IMPROVEMENTS IN DISTILLING SHALE and OTHER MINERALS, TO OBTAIN OIL AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS; AND IN APPARATUS THEREFOR
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Crossley at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 28th April 1883.
WILLIAM CROSSLEY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
Mechanical and Consulting Engineer. "IMPROVEMENTS IN DISTILLING SHALE and
OTHER MINERALS, TO OBTAIN OIL AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS; AND IN APPARATUS
THEREFOR
"
This Invention has for its object to improve the process of distilling shale and
other minerals to obtain oil and other useful products; and also comprises improved
apparatus for the purpose.
In carrying out the Invention the distillation is effected in a chamber or vessel
which is not heated externally, but by means of steam which is very highly super-
heated and is passed through and amongst the shale or other minerals. The
distilling vessel which may be of large size, is by preference of a vertical
cylindrical form, and built of firebrick with an external iron shell or casing; and
it is provided with a double-valved hopper at the top for introducing the mineral,
in a practically continuous manner and with one or more doors or other suitable
outlets at the bottom for withdrawing the earthy residues. With each distilling
vessel there are combined two heaters or chambers for heating the steam, each of
these being a cylindrical iron vessel lined with firebrick and containing checker-
work or openly arranged firebricks or pieces of any suitable refractory beat storing
material. Each heater is prepared for heating the steam by there being burned in
it some of the permanent gas formed in the distillatory process or some combustible
gas separately produced for the purpose, the air necessary for the combustion of the
gas being admitted or forced into the heater along with the gas or by different
inlets. When the interior of one heater is at a sufficiently high temperature the
supply of gas and air to it is stopped, and steam which may be generated in an
ordinary boiler is made to pass through it. At the same time gas and air are
admitted to the other heater and burned in it to prepare it for heating steam in its
turn. The heaters are thus alternately being heated and heating the steam; and
the steam is supplied continuously to the distilling vessel, being directed into the
bottom thereof by means of suitable pipes and valves. The very highly heated
steam acts on the shale or other minerals in a manner to cause the evolution there-
from of the vapors of oil, tar, and ammonia, together with some permanent gas,

page_text: and these products are led from the upper part of the distilling vessel to suitable
condensers and separating apparatus. The action of the steam becomes automatically
graduated so as to effect the distillation of the constituents of the minerals in tho
best manner and, so as to yield the products in a condition to require less
subsequent purification or treatment than when the distillation is effected wholly
or partly by heat applied externally to retorts. Thus the steam in passing upwards
through the column of minerals has its temperature gradually reduced in proportion
as it meets materials less and less acted on, so that the fresh materials at the top
are acted upon by the low heat best suited for the evolution of the more volatile
constituents; whilst as these constituents are driven off the materials in gradually 1
descending become acted on by steam of higher temperature, until at the lower
part of the vessel the initial very high heat of the steam effectively drives off
nearly all the remaining carbon and ammonia. In the case of some shales or
minerals it may be advantageous to pass some air into the distilling vessel either
along with the steam or separately.
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