Improvements in the Method of and in Means for Recovering Salts from Brine and Solutions, and for Concentrating Solutions.
Year: 1891

page_text: Date of Application, 29th Dec., 1891
Complete Specification Left, 29th Sept., 1892-Accepted, 29th Oct., 1892
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in the Method of and in Means for Recovering Salts
from Brine and Solutions, and for Concentrating Solutions.
I HUGH WILLIAMS of Longacre, Edgeley, Stockport, in the County of Chester,
Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
My invention has for its principal object to recover salt from brine but may be
used in the manufacture of alkali and of alum or other salts. In the manufacture
of salt from brine I discharge the brine in the form of spray into highly heated air
which I prefer should travel in a direction contrary to that of the spray.
I propose to deliver the heated air into a vertical tower or chamber through
which the air would ascend meeting in its way the descending spray. To check
incrustation upon the inner wall or walls of the tower I may make the interior of a
conical or tapering formation.
The brine may be blown into the tower by means of air blasts or be delivered
through perforated or suitable dischargers. The water will be more or less
separated from the salt according to the proportions of the apparatus the heat of
the air and the rates of supply of air and brine. I intend that the salt shall be
separated and shall fall to the bottom of the tower the moisture issuing as vapour
from the top or being drawn off by means of exhausting apparatus. The salt inay
fall into a chamber from which it may be removed at intervals or be discharged by
means of a rotating or revoluble valve or of a worm or creeper or by suitable
means. I prefer to use ordinary pure air heated in a manner similar to the hot
blast used in iron furnaces. In heating apparatus which I have devised for the
purpose air heating chambers are externally heated by means of a gas furnace
supplied with inflammable gases or adapted to generate such gases.
The furnace may be of the hopper fed class having a small grate area and
arranged to work with a forced draught. As my principal object is to produce
the salt under economical conditions I employ a furnace adapted to convert the
whole or nearly the whole of the carbon in the fuel into mixtures of inflammable
gases.
The heating chambers would be constructed on the regenerative principle but
would by preference be externally heated. If the chambers be heated by passing
through them burning gases I should take precautions to prevent such gases from
passing into the towers.
In place of the heating chambers or in addition thereto I may use metal pipes or
coils. The air may flow to the heating chambers through metal pipes such pipes being
heated by the gases which have parted with some of their heat to the walls of the
said heating chambers. I may use metal pipes in the forms of partitions having
double corrugated walls such partitions being arranged to lead the gases in a
circuitous course to the exit. The waste heat from the furnaces and from the
towers may be used to heat or concentrate the brine.
Dated his
day of December 1891
DUTTON & FULTON,
1, St. James Square, Manchester, Agents.

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in the Method of and in Means for Recovering Salts
from Brine and Solutions, and for Concentrating Solutions.
I HUGH WILLIAMS of Longacre, Edgeley, Stockport, in the County of Chester,
Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement and accompanying drawings :-
:-
My invention has for its principal object to recover salt from brine but may be
used in the manufacture of alkali and of alum or other salts. In the manufacture
of salt from brine I discharge the brine in the form of spray into highly heated air
which I prefer should travel in a direction contrary to that of the spray. I propose
to deliver the heated air into a vertical tower or chamber through which the air
would ascend meeting in its way the descending spray. To check incrustation upon
the inner wall or walls of the tower I may make the interior of a conical or tapering
formation. The brine may be blown into the tower by means of air blasts or be
delivered through perforated or suitable dischargers. The water will be more
or less separated from the salt according to the proportions of the apparatus, the
heat of the air, and the rates of supply of air and brine. I intend that the salt
shall be separated and shall fall to the bottom of the tower the moisture issuing as
vapour from the top or being drawn off by means of exhausting apparatus. The
salt may fall into a chamber from which it may be removed at intervals or be dis-
charged by means of a rotating or revolvable valve or of a worm or creeper or by
suitable means. I prefer to use ordinary pure air heated in a manner similar to
the hot blast used in iron furnaces. In heating apparatus which I have devised
for the purpose air heating chambers are externally heated by means of a gas
furnace supplied with inflammable gases or adapted to generate such gases or in
place of the heating chambers or in addition thereto I may use metal pipes or coils.
The air may flow in the heating chambers through metal pipes such pipes being
heated by the gases which have parted with some of their heat to the walls of the
said heating chambers. The waste heat from the furnaces and from the towers may
be used to heat or concentrate the brine.
To render my invention clearly understood I have attached hereto a sheet of
explanatory drawings to which I will now refer.
Fig. 1 is a vertical section of my improved brine evaporating and salt recovering
apparatus.
Fig. 2 is a horizontal section of the same at the line A. B. Fig. 1. The section
represented by Fig. 1 is taken at the line C. D. Fig. 2.
At
The apparatus shown in the drawings consists of two towers a a which are made
of a suitable height and preferably tapering inwards towards the top as plainly
shown in Fig. 1. The said towers are built of any suitable refractory material and
may be lagged or clad on the outside to prevent undue radiation of the heat..
the bottom of the towers there are admission ports through which the highly
heated air enters the towers at the foot. At the top of the towers there are also
exit ports c through which the air, vapours and steam are drawn first into annular
casings & and then into the trunk or conduite which is connected with a suitable
exhauster. At the top of the towers I arrange groups of pipes through which
the brine or liquid from which the salts or other substances are to be recovered, is
showered into the towers. The pipes fare connected with feed pipe leading
from a well or pump or connected to a liquid receptacle. In conjunction with the
pipes arrange air blast pipes which are connected to or directed into the
pipes. The said blast pipes are connected to a pipe ¹ into which a forced blast
of cold air is directed by any suitable air forcing or blowing apparatus. The dis-
charging nozzles of the brine pipes fare fitted with spraying appliances or with

page_text: perforated or suitable dischargers or other means for breaking up the brine into
fine particles.
The hot air which is admitted to the foot of the towers is heated to a very high
temperature by any suitable or well known means. The mode of heating the air
is not an essential part of my invention and I need not therefore explain any specific
method of doing so. A simple fashion of doing so is however indicated in the plan
section view Fig. 2. Here I have a series of heating coils iiii arranged in a
chamber through which the heated products of combustion pass from a combustion
chamber and furnace grate l. Cold air enters the heating coils at the point
marked m and in traversing through the coils and through the passage o which
skirts the combustion chamber k, the air becomes very highly heated and is then
led from the passage o through the controlling valves pp to the annular passages 77
which surround the lower part of the towers. The ports already referred to
admit the hot air from the said circular passages qq to the front of the towers.
the base of the towers there are revolving delivery valves rr by which the salt or
matters recovered in the towers is delivered to a pits with sloping sides beneath
the towers.
At
The said revolving valves rr are so constructed that while delivering the salt
from the towers as set forth they at no time permit any ingress of cold air to the
foot of the towers.
The mode of operating my invention is as follows. The air heating portions of
the apparatus having been brought to the required temperature the exhauster in
connection with the conduit e is set in motion so as to draw hot air through the
tower and thoroughly heat it. I then admit the brine current leading to the pipes f
and at the same time turn on the cold air blast delivered by the blast pipes h. The
cold air blows the brine in a fine spray from the delivery nozzles of the pipes and
this spray showering down in the towers meets the ascending currents of highly
heated air.
The air is so hot that it completely evaporates the spray before it can
reach the bottom of the towers and thus separates the contained salts or other
recoverable matters in the brine, the said separated salts or matters falling to the
bottom of the towers and being ejected by the revolving valves which direct it
to the pit s, from which it is removed in any convenient manner.
The steam and
vapours evolved by the evaporation of the brine are drawn away from the top of
the tower by the exhauster as already described. It will be noted that the
described arrangement is the most advantageous for securing the best and most
economical result. The evaporation is to a certain extent gradual. The cold brine
spray meets the ascending current of hot air when the said air is coolest and most
moist. As it descends further the temperature of the air is hotter and the air is
dryer until near the foot, the recovered salt is thoroughly dried by meeting the air
in its hottest and dryest condition. The temperature of the air at the top of the
tower would be so far reduced at the top of the tower that there is little likelihood
of the spraying nozzles being choked by salt deposits. Moreover the cold blast of
air delivered through the pipes / keep the spray pipes cool and so prevent deposit,
and incrustation. In some instances however it might be found possible to dispense
with the air blast and force the brine through the spraying nozzles without the
assistance of an air blast.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. As means for the recovery of salt from brine, or alkali, alum or other salts
from liquids, the employment of towers or upright hollow shafts into the upper end
of which the brine or liquid is forced and sprayed either with or without the aid of
an air blast, the said falling spray being met by a current or currents of hot air
introduced at the foot of the tower or shaft and of a temperature sufficiently high
to evaporate the brine or liquid and separate the contained salt or matter substan-
tially by the means and in the manner hereinbefore described and shown.

page_text: 2. The arrangement construction and combination of parts comprising my
improved apparatus or means for recovering salts from brine solutions or liquids
arranged and operating substantially as hereinbefore described and illustrated.
Dated this 28th day of September 1892.
E. K. DUTTON & Co.,
5, John Dalton Street, Manchester, Agents.