IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS USED IN THE TREATMENT OF SOAPSUDS OR OTHER SAPONACEOUS OR OILY MATTERS, WHICH APPARATUS IS ALSO APPLICABLE IN THE TREATMENT OF OTHER MATTERS
Year: 1860

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Benjamin Seed at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th November
1860.
I, BENJAMIN SEED, of Great Horton Lane, Bradford, in the County of
York, Manager, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS USED IN THE TREATMENT OF SOAPSUDS OR OTHER
SAPONACEOUS OR OILY MATTERS, WHICH APPARATUS IS ALSO APPLICABLE IN THE
TREATMENT OF OTHER MATTERS," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to improvements in apparatus employed in the
treatment of soapsuds and other saponaceous or oily matters, for the purpose
of expressing the fluid part of the magma or other oily matters, which has
heretofore been performed by pressure exerted on bags containing the magma
or other oily matters. The magma or other oily matters being generally the
refuse matters resulting from various manufacturing or cleansing operations,
the operation has heretofore also been to a certain extent performed in bulk,.
placing it in that state in cylinders or pressure chambers in a body instead of
in bags.
Now, my Invention relates to the placing of the magma or other oily
matters in trays or shallow vessels of a size suitable for handling, and of some
three or four inches in depth. These trays I make of metal, wrought iron, or
wood, and perforate the bottom, and it may be the sides also with numerous
perforations; and, further, I make the bottom of a double or a single

page_text: thickness; if single, I place canvas internally, but if of a double thickness,
both thicknesses being perforated, I place a substance of canvas or other
filtering material between such bottom. The bottom may also be lined
internally; and, further, I might or might not line the sides of the trays,
which are vertical, with canvas or other filtering material. To each tray I
furnish & fit a pressing surface consisting, it may be, of two plates or thick-
nessess of metal or wood, the lower one fitted to the tray to slide therein as
a piston, the other of a larger area, and separated and sustained from the
lower one at a distance equal to or nearly the depth of the tray, by numerous
suitable iron or wood supports to take the pressure. The upper plate or solid
block of wood and largest plate forms the support for the bottom of the tray
immediately above, numerous trays being piled one above another in the act
of pressing. Ribs are formed on the top of each large plate or block of wood,
or on the bottoms of the trays, in order to keep separate the one from the
other a sufficient distance for the escape of the fluid part of the magma or
oily matters expressed, which escapes and drips from the extreme edge of the
large plate, which is large enough to carry the drip free of and beyond the
trays underneath.
In treating the magma, it is placed in the trays before described, & I place
on its surface, by preference, a thickness of canvas or other filtering material,
as also a plate or thickness of metal fitted somewhat closely to the side of
the tray to slide therein as a piston. When this canvas or filtering material
is used, the fitting of the smaller of the two pressing plates or blocks of wood
before mentioned to the tray need not be so accurate. The several trays
having been filled with the magma or other oily matters, and placed in the
pressing cylinder or chamber (or it may be simply a press which is fitted with
ingress pipes for the admission of steam or air to heat the said cylinder
chamber or press, and for the escape of the fluid expressed,) with their several
double pressing plates or blocks of wood. The depth occupied by the whole
will be nearly double that of the trays themselves, but after the pressure has
been exerted, and the fluid part of the magma or other oily matters allowed
time to escape, the pressing piece of each tray will have descended into its
respective tray, and compressed the magma or other oily matters therein to
the requisite density, and but little of these pressing pieces will remain above
the trays, other than the large plates themselves. The trays are now removed,
emptied, refilled, and operated on again, and so on. Instead of the trays
being fitted each with a pressing piece placed intermediate of it and the next
adjoining tray, the trays themselves might be made of graduated sizes, so that
the one enters the other, and placed in an inverted position, so that the fluid

page_text: part of the trays might drop clear of those "below. In this case, in
addition to the double or single bottom before referred to, I employ another
solid plate on the bottom, between which and the perforated bottom are
channels for the escape of the fluid to the periphery where it drops. Instead
of perforating the bottom of the tray, as before mentioned, I can by the latter
arrangement perforate the plate enclosing the fluid channels last herein
mentioned, which plate is fitted to the next tray, and is, in fact, the pressing
surface or piston of the adjoining tray, and would be furnished with canvas,
through which the fluid is expressed. When the pressure is applied to these
trays they are compressed one within the other in the act of expressing the
fluid or oily matters. These trays and apparatus are also applicable for the
pressing of seed, shoddy, & other matters.