Iм- PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEA WRACK GRASS FOR THE EXTRACTION AR TUR CARRON AND TUD SALTS CONTAINED TURDDIN
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Edouard Moride, of Nantes (Loire Inférieure) and
of 29, Boulevard St. Martin, Paris, Chemist, for the Invention of "Iм-
PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEA WRACK GRASS FOR THE EXTRACTION
AR TUR CARRON AND TUD SALTS CONTAINED TURDDIN
Sealed the 7th April 1865, and dated the 13th October 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Edouard Moride at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
13th October 1864.
.I, EDOUARD MORIDE, of Nantes (Loire Inférieure) and of 29, Boulevard
St. Martin, Paris, Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEA WRACK GRASS FOR THE EXTRACTION.
OF THE CARBON AND THE SALTS CONTAINED THEREIN," to be as follows:-
'From time immemorial soda has been produced on the coast by burning
dried seaweed in pits in the open air at a high temperature. In this operation
the alkaline salts are partly reduced to sulphurets by the carbon, a great part
of the alkali is transformed into silicates, and the chlorides of magnesium de-
composed, while at same time, chlorine, bromine, and iodine become evolved.
It has often been attempted to extract the soluble salts contained in seaweed
by maceration either in a hot or a cold state, but the means of transport of thie
seaweed to the works-is often not procurable, and its accumulation becomes
Price 8d 1

page_text: prejudicial, the product of the maceration being bleached with difficulty, while
the liquors obtained are evaporated only at a great cost. Recently it has been
attempted to distil seaweed in closed vessels and gas retorts, producing for
result pyrogenated oils, and carbonaceous residues from which the salts are
extracted. This process requires a large plant, great expense for transport,
and considerable labour, which by my process is dispensed with. .
According to my improvements I simply torrefy or rather convert fresh or
dried seaweed into carbon at the place where it is collected, and then steep
the product obtained. In order to obtain the carbonization of seaweed I
neither use pit nor furnaces of any kind, but simply place the seaweed in
conical kilns similar to those used by charcoal burners; or, by preference, I
use apparatus such as represented in central vertical section at Fig. 1, of
the accompanying Drawing, which consists of a number of iron bars i; i,
attached to the heada at d, and forming a truncated cone with large base; the
iron bars are connected together by strong chains provided with hooks,a fire-
place b is also disposed on a plate of cast or sheet iron c,c,in the interior of the
apparatus. When it is not required to treat large quantities of wet seaweed
I dispense with the conical apparatus Fig. 1, and simply employ the
which I place on refractory bricks or stones, or in a casing of sheet iron forming
a chamber into which the carbon produced falls. This modified arrangement
possesses the further advantage of enabling dry or even wet seaweed to be
burned with facility at any time or place.
grate b
I also employ the same arrangement on a smaller scale to domestic fire-
places, by means of which, besides the production of heat, those living on the
coast may be enabled to manufacture charcoal from seaweed after having
chosen a spot where seaweed is obtained in abundance. I set up the appa-
ratus represented in Fig. 1, or modified as above; I then cover the sides with
wet seaweed in order to intercept the exterior air, the top a forming the
chimney being left open. On the grating b, either with or without the
apparatus, I dispose the dried seaweed, which I then ignite, and in proportion
as the heat is developed the flame rises and dries the wet seaweed, which be-
comes carbonized and falls through the grating. By means of a rake I
withdraw the carbon formed near the door o or opening w, Figs. 3 and 4,
and when smoke is no longer evolved I extinguish it in closed vessels, or it
may be by slightly sprinkling it with water in trays or other recipients.
During this operation care should be taken to keep down, by means of layers
of fresh seaweed, the fire which is liable to manifest itself on the exterior
surfaces of the apparatus, Fig.1; on the other hand no cinders nor agglomera-
tion of soda should be allowed to form during the carbonization, as in that case

page_text: are
a great part of the salts would become decomposed, as before mentioned, which
would produce the ordinary result which I seek to avoid. The carbon obtained
contains 5 or 6 per cent. of incinerated fresh seaweed, and is then ready for
then disposed
treatment. I first place it in baskets lined with cloth, which
in vessels filled with water, the salts become thereby dissolved and fall to the
bottom of the vessel by reason of their density. These are then drawn off and
evaporated in iron boilers as in salt refineries, that is to, say, the salts are
collected as theyare deposited in the boiler, and are then allowed to drain and
arranged in order according to the temperature atwhich they are crystallized.
The mother waters in which the iodine is concentrated are treated in the
ordinary way either by means of sulphuric acid, chorine, salts of copper, and
sulphurous acid, or preferably be the two foliowing processes of my Invention.
First process. I first accidulate the mother water by means of sulphuric,
acetic, or nitric acids, adding a sufficient quantity of hypoazotic acid to set
the iodine at liberty, which is then diss ›lved by means of benzine, adding to
the liquid a weak solution of caustic potash. I then agitate and decant the
benzine and evaporate the alkaline liquid, from whichis obtained an equivalent
for all the iodine of potassium previously contained in the plant, the residue
is afterwards calcined and purified.
Second process. I concentrate the mother water to dryness and treat the
residue with boiling alcohol, the solution being bleached by means of animal
charcoal and distilled in order to regain the alcohol employed; lastly, I purify
the iodine of potassium remaining at the bottom of the alembic intheordinary
way.
In order to produce carbonates of soda and potash, or soda and caustic
potash direct from the product. of the torrefaction, I make a mixture of sul-
phuric acid, carbon of seaweed and lime, and calcine the whole in a furnace,
and afterwards steeping and evaporating in the ordinary manner.
Fig. 1 of the annexed Drawing shows a centra! vertical section of my im-
proved apparatus for incinerating marine plants containing soda and iodine;
Fig. 2 plan of same; Fig. 3 shows details on a larger scale in transverse
vertical section of fire-grate b; Fig. 4, a central longitudinal section; and
Fig. 5, plan of saine. The letters apply to all the Figures.
i,i, Hat or round iron bars; a,d, head; »,v, chains furnished with hooks and
fixed to the iron bars above mentioned; b, grate or fire-place; c plate of sheet
or cast-iron, or it may be bricks or stonework; o, door of furnace; g, spaces
to be covered by the seaweed; m, grate of cast or other iron furnished with
round or square movable bars carried by two iron bars, 7, which are mortised
to receive them; n, refractory clay stonework, or it may be a casing of sheet

page_text: or cast iron forming the sides of the apparatus; w, plate of sheet or cast iron,
or it maybe brick work, forming the sole of the apparatus carrying themasonry,
and disposed for receiving the carbon and preserving it from contact with
the same; z, section of masonry imbedded in the ground.
The Invention thus consists, 1st, in reducing seaweed to carbon either by
means of the apparatus herein described or in any other manner; it has
hitherto been the practice to obtain the same result by completely incinerating
or burning the carbon itself, which I produce in the manner herein described,
the matters never having been previously treated,except after beingreduced to
ashes, in order to obtain the desired result.
2ndly, in treating the carbon either with hot or coldwater in order to obtain
the salts they contain.
3rdly, in the application of this carbon to agriculture for the manufacture
of manure as a paint, for the disinfection of putrid matters, and all other pur-
poses in which very fine porous and black carbon may be applied.
4thly, in the extraction of iodine and the salts contained in themotherwaters
by means of benzine or alcohol.
5thly, in the manufacture of soda and caustic potash and their carbonates
with the carbon obtained from seaweed in the manner before described.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Edouard Moride in the Great Seal Patent Office ou the
13th April 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, 1, EDOUARD
MORIDE, of Nantes (Loire Inférieure) and of 29, Boulevart St. Martin,
Paris (France) Chemist, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most. Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing. date the Thirteenth day of October, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-eighth year
of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant
unto me, the said Edouard Moride, Her special licence that I, the said
Edouard Moride, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Edouard Moride, my executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and
at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and law-
fully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an

page_text: upon the
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEA WRACK GRASS FOR
THE EXTRACTION OF THE CARBON AND THE SALTS CONTAINED THEREIN,"
condition (amongst others) that I, the said Edouard Moride, my executors
or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of
their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of
the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and
cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Edouard Moride, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, reference being had to the annexed Drawing, that is to say :-
rom time immemorial, on the borders of the ocean, soda has been made
from dried seaweed or wrack grass burnt at a high temperature in pits in the
open air. In this operation the alkaline salts are partly reduced to sulphurets
by the carbon, a large portion of the alkali passing to the state of silicates,
and the chlorides of magnesium are decomposed, at the same time chlorine,
bromine, and iodine are volatilized.
It has often been attempted to extract the soluble salts contained in sea-
weed by maceration, but the conveyance of the material to the works often
proves a matter of great difficulty, and its accumulation becomes embarrassing;
moreover, the product of said maceration is not readily bleached, and the
liquors obtained are evaporated only at great cost. Recent experiments
have been made in England to distil seaweed in closed vessels and gas
retorts, the results of which were pyrogenated oils and carbonaceous residues
from which salts are extracted. Here, again, such a manipulation requires a
large plant and considerable labor. By my process all these inconveniences
are avoided; in fact, it consists in simply torrefying, or rather converting into
harcoal on the spot the seaweed, either died or not, and then lixiviating
the charcoal thus obtained. To attain the carbonisation of the seaweed I
use neither pits, nor vertical or horizontal, reverberatory, or other furnace,
I merely dispose the weed in conical frames similar to those used by char-
coal burners; or preferably, I make use of an apparatus shown in central
vertical section at Fig. 1 of the annexed Drawing, which consists of a
number of iron bars i, i, attached to heads a & d in such a manner as to
constitute a truncated cone with a large base, the bars being connected to
each other by strong clamping chains provided with hooks; a grate bis
also disposed upon cast or sheet-iron plates within the apparatus.
When I have not a large stock of wet seaweed to burn I dispense with the

page_text: conical apparatus, Fig. 1, and simply employ the grate in said apparatus'
which I place on fire-bricks or stones, or it may be a sheet-iron case, so that
the charcoal produced may drop into a chamber, the sole of which is of
sheet iron, bricks, or stones. A further advantage of this modification is
that of being enabled to burn or consume in any place and any weather
dried or even wet seaweed. The same system will hold good, but on a
smaller scale, for domestic fire-grates whereby the inhabitants on the sea
shore may manufacture charcoal from seaweed.
After choosing on the sea shore a spot where seaweeds are abundant, I
set up the apparatus as shewn at Fig. 1, or with the modification before
alluded to, and cover its sides with wet seaweed or grass for the purpose of
excluding external air, the top a which forms the chimney being left open.
On the grate b, provided or not with the apparatus, I place the dried sea-
weed, which I then ignite little by little; the flame extends and ascends,
drying the wet seaweed, which becomes carbonized and drops beneath the
grate. By means of a rake I draw out the charcoal formed by the door o
or towards the opening w, and when it no longer smokes I extinguish it
either in a closed or other vessel or by watering it slightly.
During the whole time that the operation is going on care should be
taken to keep down by means of fresh layers of wet material the fire which
would otherwise manifest itself on the outside of the apparatus, Fig. 1;
care also should be taken at same time to prevent any ashes or agglomeration
of soda forming during the carbonisation, as in that case the most part of
the salts would become decomposed as above specified, and this would not
differ from the ordinary process, which is to be avoided. The charcoal or
product obtained which represents from 5 to 6 per cent. of the fresh sea
weed incinerated is then carried to the works, to be there treated; it is
afterwards put in baskets lined with cloth, and placed in vessels filled with
water, where the salts are dissolved, and on account of their density fall to
the bottom of the vessels. They are then cleared out and evaporated in iron
boilers as practiced in salt refineries, where the salts are collected as they
settle, drained, and ranged by categories according as they are crystallized at
such or such temperature.
The mother waters in which iodine is concen-
trated are treated by the usual methods, viz, by sulphuric acid, chlorine, the
salts of copper, and sulphurous acid, or preferably by the two following
processes which I claim as being of my own Invention.
First process. I first acidify the mother waters by means of sulphuric,
acetic, or nitric acid; I then add a sufficient quantity of hypoazotic acid for
setting the iodine free, and dissolve that body by means of benzine. To this

page_text: liquid I add a weak solution of caustic potash & then agitate & decant the
benzine and evaporate the alkaline liquid, in which is comprised the equi-
valent of the whole iodide of potassium which was contained in the plant,
I then calcine the residue and purify it..
Second process. I concentrate the mother waters to siccity, and treat the
residues thereof by boiling alcohol; I next bleach the solution by animal
charcoal, which I distil in order to collect the alcohol used; and, lastly,
purify the iodide of potassium settled at the bottom of the still by the known
processes.
In order to produce directly carbonates of soda and potash or soda & caustic
potash with the product of the torrefaction, I make a mixture of sulphuric
acid, seaweed, charcoal, & lime, like to that advised by Leblanc. I then
calcine the whole in a furnace ad hoc, lixiviate, and evaporate by the usual
methods.
In the annexed Drawing, Fig. 1 shows the central vertical section of the
carbonaceous incinerating apparatus for treating seaweed containing sodaand
iodine; Fig. 2 is the plan of the same; Fig. 3 shows in detail on a larger scale
the central cross section of the grate b; Fig. 4 shows the central longitudinal
section of the same; lastly, Fig. 5 is the plan of the same. The three last
Figures are drawn on a larger scale. In all these Figures the same letters
of reference indicate the like parts where they recur.
i, i, rounded or flat iron bars or bands; a, d, the cap; u, v, clamp chains
or mere hooks on the iron uprights; b, the grate; c, c, sheet or cast-iron,
stone or brick plates; o, the door of the furnace; g, surrounding seaweed;
m, iron or cast-iron grate with moveable bars either round or square, carried
on two iron or cast-iron bars r formed with grooves to receive them; n, thick
fire-clay tiles or flat stones, or it may be a sheet or cast-iron box for forming
the sides of the apparatus; w, w, sheet or cast-iron, stone or brick, tile or
plate, constituting the sole of the apparatus which supports the side tiles and
intended to receive the charcoal and prevent any intrusion of sand; z, section
of the tiles or bricks bedded in the ground.
Having thus set forth the nature of my Invention, and the manner in which
the same is to be carried into effect, I wish it to be distinctly understood
that what I claim is,-
First, burning, incinerating, and reducing seaweed into charcoal on the
spot and at a low temperature by means of the apparatus described or other-
wise, whilst heretofore to obtain the same products it has been usual to
incinerate the same, completely burning the very charcoal which I form in
my operations, and treating only incinerated material in order to obtain

page_text: the before-mentioned produ⋅ ts, and I claim also my improved process
for burning seaweed on the spot, either in the wet or dry state, even on
their issuing from the sea, in any season, in winter as well as in summer.
Secondly, treating the charcoal by cold or hot water in order to extract
the salts contained therein as described.
Thirdly, applying the carbonaceous residues of seaweed, and the same with
the addition of terreous phosphates and animal matters, to agricultural pur
poses, to painting, disinfecting putrid substances, in short to all purposes
where it may be desirable to use very fine porous & black charcoal.
Fourthly, extracting iodine and the salts contained in the mother waters by
means of benzine, alcohol, aniline, sulphuret of carbon, and other liquid
carbonated hydrogens.
Fifthly, manufacturing caustic soda and potash and their carbonates with
seaweed charcoal by Leblanc's method, all which processes have never before
been employed by any manufacturers of the same products.
In witness whereof, I, the said Edouard Moride, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five.
ED. MORIDE. (L.S.)