CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR THE MANUFACTURE AND REFINING OF SUGAR
Year: 1844

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, HENRY
OLIVER ROBINSON, of No. 12, Old Jewry, in the City of London, Engineer,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Tenth day of October, One thousand eight hundred and
forty-five, in the eighth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said Henry Oliver Robinson, Her
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Henry
Oliver Robinson, my exors, aduiors, and assigns, and such others as I, the said
Henry Oliver Robinson, my exors, adñiors, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term
of fourteen years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, and also in all Her said Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, and
in the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, my Invention
of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM MACHINERY AND APPARATUS FOR THE
MANUFACTURE AND REFINING OF SUGAR;" in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a proviso obliging me, the said Henry Oliver Robinson, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly to describe and
ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, and to cause the same to be enrolled in Her said Majesty's
High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately

page_text: after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the
same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Oliver Robinson, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described
and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had
to the Drawing hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked
thereon, (that is to say): :-
My improvements consist of four parts:-
The first relates to the machinery for obtaining the juice of the sugar cane,
commonly called a steam engine and sugar mill. Upon the usual mode of
constructing these, the steam engine, the driving gear or connecting wheels,
and the mill are each adapted to be supported upon three separate foundations
of timber or masonry of different heights from the ground or levels respec-
tively, that is to say, the motor, the machinery communicating motion or
power, and the operating machine, are connected to each other by their
moving parts only. Upon my new mode of constructing the same, I shape
and adapt the said three divisions of the machinery in such manner that
the lower extremities of the fixed parts are in the same plane with each other,
and rest upon and are fixed to a base plate or base frame of iron; thus they
are connected by their fixed parts as well as by their moving parts, and form
one self-dependant machine, termed by me a "steam cane mill." One of my
arrangements of it is represented upon the subjoined Sheet of Drawing,
(Figures 1 and 2), which any supplier of this description of machinery, or
manufacturer of sugar from cane, will readily understand by reference to
Figures 1 and 2. A is the steam cylinder. B, the crank shaft. C, the fly
wheel. D, the driving gear. E, the roll press or mill. F, F, F, F, the fixed
parts. G, the base plate.
below.
The second part of my improvements relates also to the machinery for ob
taining the juice of the sugar cane, commonly called the sugar mill, considered
apart from its connection with the motor, that is to say, to the operating
machine. In the common horizontal mill the rolls or pressing cylinders are
three in number, and are placed with one above acting upon or against two
In my new horizontal sugar cane mill the rolls are four in number,
and placed in pairs two above and two below, each upper roll acting upon or
against a lower one, the canes passing continuously between the two pairs
of rolls. Each upper roll I place a little in advance of the lower roll, against
which it acts, so that the canes when undergoing the pressure of each pair
of rolls are in an inclined upward position, and the juice pressed out of them

page_text: or liberated does not pass through with the canes, but falls down in front of
each lower roll into the mill bed or receiver. Each pair of rolls has its own.
tic-bolts placed in the exact direction of the strain, so that all the severing
force of the action of pressing or crushing the canes is borne by the said, tie-
bolts, and the cast-iron side frames have merely to perform the office of
supports. In connexion with the above-described arrangement of the
pressing cylinders of a sugar cane mill, I place my cane feeding apparatus,
described in my Specification of my Patent, sealed on the Second day of.
December, One thousand eight hundred and forty, for "A Sugar Cane Mill
of a New Construction, and certain Improvements applicable to Sugar Cane.
Mills generally, and certain Improvements in Apparatus for making Sugar,"
in such manner that the end of the moving platform thereof comes under the
upper one, of the first pair of rolls of the mill, and delivers the canes properly
to the action of the mill, the said upper roll thus taking the place of the
small upper roll of the feed apparatus. The said arrangement will be readily
understood by reference to the accompanying Drawing.
Figure 3 is a cross section of the rolls of the mill, and of part of the feed;
apparatus. Figure 4 is an end view of the mill. H, H, are the upper rolls.
I, I, are the lower rolls. J, J, is part of the feed apparatus. K is the mill
bed or receiver of the juice. L, L, are the tie-bolts shewn in dotted lines.
a, a, are the canes upon the moving platform of the feed apparatus; and
between the rolls b, b, is the juice escaping from the canes. The frames or
supports of the machinery are not shewn in the cross section to avoid con-
fusion; arrows in black shew the course of the canes through the mill, and,
arrows in red shew the course of the juice. The gear connecting the mill;
with the motor varies in its arrangement according to whether the last be a
steam engine, a water wheel, or cattle power, and being similar to the gear of
the common horizontal mill need not be described here.
The third part of my improvements relates to the conversion or manufac-
ture of the juice of the cane into sugar, and the refining of sugar. The,
present process, termed clarification or clarifying, to which cane juice is first
subjected; I do not materially change or alter. When the cane juice is
clarified and collected into a reservoir, I inject or pump it into a close iron
vessel, which I term a "close evaporator." In this vessel the juice is sub
jected to the heat of an ordinary fire placed in a firegrate underneath, and
evaporated or boiled till about one half of the aqueous constituent is driven
off. The vapour is not permitted to flow out till a certain pressure, above.
that of the atmosphere is attained, which may vary from five to twelve, pounds™
on the inch. This vapour or steam I dispose of as I shall hereafter point.

page_text: out. The juice thus boiled to this point is then permitted to flow from the
close evaporator through a pipe leading from near the bottom of the close
evaporator to the top of a metallic vessel, termed by me a "surface filtrator."
This vessel is also made close or steam-tight, and may be of any strong and
convenient shape, the shape I prefer being a cylinder placed vertically, with
a spherical bottom and cover; the cover is made to remove. Within the
vessel are placed, in alternate layers, textile fabric or filtering cloth and wicker
or pierced metallic plates; through these the juice is gently urged or forced,
by means of the pressure of steam in the close evaporator, at such a rate as
may be found best, the rate being perfectly controlled by a cock placed in
the exit pipe; the juice is now deprived of its feculencies, but is not yet
chemically purified. In order to accomplish this latter object I make the
exit pipe of the "surface filtrator" to communicate with a vessel similar to it
in its external form, which I term a "charcoal filtrator." This vessel has
a false bottom plate pierced with holes, and contains animal or bone charcoal
of the usual description of the sugar refineries. Through this medium the
juice is in like manner urged, and escapes through a pipe and regulating
cock into an open vessel, termed by me a "filtered syrup reservoir."
Another arrangement of the process is the following:-The liquor or syrup,
instead of being evaporated, to the degree stated, in the close evaporator by
fire heat, is allowed at an earlier stage to flow into a second close evaporator,
similar in its construction to the vacuum evaporator described herein-after,
and heated by the steam emanating from the juice in the first close evaporator
until the degree of density named is attained; it is then permitted to flow
into the filtrating vessels as described. At this point I no longer deem it
proper to submit the syrup to the action of the high temperature of fire heat,
and in order to evaporate the remainder of the aqueous constituent, and con-
vert the syrup into " sugar syrup," I evaporate it in vacuo, by the action of
steam heat, in a metallic vessel, termed by me a "vacuum evaporator." This
vessel I prefer making of a cylindrical form placed horizontally. At each
end of the vacuum evaporator is a space or compartment formed by a plate
or plates of metal. Between these compartments, and communicating with
them, are placed straight tubes, the ends of which are let into and fixed to
the plates forming the compartments. The liquor or syrup to be evaporated
is placed in the body of the vessel through which these tubes pass, and the
steam let into the two end compartments and within the tubes gives off to
the syrup its heat and evaporates it to the required degree of specific gravity.
The vacuum or partial vacuum over the surface of the syrup within the
vacuum evaporator I produce by the common mode of a condenser and air

page_text: pump. When the syrup is thus finished, it is discharged from the vacuum
evaporator and crystallized in the usual way. The steam produced from the
juice in the close evaporator above referred to I employ to supply the vacuum
evaporator and the clarifying paus, or a steam engine; thus one fire may
suffice for all the processes of the manufacture of the cane juice into sugar;
this one fire can be supplied by the refuse or woody fibre of the canes. In
the refining of sugar I employ the same kinds of filtrating vessels, or a series,
thereof, each being steam-tight or close, and communicating with each other
from bottom to top; but in this case, as there is no close evaporator from
which steam is produced, I actuate the flow of the syrup by a small supply
of steam-from a steam boiler, to keep a pressure on the surface of the syrup
within the vessel or reservoir containing the syrup to be operated upon. I
also employ for the refining of sugar my new vacuum evaporator of cast iron,
in lieu of the common spherical copper vacuum pan.
The arrangement of the principal vessels and their accessories are given in
the subjoined Drawing, Figures 5, 6, 7, but I do not confine myself to the
precise arrangement as there set forth. V is the close evaporator. T is the
surface filtrator. S is the charcoal filtrator. R is the reservoir for filtered
syrup. Qis the vacuum evaporator. P is the receiver of finished syrup.
o is the injection pump for supplying the clarified juice. n is the exit pipe.
m, m, are the pipes and regulating cocks leading from the filtrating vessels.
is a pipe through which the vacuum evaporator supplies itself. k is the
discharge sluice of finished syrup. j is the steam pipe leading to the clarifyers.
and the vacuum evaporator.
My fourth improvement is the making of the vacuum pan used in the
manufacture of sugar or in the refining of sugar, of cast iron, instead of copper
as heretofore.
I will now state that what I claim to be new, and of my Invention, is as
follows:-
First, the combination of a steam engine of any kind and a sugar cane mill
upon one base-plate or base-frame of iron or timber.
Second, the arrangement of the same so that the lower extremities of their
fixed parts shall come into the same plane, and be capable of being affixed to
a frame or plate of any kind.
Third, the construction of a horizontal sugar cane mill with four rolls or
pressing cylinders placed in pairs, and the upper rolls advanced forward with
respect to the lower ones.
Fourth, the evaporation or partial evaporation of cane juice in a steam-
close vessel, under a pressure of the steam emanating from the liquor under-

page_text: going evaporation, and thus obtaining steam for useful purposes, economizing
fuel, and dispensing with water.
Fifth, close filtrating vessels operated upon by a pressure of steam urging
onwards the liquor or syrup, and keeping it hot during the process of
filtration.
Sixth, the employment of the pressure of steam to cause the liquor to flow
continuously through a close filtrating vessel, or series of close filtrating vessels,
of any kind used in the manufacture or refining of sugar.
Seventh, the form of vacuum evaporating vessel as described, viz, with
straight internal tubes and compartments at each end.
Eighth, the construction of a vacuum pan, of any shape, or vacuum vessel,
for the manufacture and refining of sugar, made of cast iron, or cast iron
coated with or alloyed with any other metal.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Oliver Robinson, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Tenth day of April, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and forty-five.