IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS PRODUCERS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Frank Wesley Dick and George
Smithers Packer at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 8th May
1882.
FRANK WESLEY DICK, and GEORGE SMITHERS PACKER, Managers to the Steel
Company of Scotland, Limited, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain.
IMPROVEMENTS IN GAS PRODUCERS
This Invention relates to apparatus of the kind known as gas producers and used
for obtaining from coal or other carbonaceous fuel, a combustible gas or gaseous
mixture suitable for obtaining heat for various purposes. Such gas is or can be
used for heating steel-making glass-inaking and other furnaces, also in kilns of
various kinds, also in steam-boiler and other furnaces or fire places, and also in gas
motors.
The improved producer as constructed according to one modification is a
rectangular chamber having a division wall across the middle forming two
compartments which communicate with each other at the top. The coal or fuel
may be supplied by means of one hopper at the middle of the top or by means of
separate hoppers over the compartments. At the bottom, doors are provided for
removing ashes; and at the inner side of each compartment there is near the bottom
a series of ports leading into separate flues which communicate through valves
with a single flue. There is also a flue leading into the same single flue from the
upper part of the chamber but this is used only when starting the producer, or
when from any cause it is wished to work the apparatus on the ordinary plan
instead of doing so according to the improved system for which it is specially
designed. Along the outer side of each compartiment and just above the ashes
doors there is a pipe or passage having a number of orifices by which air mixed
with steam enters, being forced in by the action of steam jets, and being controlled
by valves which are by preference arranged to act in concert with the valves of the
flues leading from the lower parts of the compartiments.
In one convenient modification of the valve details a single plate is arranged to
cross the two flues at a place where they pass upwards side by side, this plate being
formed with a single aperture and closing both flues when in its middle position,
and opening either one or the other accordingly as it is moved to shift its aperture

page_text: to one side or the other. There are separate valves for controling the admission of
air and steam of the two compartments of the producer and these valves are
connected to the flue slide in such a way that when this slide is placed to open the
flue leading from one compartment, the air and steam valves connected with that
compartment are closed and those connected with the other compartment opened
When starting the apparatus the flues leading from the lower parts of both
compartments are closed, and the flue leading from the top of the chamber being
opened, the apparatus is worked like a common producer until the fuel in the
lower parts of the compartments becomes highly heated. The top flue is then
closed and one of the lower flues opened; and the gases then find their way up
through the fuel in one compartment and down through the fuel in the other
compartment to the open outlet flue. A soon as the heats in the two compartiments
become different to a certain extent, owing to the heat decreasing in the one having
its bottom flue open and increasing in the other one, the flue slide is reversed so as
to close the flue and air and steam valves that were open and open those that were
shut. The gaseous currents through the compartments are thereby reversed, so that
the gases which pass upwards from the lower part of one compartment and become
mingled with the vapors or gases distilled or evolved from the fresh fuel in the
upper parts of the chamber pass down through the intensely heated and more or
less exhausted fuel in the other compartment on their way to the outlet flue. This
action brings about a very complete decomposition of the hydro-carbon vapors and
any steam remaining undecomposed, and renders the gas produced very superior to
that obtained with ordinary gas producers, being much freer from condensible
matters and its heat-yielding power being the greater because of the more complete
conversion of what would otherwise have formed objectionable condensible
constituents.
The gas may be led away by a single flue herein before described as one to which
the other flues are connected, either for immediate use or for being stored in gas
holders, or it may be treated for the removal from it and utilisation of the ammonia
it contains. If desired the gas may be led directly to a steel-making or other
furnace without being cooled down, the action of the steam jet in forcing in the
air imparting sufficient pressure to the gas to carry it to the furnace where it is to
be used.
When removing ashes bars may be temporarily inserted to support the fuel in
the upper part of the compartiment from which the ashes are being removed.