IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SULPHATE OF COPPER
Year: 1858

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Louis A. Normandy, jun', of 67, Judd St., London,
in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF SULPHATE OF COPPER."-A communication.
Sealed the 29th March 1859, and dated the 4th October 1858.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Louis A. Normandy at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
4th October 1858.
I, LOUIS A. NORMANDY, jun", of 67, Judd St., in the County of Middlesex,.
do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
MANUFACTURE OF SULPHATE OF COPPER," (a communication from a foreigner
now residing abroad), to be as follows:-
The copper turnings being placed in open wooden cylinders or tubes, are
moistened with sulphuric, marking from 10 to 12 degrees on Beaume's
areometer, and heated to from 32 to 35 degrees centigrade, in a stove having
a temperature of from 45 to 50 degrees centigrade; the cylinders or tubes are.
then withdrawn from the stove. By this process a lixivium or solution of
sulphate of copper, marking from 22 to 23 degrees on Beaumé's areometer,
and having a temperature of from 55 to 60 degrees centigrade, is obtained,"
without any sulphuric acid having been lost in the conversion of the metallic
copper into the oxide.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Louis A. Normandy in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
30th March 1859.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, LOUIS A.
NORMANDY, jun', of 67, Judd Street, London, in the County of Middlesex,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fourth day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, in the twenty-second year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Louis A. Normandy, Her special licence that I, the said Louis A. Normandy,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
Louis A. Normandy, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times there-
áfter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for " IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF SULPHATE OF COPPER," a communication, upon
the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Louis A. Normandy, 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 per-
formed, 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 Louis A. Normandy, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement, that is to say:-
The apparatus consists of wooden tubes bound with copper hoops; these
tubes are about two metres (about six feet high), and are slightly conical, the
inside diameter being about forty centimetres (sixteen inches) at the base,
and thirty centimetres, (or say, about one foot, at the top. Tubes made of
other suitable materials may be used, but the wood has the advantage of not
allowing the contents to be rapidly cooled. Three of these tubes constitute an
apparatus, and are placed successively below one another, like the steps of a
staircase, and are supplied from a lead basin provided with a spout, which
pours the liquid into the upper tube, and thence into the next under it. The

page_text: solution is collected from the basin of the lower tube, and put into a reservoir
or into the evaporating boiler. A little above the upper tube there is a lead
boiler, into which the sulphuric acid, diluted with water, so as to mark ten or
twelve degrees on Benumé's areometer, is put. This boiler is slightly heated
so as to raise the temperature of the acid from thirty to forty degrees
centigrade, 86 to 100° Fahrenheit's. The acid is continually running off from
this boiler, and the quantity is regulated by means of a glass cock, in such a
manner that about three or four hundred litres (about seventy or ninety
gallons) of the acid may be used in twenty-four hours. The solution which
comes from the last tube marks from twenty to twenty-three degrees on the
aremeter, and when this solution comes off weaker the flow of acid is checked
by means of a glass cock. The liquid falls on a lead dish placed over the
upper tube, and this dish is perforated with holes, which holes are provided
with glass points, so as to distribute the liquid all over the opening of the
tube. The room in which the tubes are placed is kept heated to from 45°
to 50° centigrade, 113° to 122 Fahrenheit's. This room may be heated by
means of the waste heat from the boiler used to concentrate the solutions, and
it is advantageous to make the heat pass under the apparatus, which may be
done by placing the last vat, provided at its base with a lead dish, on a cast-
iron plate heated from below, so as to augment and keep up the internal heat
of the lead dishes, thereby favoring the escape of the liquid and counteracting
its tendency to crystalize in the lower part of the last tube. The tubes are
fitted with copper cuttings, the thickness of which should not be greater than
three or four millimetres (one-eighth of an inch), and with copper turnings, if
procurable, for the smaller the pieces the better and more promptly will the
action take place, and for the same purpose the flow of the sulphuric acid may
be augmented or diminished. The copper scraps should be packed as close as
possible, so as to retard the passage of the acid through them, and to prevent
the formation of passages in them, through which the acid might flow too
quickly, and without going through the whole body of the scraps. Every
twenty-four hours the scraps should be packed close, by running them down
with a copper rod, and the dissolved copper should be replaced by fresh scraps.
The solution of the copper is effected by means of the heat and of the
electricity, which naturally acts on the copper scraps watered with the weak
acid, and exposed to the action of the air. The solution marking from 20°
to 23° thus obtained by the solution of the copper, and the mean strength of
which is from 21° to 22°, is concentrated in a lead pan until it marks 36°. It
is then put to crystalize in a copper vessel one millimetre in thickness, but
which vessel may also be made of lead or of wood. This first crystalization

page_text: gives already pretty good marketable crystals after screening them. The very
small fragments and the bottoms are redissolved, and then give very fine
crystals of sulphate of copper. The mother liquors of the first crystallisation,
and which mark about 25° or 26°, are reconcentrated to 36°, and give crystals
of sulphate of copper rather inferior to those obtained by the first crystalization.
The mother liquors resulting from the concentration of the first mother liquors
mark from 30° to 32°, and are very acid. They are mixed with the diluted
sulphuric acid, and used up again with the next operation.
It is evident that the dimensions of the utensils and their disposition may be
varied, but that which constitutes my Invention is the solution of metallic
copper, and the production of sulphate of copper by means of heat, and in the
manner herein-before described, or with apparatus on the same principle.
In witness whereof, I, the said Louis A. Normandy, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine.
LOUIS A. NORMANDY, JUN. (L.S.)