trucks placed
underneath the portion D and E of the line; after this the discharged
furnaces are again moved towards the starting point A.
3. The continuous motion of the coking furnaces as above described
is automatic and is produced by the effect of the whole process without
the application of any mechanical means, this constitutes one of the
main features of my Invention, while for instance, the furnaces placed
over the portion A, and further on of the tramway, are filled with a
material whose specific gravity is about twice as great as that of the
material in the furnaces moving up the incline C, D, and the furnaces
between E and A, being in the meantime empty, the greater weight of
the former will put in motion the lighter furnaces and produce a
continuous motion, which will only require to be regulated by the
workman in charge, this constitutes another main feature of my
improvements.
4. Plate 2 shows the arrangement for collecting the gases, one furnace
is placed on the highest point F, while the other furnace G stands at
the lowest point of the tramway. The pipes H, H, serve to convey the
gases away, while the trough L, which dips with its open side into the
water serves to collect them. The canal is also circular and is obliged
by the low level of the horizontal portion of the railroad to communicate
with the basin through which the furnaces are obliged to pass, so as to
exclude the atmospheric air. As the furnaces not only move in a
horizontal plane but also ascend and descend inclinc planes, the
pipes H, I, have to be so arranged as to be capable of becoming

page_text: lengthened and shortened automatically. This is effected by allowing
them to turn in the joints a, and to be carried with the furnace by
running upon a small wheel b, on the bottom of the canal. The gas
pipe is provided with a cock which may be opened when the gases áro
generated, and shut when the generation of gases ceases; it may also be 5
shut by means of a catch lever acting upon the handle of the cock which
passes underneath it, for the purpose of preventing the exhauster M
from drawing atmospheric air or carbonic acid should the workman have
omitted to close the cock
5. The gas collected in the trough L is pumped by the exhaustor M 1
into the gasometer. N,.which forms the centre of the whole arrangement,
whence it is conveyed underneath the boiler to heat it.
6. I use the heat radiating from the furnaces for drying the pressed
peat bricks, for which purpose a circular building is erected above the
furnaces which serves as a drying chamber after the peat bricks have 1
been previously dried by the air, and the floor is on this account
provided with air holes, on the top floor is placed the screw O, made to
rotate by the engine, which hereby acts as a ventilator and hydro-
extractor, drawing the air saturated with moisture while the air from
below (which has been heated and dried by passing over the furnaces) 2
follows the current, and again absorbs the moisture contained in tho
atmosphere.
The utilizing of the heat which radiates from the furnaces in tho
burning process and which would otherwise be lost, and the application
of the screw acting as an exhausting ventilator and hydro-extractor, arc 2
also some of the principal features of my Invention and improved
arrangements.
I wish besides to draw attention to the fact that the utilisation of the
gases, and also of the heat by the self-acting appliances, as above