A NEW PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING ALCOHOLS BY A METHODICAL AND ENDLESS MANNER. WITH WINES AND FER- MENTED JUICES OF ANY KIND BY MEANS OF NEW OR IMPROVED APPARATUSES "SUITABLY DISPOSED FOR THE PURPOSE
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alphonse Piver, of No. 10, Boulevart de
Strasbourg, Paris, in the Republic of France, Manufacturer of
Perfumery, for the Invention of "A NEW PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING
ALCOHOLS BY A METHODICAL AND ENDLESS MANNER. WITH WINES AND FER-
MENTED JUICES OF ANY KIND BY MEANS OF NEW OR IMPROVED APPARATUSES
"SUITABLY DISPOSED FOR THE PURPOSE."
Sealed the 16th October 1874, .and dated the 7th May 1874.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alphonse Piver at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 7th May 1874.
I, ALPHONSE PIVER, of No. 10, Boulevart de Strasbourg, Paris, in
the Republic of France, Manufacturer of Perfumery, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING
ALCOHOLS BY A METHODICAL AND ENDLESS MANNER WITH WINES AND FERMENTED
JUICES OF ANY KIND BY MEANS OF NEW OR IMPROVED APPARATUSES SUITABLY
DISPOSED FOR THE PURPOSE," to be as follows:-
7
Liaison which have:

page_text: undergone vinous fermentation. The said liquors contain according
to their origin not only water but more or less heterogeneous sub-
stances which are freed therefrom by the application of heat, such for
example as ethers, and essential or empyreumatic oils which must be
very carefully expelled, because when a few drops of such substances
are mixed with the alcohol obtained they communicate to it a very
bad taste and smell, to get rid of which the distilling operation must
be recommenced. As the said heterogeneous substances are either more
or less volatile than alcohol they generally issue either at the beginning
or at the end of the operation, which must be watched with great care
by the attendant so as to stop it as soon as there is the least alteration
in the taste or smell of the liquid running out; but as the process cannot
be arrested with certainty at the very moment required a great loss of
liquid, fuel, and time is often incurred.
My Invention consists especially in the methodical arrangement of
new or improved apparatuses by means of which the distilling and
rectifying operations are conducted with the utmost certainty and
without stopping during days, weeks, and even months, obtaining con-
stantly on one side alcohol of good taste, while on another side the
essential or empyreumatic oils contained in the liquid to be distilled and
the exhausted juices are run out.
The principle according to which the operation is conducted consists
in at once raising to a much greater degree than usual the temperature
of the wine or fermented juices to be distilled to obtain alcohol. For
this purpose I pump out the said liquids from the receiver where they
have been conveyed, and force them into a special boiler forming the
basis of a system of eliminating apparatus. The liquid is heated by
steam at high pressure running in a central helical tube suitably
arranged within the boiler; the heated juices ascend through a central
pipe to the upper part of the boiler into a separate chamber arranged
as a rectifying column with a series of cupolas and basins on which
the liquid falls successively, and at last flows down through a pipe
conveying it into a cooling chamber in which the cooling liquid is
wine flowing into it from an upper cistern; the said wine is then con-
veyed from the cooling chamber to the receiver feeding the pump.
The vapours of the essential or empyreumatic oils which are produced_
by the heat, carrying along with them some alcoholic vapours, ascend

page_text: through a tube to enter a rectifying column where the less volatile
part is liquified and gathered as alcohol of bad flavor, whilst the vapours
of essential oil are conveyed into a cooling chamber where they are con-
densed and collected in a special vessel. Now the wine or fermented
juices which have been separated from the essential or empyreumatic.
oils in the first column of elimination placed above the boiler and con-
veyed as aforesaid into a cooling chamber, are conveyed from thence
through a series of special rectifying columns and cooling chambers,
where the alcoholic vapours are condensed and finally collected in the
purest and highest quality, whilst the exhausted juices entirely deprived
of their volatile parts are run out.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Alphonse Piver in the Great Seal. Patent Office
on the 5th November 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ALPHONSE
PIVER, of No. 10, Boulevart de Strasbourg, Paris, in the Republic of
France, Manufacturer of Perfumery, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Seventh day of May, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four, in the thirty-
seventh year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Alphonse Piver, Her special licence
that I, the said Alphonse Piver, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Alphonse Piver, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter 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 "A NEW PROCESS
OF MANUFACTURING ALCOHOLS BY A METHODICAL AND ENDLESS MANNER WITH
WINES AND FERMENTED JUICES OF ANY KIND BY MEANS OF NEW OR IMPROVED APPA-
RATUSES SUITABLY DISPOSED FOR THE PURPOSE," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Alphonse Piver, my executors or administrators,
by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands:

page_text: and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
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 Alphonse Piver, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement:-
The merit of my Invention consists in firstly eliminating completely.
and with certainty the ethers and empyreumatic oils from wines and
fermented juices of all kinds intended for the manufacture of taffias,
rums, and other alcohols, in proceeding without stoppage to the dis-
tillation and to the rectification without any interruption even during
several months. I thus obtain from the first operation ("jet "), and
always the whole quantity of the alcohol at 96°, extra fine good taste
or flavor good taste or flavor even at every degree. The "vinasses" or
fermented juice of beetroot or other juices are entirely exhausted and
inodorous. The apparatus which I have constructed to obtain this result
also gives great saving of time, labour, and fuel.
The distillation of alcohols % as hitherto effected, no matter what
improved apparatuses have been used, has always been defective because
it involved either at the beginning or towards the end of the operation,
either in a state of solution or free, ethers and empynumatic oils which
partly infect them. It is especially by redistillations that alcohol of good
flavor has always been obtained. And further, these improved alembics
are encumbered with such a number of costly accessaries that their
management has almost become an art.
It is well known that alcohol is obtained by distillation at a low
temperature, that is to say, below 100° of all liquors having undergone
vinous fermentation. These liquors contain, according to their origin,
besides water, more or less of heterogeneous substances which are set
at liberty by heat, such as ethers, and essential or empynumatic oils
which must be eliminated with great care, for when a few drops of these
heterogeneous substances are mixed with the alcohol they give it a very
bad taste, often an offensive odour, and the product obtained must be
again redistilled. As these substances are more or less volatile than

page_text: alcohol they are generally disengaged at the beginning or towards the
end of the operation, which must be watched with great care in order
to stop it directly the slightest change in the taste or smell of the liquid.
issuing from the cooler or refrigerator becomes manifest; but as it is
not possible to stop the operation with certainty exactly at the precise
moment there often results therefrom a great loss of liquid, fuel, and
time.
My Invention consists specially in the methodical arrangement of
the apparatuses by the aid of which the distillation and the rectification,
after the preliminary elimination of all the heterogeneous clements may
be conducted with perfect certainty and without any interruption during
days, weeks, and even entire months, while constantly obtaining on one
side alcohol of good taste or flavor, and on the other the essential or
empynumatic oils contained in the liquid under distillation while the
exhausted juices are ejected.
The principle upon which the operation is conducted consists in first
directly raising the temperature of the wine or fermented juices much
higher than usual. For this purpose these liquids are taken from the
receiver or reservoir in which they are contained by the aid of a suction
and force pump to be introduced simultaneously into a special boiler
forming the base of the entire system of eliminating apparatuses. The
liquid is heated in this boiler by steam at high pressure entering a worm
suitably arranged within it. The juices thus heated rise by a central
pipe into a separate chamber arranged like a rectifying column having a
series of cupolas and basins, upon and into which the liquid falls succes-
sively, and finally runs off by a pipe which leads it into a cooling
chambers in which the cooling liquid is wine, which comes into it from
an upper reservoir or tank after having passed through all the cooling
vases or chambers of the system; and this wine after having taken a
part of the caloric of that arriving from the boiler passes into a pipe
which leads to the receiver, where the pump takes it to send it into the
boiler.
The vapors of essential oil which have been disengaged by the heat in
the boiler, carrying with them alcoholic vapors, rise through a pipe and
enter a rectifying column, where the least volatile part having been
drawn condenses and is collected as alcohol of bad taste or flavor, while
the vapours of essential oil pass into a cooling chamber, where they

page_text: A¹, boiler, into which is introduced the wine or fermented juices;
A, eliminating chamber; B, climinating column; C, column for cooling.
the empyreumatic, essences; D, pump for feeding the boiler with the
juices; E, receiver of hot juices; F, wine heater; G, alcoholiser; H,
retrograde or flowing back worm; I, cooler by cold juices; J, receiver of
cold juices; K, cold water recipient; L, distributor of disinfected juices
into the alcoholizer; M, vertical retrograde tubing; N, rectifying plates
or compartments; O, pipe for issue of alcoholic vapors from the
rectifying column N; P, pipe leading alcohol vapor from the worm H to
cooler I; Q, chamber for alcohol vapor above cooler I; R, boiler for
exhausting juices; S, tester by which the rectified good flavored alcohol
runs off; S¹, tester by which the impure alcohol runs off; T, tube
leading the vapor of essential oil from the chamber U to the column G;
U, chamber above the column B, in which chamber the vapors passing
through the liquid agitate it as if in ebullition; V, pipe leading water
from reservoir K to worm H; W, cock for emptying boiler R; X, cock
for admission of essential oil vapors from A to B; X', blow valve of
exhaust boiler; X", cock for emptying boiler A'; Z, siphon for drawing
off the exhausted juices uninterruptedly; Z, pipe by which the empyreu-
matic oils flow off; Z", guage indicating the pressure of the liquid in
the column G; a, pipe communicating from the pump to the boiler A¹;
b, pipe leading the heated wine from A³ to A; c, c, c, cupolas and flat
basins of the column A; d, pipe leading the heated wine from A to F ;
e, top of pipe d, spread out to a mushroom shape; f, f, tubes of wine
heater; 7, pipe leading the heated wine from F to L; i, cleansing cock

page_text: of boiler K; j, pipe leading the cold juices from J to the cooler I;
k, pipe leading to M the juices which have served for cooling in the
column I; 1, pipe leading the heated juices from M to the bottom of
the wine heater; m, pipe leading the hot juices from the wine heater to
the receiver E; n, pipe leading water from the cooling column Ģ to the
bottom of column B; p, pipe for running off from column B the water
which has served for the condensation; q, branch with cock on the
pipe ; r, pipe bringing steam from boiler into worm 8; r¹, pipe leading
the essential vapors from the column B into the chamber U; t, pipe
leading steam from worm to the exhaust boiler; t¹, pipe for issue of the
impure or bad flavored alcohol; v, fly for regulating the admission of
the disinfected wine into the wine heater; y, y, plates or divisions of the
chamber U in column B.
The wine or fermented juice intended for the manufacture of the
alcohol held in the receiver E is drawn therefrom by the pump D and
introduced into the boiler A' by the pipe a. A worms is set in the
centre of the boiler into which the steam at high pressure arrives from a
generator by the pipe r.
The wine which is introduced and heated in the boiler A¹ rises by the
pipe b; this wine pours on to the upper cupola of the eliminating
column A and falls successively into the flat basins c, c, of the said
column; it then issues by the pipe d to pass the wine heater F arranged
like a tubular cooler or refrigerator; this wine or this juice is now disin-
fected by reason of the disengagement of the vapors which have separated
from the liquid on leaving the tube 6 to pass into the column B to which
the cock X gives them access.
The boiler A' and the elimination column A which is above it are
provided with all safety apparatus, such as valve, guage, and so on.
The eliminating apparatus properly so called is composed of three
columns A, B, and C.
The essential vapors in rising in the column B carry with them a
certain portion of alcoholic and of watery vapors; arrived at the upper
part of this column they pass by the pipe to the chamber U, filled
with liquid, where they are washed, and the lightest, that is to say, the
essential vapors passing through the pipe T to go into the tubular
cooler C where they condense and are collected at S¹ while the others

page_text: rectify by falling again successively upon the divisions or basins y filled
with liquid and provided with siphons which lead the rectified liquid to
the bottom of the column B; it then issues by the pipe t¹ passing behind
the column A and is run off at Z. This liquid rectified at column B is
alcohol of bad flavor. The disinfected juices at A pass by the tube d
which leads them into the wine heater F in order to remove from them
a part of the caloric which has been communicated to them in the
boiler and which they yield to the wine coming from the main receiver
or reservoir J as cooling liquid, as will herein-after be seen. The heated
and disinfected wine rises in the pipe d to the upper part of the
chamber F into which it falls at e, as shewn, and after having yielded a
part of its caloric it passes by the pipe h to go to the top of the column G,
where it runs into a rose L which distributes it on the distilling plates
or basins furnished with small tubes projecting at the upper part.
The alcoholic vapors which disengage at F from the disinfected wine
rise to the upper part by passing through the recurrent or return vertical
tubing M and the rectifying plates with siphons of the column N; from
thence the alcoholic vapors almost without mixture pass by the pipe O
to enter into a second recurrent worm H; then these vapors freed from
all aqueous parts pass through the pipe P to go into the cooling column I,
the cooling liquid of which is wine or other fermented juice coming
from the main reservoir J and brought into the column I by the tube j;
it enters at the lower part and issues at the top by the tube / which
leads into the tubing M, from whence it issues by the tube / to enter
the wine heater F; from thence after having taken a portion of the
caloric of the disinfected wine it issues by the pipe m which opens into
the upper part of the said wine heater; this pipe leads it to the reservoir E
which feeds the boiler A', as will have been seen at the commencement
of the operation.
The good tasted alcohol at a very high degree, the vapours of which are
condensed in the cooler I, is collected at S, while the bad tasted alcohol
in very small quantity, the vapors of which have mixed with the vapors
of the essential oils and have condensed in the cooling column C issue
by the tube T and are collected at Z.
The steam after having traversed the worm S from top to bottom 3
issues by a pipe t which leads it into the exhaust boiler R provided with
a blow valve X'; the wine which descends into the rectifying plates or

page_text: basins of the column G also arrives in the boiler R; if it still retains a
small portion of alcohol it is vaporised; this alcoholic steam rises again
in the said column and passes by the various recurrents and finally con-
denses with that which has gone directly to it. The exhausted juices
are given off uninterruptedly by the siphon Z.
To sum up, I claim as my Invention, the arrangements and the com-
bination of the apparatuses above described and shewn on the annexed
Sheet of Drawing to obtain with certainty and in a continuous manner
alcohol of good taste of the greatest purity and at the highest degree,
reserving to myself the right of modifying all the details as practice may
suggest without however departing from the principle upon which is
based the methodical operation consisting in first heating to a high
temperature the wine or fermented juice operated upon in order to
climinate the empynumatic essential oils which give to alcohols a bad
taste and often an infected or offensive smell.
It will be understood that the pressure of the steam serving for firstly
eliminating the hurtful essences must correspond with the nature of the
wines or fermental juices being operated upon, and that I reserve the
right according to circumstances, and if deemed desirable, to expand this
steam by any suitable means or apparatus previous to its introduction
into the boiler.
In witness whereof, I, the said Alphonse Piver, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, the Second day of November, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
Signed and sealed in the
presence of
L. D'AUBRÉVILLE, C.E.
ALP. PIVER. (L.S.)