Apparatus USED IN THE PURIFICATION OF GAS."
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Thomas Proud at the Office of tho
Commissioners of Patents on the 8th December 1877.
THOMAS PROUD, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick.
In Apparatus USED IN THE PURIFICATION OF GAS."
"IMPROVEMENTS
This Invention has for its object the construction and arrangement of apparatus
in an economical manner, whereby coal gas may be purified and rendered practically
free from ammonia.
The Invention consists in making a rectangular vessel of any convenient_height
with an internal vertical gas and water tight partition, extending from the bottom
to the top, thus dividing the vessel into two separate chambers. Within these
chambers there are a series of surface board grids, each alternate one being placed
at right angles to those immediately above and below it. At or noar the bottom
of one of the chambers there is an inlet for the gas, and at or near the top of this
chamber there is fixed an internal or external pipe or conduit connecting it with
the lower part of the next chamber, an exit for the gas being formed at the upper
part of this second chamber. Above these chambers there is another vessel, which
for the sake of symetry is preferably made of the same area as that beneath it.
This vessel has also a water-tight partition extending from bottom to top so as to
form it into two cisterns, one to contain ammoniacal liquor, and the other clean
wator.
The use of the apparatus is as follows:-One cistern being supplied with ammo-
niacal liquor, and the other with plain water, the ammoniacal liquor is allowed
to pass and be distributed by any convenient arrangement into the chainber beneath
it, so that the surfaces of the board grids are kept wet by the constant dripping of
the liquor from above. Gas is admitted from the inlet, and in its course upwards
it is broken up into an immense number of streams, each of which is brought into
contact with the liquid and wetted sides of the grids. This has the effect of
removing much of the ammonia, but inasmuch as some of the ammonia would still
remain in the gas, it is caused to descend by the connecting pipe and enter the
second chamber where it meets a similar treatment with pure water, which descends
in the same manner from the water cistern above.

page_text: It will be seen that by this arrangement the foul gas is brought first into contact
with the strong liquor, and as it proceeds forward and becomes purer, it meets liquor
of less and less strength until in the upper part of the second chamber it is subjected
to the action of pure water only, when the whole of the ammonia will have been re-
moved from the gas, which may then pass on to the purifiers or other apparatus.
Instead of the cisterns being placed above the chambers they may be arranged in
any other convenient position, and the liquor and water transmitted to them through
pipes and be distributed either by gravitation or by the assistance of a force pump.
The apparatus is not limited to two chambers only, since the vessel before
described may be increased in size, and divided into any convenient number of
chambers, each having an internal or external pipe or conduit connecting its upper
part with the lower part of the next following one. The order too in which the
ammoniacal liquor and water is supplied may be varied.