IM- PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEWAGE AND OTHER POLLUTED WATERS AND THEIR DEPOSITS, AND APPARATUS THEREFOR."
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Gustave Alsing at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 2nd March 1877.
GUSTAVE ALSING, of Bradford, in the County of York, Civil Engineer.
"IM-
PROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF SEWAGE AND OTHER POLLUTED WATERS AND
THEIR DEPOSITS, AND APPARATUS THEREFOR."
The objects of this Invention are certain improvements for the treatment of
sewage and other polluted waters, whereby the aqueos and more solid portions are
separated from each other by a novel arrangement of the various tanks and
reservoirs and apparatus for drawing off the water, and an arrangement whereby
the solid matter is withdrawn and afterwards treated with inflammable and other
combustible material to make it into artificial fuel and fire-lighters.
In carrying out this Invention the sewage discharges over a screen into a
reservoir, which may be denominated the catch pit, where sand, gravel, and other
heavy matter will lodge. The upper and more fluid portion of the sewage is then
withdrawn into a mixing canal, where it receives a solution of hydrate and sulphide
of calcium and gibbside. The mixing canal runs parallel to and communicates with
a series of tanks or reservoirs, into which the mixture is conducted, and rests com-
pletely till the aqueos and solid portions which are suspended and dissolved in the
sewage have separated by precipitation. These reservoirs have each one or more
self-acting and self-regulating valves, by means of which the aqueos part or effluent
water is withdrawn into filter tanks, charged with coke or other porous material,
and so constructed with self-balancing canals or gullies that each set of the pre-
cipitation and corresponding filter tanks may be set out of activity without inter-
fering with the work of the others. The effluent water then passes thro' another
upward or downward filter into the effluent canal, from which it is discharged into
the river, or stream, or other outlets, or upon suitable land for further filtration.
The solid matter is removed from the precipitation tanks after the top water has
been withdrawn through a valve which communicates with a canal running parallel
to the precipitation tanks, and conducting the solid matter to a reservoir, which
may be denominated the sludge pit. From here the solid matter or sludge is
removed into drying beds, and then through a novel wind oven, and is then ready
to be used or sold as fire-lighters and artificial fuel.

page_text: This oven I prefer to construct of brickwork, but may also be made of iron
plates or other material. It consists of two side walls with a space between them.
The top of the oven is formed by a brick arch springing from the side walls, and
the height I prefer to be 6 feet high, but do not confine myself to this dimension.
The one end of this oven is closed, whereas the other end has a door, or both ends
may have such door. At the one end and at the top one extremity of a pipe of
suitable material, size, and form is fixed, whilst its other end communicates with a
furnace. Between the furnace and the oven I fix a blowing fan, driven by
machinery, which extracts the hot air from the furnace and blows it into and
through the oven, and out again through a pipe which is fixed at the bottom at the
opposite end from the blast pipe, and conducts the steam or moist air either back
into the furnace, there to be burnt, or into the sewage before it is treated.
The solid matter of the sewage having been thoroughly dried in the above
described hot wind oven may be cut into suitable forms and sizes by hand or
machinery, or left in its original form as taken from the drying bed, and is then
charged with combustible material and oils, such as creosote oil, naptha, petroleum,
resin, pitch, mineral oils, or other combustible matters, and is then ready to be used
as fire-lighters and artificial fuel.
The charging of the dry sludge is done either by pouring the combustible fluid
over it, or by dipping the sludge into it.