IMPROVEMENTS IN OR CONNECTED WITH RETORTS FOR THE CONTINUOUS DISTILLATION OF SAWDUST, SHAVINGS, OR OTHER SMALL OR CUT WOOD."
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION' left by Thomas Frederick Haldane at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on. the 27th July 1881.
THOMAS FREDERICK HALDANE, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, Drysalter and Manufacturing Cheinist. IMPROVEMENTS IN OR
CONNECTED WITH RETORTS FOR THE CONTINUOUS DISTILLATION OF SAWDUST,
SHAVINGS, OR OTHER SMALL OR CUT WOOD."
This Invention has reference essentially to a new or improved construction or
arrangement and combination of the parts of a retort and its accessory fittings,
susceptable of considerable modification for the continuous distillation of small or
cut wood, sawdust, and shavings of wood for producing acetic acid, wood
spirits, or other products therefrom, in a better and more economical manner than
with the retorts heretofore in use.
The nature and novelty of the Invention or improvements consists as follows:-
Under this Invention the retorts are arranged and erected in a set of two or more
in number over each other, and built within a heating chamber or flues over their
heating furnace or furnaces at one end or at the sides below them, so that the
flames and heated products of combustion therefrom will heat all round the outer
sides or surface of each retort of the whole set longitudinally or transversely on
their way from the furnace to the chimney. For this purpose the retorts are
preferred to be made of cast iron, broad, but not deep or high, and of an ordinary
segmental or
shape in cross section with flanges at their ends to rest over
each other or on the end closing in walls of the heating chamber or flues. The
ends of these retorts are left open, and have close end chambers or ducts with
close fitting doors for inspection, formed vertically at each end of the whole set for
drawing the gases therefrom and for erecting and enclosing the chain wheels and
their shafts over each other, which traverse the wood material in a continuous
manner through the several retorts and deliver it from the one retort to the other
alternately at each opposite end to the one below it down through the said end
chambers. The wood material to be distilled would be fed in at and by a supply
hopper or charging chamber formed over an opening in or near one end of the
upper retort, and which would be fitted preferably with a pair of feeding in vanes
or chamber wheels or drums working into each other, preferably with spring
Prine 271

page_text: moving bottoms within the chambers or between the vanes of one or both feeding
drums, or having one drum made loose, so as to move on its bushes in slides in the
side frames back from the other when any large piece of wood passes in between
them at the upper centre part of the hopper and feeders, or other equivalent
automatic feeding in mechanism might be used. The endless chains with the
scrapers stretched between them are carried along. the sides and close over the
bottom of each retort, so as to scrape, carry, and deliver the wood material to the
delivery end of the upper retort and deposit it into the charging or feeding in end
of the retort below, where it would be similarly carried to the delivery end of
this lower retort by the return scrapers and chains of this set passed over their
chain wheels at each end between the retorts for that purpose. The operation
would be continued for as many pairs of retorts as are erected directly over each
other (or laterally above each other and having the material delivered at an angle
from the one set of chains and retorts to the other) until it reaches the lower
retort, where it would be delivered into the lower hopper part of one of the close
end chambers, from which it would be removed by a delivery screw wheel, or it
might be elevators or other equivalent, cooled and treated for use as charcoal for
various manufacturing and deodorizing and other purposes, the gases evolved
during the process being carried or drawn off preferably at the upper part of one
or both of the end chambers by outlet pipes leading to the condensers, and may be
treated all otherwise as heretofore. The outlet pipes would preferably be fitted
with exhaust pumps or equivalent means for drawing off the gases and so
facilitate the operation; and the delivery screw, wheel, elevator, or other equivalent
would preferably be so arranged as to facilitate the cooling of the charcoal by
throwing it out and turning it over while exposed to the air before conducting it
to the assorting or winnowing apparatus.