IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO MARINE STEAM ENGINES, AND TO MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PURIFYING THE WATER DRAWN FROM THE CONDENSERS BEFORE IT IS RETURNED TO THE BOILERS
Year: 1882

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Penn of Greenwich in the County of Kent for an
invention of "IMPROVEMENTS RELATING TO MARINE STEAM ENGINES, AND TO
MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PURIFYING THE WATER DRAWN FROM THE
CONDENSERS BEFORE IT IS RETURNED TO THE BOILERS"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Penn at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 5th April 1882.
JOHN PENN of Greenwich in the County of Kent "IMPROVEMENTS RELATING
TO MARINE STEAM ENGINES, AND TO MEANS OF, AND APPARATUS FOR PURIFYING
THE WATER DRAWN FROM THE CONDENSERS BEFORE IT IS RETURNED TO THE
BOILERS
"
This Invention has for its object improvements relating to marine steam engines
and to means of, and apparatus for purifying the water drawn from the condensers
before it is returned to the boilers.
At the present time serious inconvenience is experienced when boilers of the
locomotive type are employed and fed with the impure water drawn from the
surface condensers; there is inconvenience, although to a lesser degree, when
boilers of other types are employed and fed with this water.
Now according to my Invention I submit the impure water from the condensers
to a mechanical treatment, before permitting it again to enter the boilers. I thus
remove the oil and air mechanically mixed with the water I pass the impure
water through a vessel which is kept in rapid rotary motion and thereby cause a
separation to take place between the heavier and the lighter fluids in a manner
analogous to that in which cream is in some cases separated from milk.
In the apparatus which I employ there is a cylindrical vessel closed at the
bottom and mounted on a vertical shaft which passes through it and is supported

page_text: by bearings carried by suitable framing. The water from the condenser enters the
rotating vessel by a central tube fixed within it; the lower end of this tube is
larger than its upper end aud is perforated with holes through which the water
enters the cylindrical vessel.
The cylindrical vessel is partially closed at the top by a cover consisting of an
upper and a lower plate and a central neck. The upper plate of the cover is
secured to a flange on the upper end of the cylindrical vessel, the lower plate of
the cover is smaller than the inside diameter of the cylindrical vessel'and leaves a
space between this plate and the sides of the cylindrical vessel as a means of
communication between the inside of the vessel and the space between the upper
plate and lower plate of the cover; the inside of the central neck of the cover is
larger than the outside of the central tube and is formed with chambers for
collecting the purified water and the separated oil: the chambers for the purified
water are in communication with the space between the plates of the cover and are
fitted with tubes through which the purified water is discharged from these
chambers into a cistern provided for its reception; the chambers for the separated
oil are in direct communication with the central portion of the inside of the
cylindrical vessel and are fitted with tubes through which the oil is discharged
from these chambers into a cistern provided for its reception.
The upper end of the neck is fitted with a cover which partially closes the upper
ends of the collecting chambers for water and for oil in order to prevent any
upward escape of either water or oil and yet to allow the upper ends of these
chambers to be in free communication with the atmosphere also the upper ends of
the discharge pipes for water are below the upper ends of the discharge pipes for
oil. The rotating vessel may be fitted with radial plates the better to insure the
water being carried round by the vessel as it rotates.
The action of the machine is as follows viz. When the cylindrical vessel is
rotating the impure water from the condenser, which is allowed to flow con-
tinuously into the central tube, passes into this vessel through the holes in the
lower end of the central tube, but before this water reaches the cover the separation
is effected by the centrifugal action; the purified water flows through the space
between the lower plate of the cover and the sides of the cylindrical vessel into the
space between the upper and lower plates of the cover and from thence into the
collecting chamber formed in the neck of the cover, from whence it is discharged
through the tubes into the cistern; the oil collects round the upper part of the
central tube and rises into the collecting chambers formed for it in the neck of the
cover from whence it is discharged through the tubes into the cistern; finally
the water and the oil are carried away from the cisterns by pipes fitted for the
purpose.