Electrical Furnace with Peripheral Heating by Means of Electrical Resistances.
Year: 1899

page_text: Electrical Furnace with Peripheral Heating by Means of Electrical
Resistances.
We, DENTS LANCE, Doctor of Sciences, RAPHAEL LOUIS EMMANUEL DE BOURgade,
Doctor of Medicine and LEON SCHMITZ, Engineer, all of 5, Place Saint Michel,
Paris, France, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement: —
This invention has for its object a construction of electric furnace with peripheral
heating by means of electrical resistances, serving mainly to heat gases and
particularly for the manufacture of cyanides.
The said furnace is constituted in principle by a chamber preferably of annular
form containing two compartments, namely, firstly, a supply chamber enclosing
fragments of porcelain or any other substance capable of dividing the current of
gas for the purpose of regulating its discharge, and secondly, a reaction chamber
enclosing substances on which the gases are to react, such reaction chamber being
heated over its entire periphery by means of conducting wires or bands through
which an electric current passes and which constitute resistances.
In order that the invention may be readily understood we will describe our
construction of electrical furnace in supposing it is destined for practically
carrying out our process for the manufacture of cyanides.
The accompanying drawing shews by way of example a furnace constructed
according to our said invention.
Fig. 1 is a vertical section, Fig. 2 is a horizontal section, Fig. 3 is a front view
to an enlarged scale of the current distributor.
In these figures the same letters of reference indicate the same parts.
As shewn on the drawing the furnace is constituted by a chamber a of porcelain
or other suitable material of annular form, and presenting at its upper part a
tubular inlet passage 6 for the gas, and at its lower part a tubular passage c for
the discharge of the products of the reaction.
The annular chamber a includes two distinct parts.
1. The supply chamber a¹ which contains pieces of porcelain, ceramic products

page_text: or carbonised materials of all kinds that are capable of effecting the division of
the gas and regularising its supply.
2. The reaction chamber a² in which the gas is raised to the desired tem-
perature for reacting upon the material contained in this part of the furnace.
In the present case this chamber a² encloses either fragments of carbon or
perforated carbon plates or carbon rods, for the purpose of insuring the uniform
heating of the gaseous current and to facilitate its reaction. The chamber a is
heated over its entire periphery by means of a series of conducting wires d fixed
at one of their ends to a conducting ring e to which the current is led by the
conductor and each terminating at one of the contact blocks g connected to
the contact blocks g¹ of the current distributor.
On these blocks moves a contact arm h receiving a rotary motion round the
axis in such manner that the current shall be sent alternately into the different
wires, and the width of the contact arm h is such that it will always be in
contact with one of the blocks g' before it leaves another of them so that there
shall never be any interruption of the current. It is to be understood that we
reserve to ourselves the conveying of the current into the wires d by means of
any other suitable arrangement and to regulate the temperature by means of a
rheostat introduced into the circuit.
The form, the dimensions and the accessory arrangements of our furnace will
vary according to the various applications.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what wo
claim is;
-
An electrical furnace consisting of a chamber preferably of annular form one
part of which constitutes the supply compartment for the gases to be treated
and which contains pieces of porcelain, or other suitable material for subdividing
and uniformly distributing the gas supply, while another part of the chamber
constitutes the reaction compartment, which is charged with material on which
the said gases are to react, and which is heated over its entire external periphery
by means of a series of resistance conductors through which an electric current
is made to pass in such manner that the entire current passes successively through
each of the conductors, substantially as herein described with reference to the
drawing.
11
1
1900