IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF VAPOURIZED AIR FOR HEATING PURPOSES GENERALLY, AND IN MEANS FOR REGULATING AND CONTROLLING THE ADMIXTURE OF VAPOURIZED AND OTHER AIR WHEN EMPLOYED FOR SUCH PURPOSES
Year: 1873

page_text: LETTERS, PATENT to Owen Charles Dalhousie Ross, of Craven Street,
Strand, in the County of Middlesex, M.I.C.E., for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF VAPOURIZED AIR FOR HEATING
PURPOSES GENERALLY, AND IN MEANS FOR REGULATING AND CONTROLLING THE
ADMIXTURE OF VAPOURIZED AND OTHER AIR WHEN EMPLOYED FOR SUCH
PURPOSES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Owen Charles Dalhousie
Ross at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his
Petition, on the 25th June 1873.
I, OWEN CHARLES DALHOUSIE Ross, of Craven Street, Strand, in the
County of Middlesex, M.I.C.E., do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF VAPOURIZED AIR FOR
HEATING PURPOSES GENERALLY, AND IN MEANS FOR Regulating and CONTROLLING
1

page_text: PURPOSES," to be as follows:-
The objects of my Invention are improvements in the production of
vapourized air, in the manner of regulating and controlling the supply
of air which is necessary to effect the perfect combustion of carbon and
hydrogen, by mixing these elements with the oxygen of the air previous
to their ignition, and to the economical employment of these mixed
gases or vapourized air when obtained for the purpose of heating a great
variety of furnaces, ovens, kilns, retorts, evaporating pans, smithies,
grates, and other heating vessels or apparatus, in which it is now
customary to employ for the purpose coal, wood, charcoal, or other
descriptions of fuel.
By my Invention I propose to invert the usual method of generating
heat, which consists in the combustion of mineral or vegetable fuels
aided by a draught of air drawn more or less thoroughly over or through
the fire, and which occasions a great waste of heat, and instead thereof
to subject the air before it enters the furnaces, &c., to a treatment which
shall enable it to burn with great heat, thus rendering it in many cases
unnecessary that there should be any consumption of coal, wood,
charcoal, or other such like fuel, and in other cases when the use of such
fuel is not entirely superseded a very great economy of the same may be
obtained. With this view, I supply the said furnaces, &c., with air,
which before it enters into combustion must be impregnated with carbon
or hydrogen, or both, by passing it through a vessel or vessels containing
oils or spirits, which may be either petroleum or other mineral oils, coal
tar, creosote, or other hydrocarbon substances. When a sufficiently
volatile fluid is used, evaporating at the ordinary temperature of the
atmosphere, the air is passed through the said fluid, or the vapour
therefrom in its normal state, but care must be taken that the evaporation
be evenly maintained, and that some absorbent material be placed in the
evaporating vessel which will help to hold the particles of hydrocarbon
fluid and vapour in suspense, in order that the air may the more easily
be impregnated therewith as it passes through the said vessel, but
sometimes it is necessary to heat the fluid artificially for the purpose of
stimulating the evaporation, and in that case the vessel or, vessels in
which it is contained should be treated, either by passing a steam or hot
water pipe through the liquid, or in any other convenient way. When
the air has been thus prepared it will burn with a bright flame, but as if

page_text: will often contain a larger proportion of carbon or hydrogen than is
necessary for its most economical use as a substitute for ordinary fuel,
I then combine it with a further quantity of non-prepared air before
conducting it to the point of combustion, this additional air being
supplied to the pipe so conducting it by means of a continuous pressure
or current, and in order that the whole of the air may be thoroughly
mixed before it is ignited, it is allowed first to pass through a mixing
chamber, which may be provided with one or more wire gauze partitions,
and from thence conducted to the furnace or vessel which is to be heated
through one or more pipes or tubes.
In applying the air thus prepared to the smelting of copper, tin, or
lead, or to other reverberatory and reheating furnaces and hot stoves,
and generally in calcining ores, stones, or bones, in puddling, heating, or
making steel, and other metallurgical operations, I prefer to conduct a
current or currents thereof for ignition to the point usually occupied by
the grate or fire, or to the bridge which separates the grate from the
hearth on which the ore or metal is manipulated, and from thence the
prepared air must be thrown in a jet or jets into the furnace, so as to
traverse as much of the hearth as possible, but the prepared air may also
be injected into the furnace through other apertures, more or less
surrounding it, in order the better to envelop its contents with flame,
and a further supply of unprepared air may similarly be added to it by
injecting it separately into the furnace, or it may be conveyed into the
said furnaces by means of iron or fire-clay pipes pierced with small'
holes, allowing the jets of flame to issue in such quantity and at such
points as may be deemed most advisable.
The air thus prepared may also be used for the manufacture of soda,
both for the process of converting the sulphate into carbonate by heating
it in a reverberatory furnace with chalk or limestone and coal, in which
case the coal which is usually mixed with it may be diminished in
quantity, and also by applying the same to the heating of the
evaporating pans by the ignition of a number of small jets beneath
them.
The great command over the degree of temperature it is desired to
apply, which can be obtained by this process, renders it particularly
useful for baking ovens, brick kilns, kilns or towers for drying malt, or
for the burning and enamelling of pottery and China, and for other kilns

page_text: or ovens, and the prepared air may pass either directly into the kilns and
ovens, and enter into combustion there, or the combustion may take
place only in surrounding passages, the heat being partially or wholly
confined to flues surrounding the kiln or oven, so as to heat their
contents without coming in contact therewith, or it may be made to
impinge in small jets upon such portions of the kiln or oven or their
contents, as it may be convenient to subject to the greatest heat, and
in this last-mentioned way it is also particularly applicable to the
heating of all kinds of evaporating pans used in the manufacture of
salt, &c.
If applied to the manufacture of soap or sugar, or to the distillation
of spirits, the prepared air may be conveyed into the soap or sugar pans
in lieu of heating them by steam, or into the interior of the vessels used
for distillation. These vessels should be traversed by tubes in sufficient
number for the purpose of heating the mixture they contain, and into,
these tubes I convey small pipes drilled with a sufficient number of very
small holes, to serve as burners for the prepared air, which is then driven
under pressure into the pipes, and on escaping through the holes is
ignited and heats the tubes to whatever extent may be deemed most
convenient, for the size of the flames will be always under perfect
control, and graduated by means of the degree of pressure put upon the
current of prepared air, or by the use of ordinary gas cocks.
The process is also applicable to burning lime, cement, or plaster of
Paris, and to the reduction of pure sulphur ores, or to the manufacture
of roll sulphur and flowers of sulphur, by applying the heat of the
prepared air in jets or flames to the outside of the reducing ovens,
retorts, cylinders, or pots in which the sulphur is melted, and thus
heating them to the required degree of temperature.
It may also be applied to the desilverization of lead by the process
which is called the separating process, or in French pattinsonage.
For this purpose, the pots in which the lead is heated, which are large
metal pans, requiring that the melted lead should be slowly and carefully
cooled must be heated from below and partially round the side by one or
more jets of prepared air in a state of combustion impinging upon the
outer surface of the pots.
The prepared air may also be used for welding and bending iron in
open hearths or smithies, with or without the addition of small coal or

page_text: charcoal; and in mining, quarrying, or tunnelling it may be used for
heating rocks, by which means the use of gunpowder may be in many
cases avoided, and great blocks of rock may be very economically broken
away.
All descriptions of blast furnace may likewise be heated by wholly or
partly substituting for the blast ordinarily employed the introduction of
air prepared as above described into the furnace, and largely diminishing
the quantity of coal or coke now used in the reduction and fusion of
ores, and it may also be very advantageously employed in the manufacture
of steel.
i
SPECIFICATION filed in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters
Patent, and of an Order of the Lord Chancellor, by the said Owen
Charles Dalhousie Ross in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 24th
January 1874.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, OWEN
CHARLES DALHOUSIE Ross, of Craven Street, Strand, in the County of
Middlesex, M.I.C.E., send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, in the thirty-sixth
year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and
grant unto me, the said Owen Charles Dalhousie Ross, Her special
licence that I, the said Owen Charles Dalhousie Ross, my executors
administrators, and assigns, or such others, as I, the said Owen Charles
Dalhousie Ross, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times
thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands; and Isle of Man,
an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE PRODUCTION OF VAPORIZED AIR FOR
HEATING PURPOSES GENERALLY, AND IN MEANS FOR REGULATING AND CONTROLLING
THE ADMIXTURE OF VAPOURIZED AND OTHER AIR WHEN EMPLOYED FOR SUCH PUR-
POSES," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said Owen Charles
Dalhousie Ross, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, . should

page_text: particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same
to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within seven calendar months,
-next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Owen Charies Dalhousie Ross, do
hereby declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner.
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement thereof, reference: being had to the
Drawings hereunto annexed, that is to say:-
The objects of my Invention are improvements in the production of
vapourized air in the manner of regulating and controlling the supply of
air which is necessary to effect the perfect combustion of carbon and
hydrogen by mixing these elements with the oxygen of the air previous
to their ignition, and to the economical employment of these mixed
gases or vaporized air when obtained for the purpose of heating a great
variety of furnaces, ovens, kilns, retorts, evaporating pans, smithies,
grates, and other heating vessels or apparatus in which it is now
customary to employ for the purpose coal, wood, charcoal, or other
descriptions of fuel.
By my Invention I propose to invert the usual method of generating
heat, which consists in the combustion of mineral or vegetable fuels,
aided by a draught of air drawn more or less thoroughly over or through
the fire, and which occasions a great waste of heat, and instead thereof
to subject the air before it enters the furnaces, &c., to a treatment which
shall enable it to burn with great heat, thus rendering it in many cases
unnecessary that there should be any consumption of coal, wood, char-
coal, or other such like fuel; and in other cases when the use of such
fuel is not entirely superseded a very great economy of the same may
be obtained. With this view I supply the said furnace, &c., with air
which before it enters into combustion must be impregnated with carbon
or hydrogen, or both, by passing it through a vessel or vessels containing
oils or spirits, which may be either petroleum or other mineral oils, coal
tar, creosote, or other hydrocarbon substances. When a sufficiently
volatile fluid is used evaporating at the ordinary temperature of the
atmosphere the air is passed through the said fluid or the vapour there-
from in its normal state, but care must be taken that the evaporation be
evenly maintained and that some absorbent material be placed in the

page_text: evaporating vessel, which will help to hold the particles of hydrocarbon
fluid and vapour in suspense in order that the air may the more easily
be impregnated therewith as it passes through the said vessel; but some-
times it is necessary to heat the fluid artificially for the purpose of
stimulating the evaporation, and in that case the vessel or vessels in:
which it is contained should be treated either by passing a steam or hot
water pipe through the liquid or in any other convenient way. When
the air has been thus prepared it will burn with a bright flame, but as it
will often contain a larger proportion of carbon or hydrogen than is
necessary for its most economical use as a substitute for ordinary fuel I
then combine it with a further quantity of non-prepared air before con-
ducting it to the point of combustion, this additional air being supplied
to the pipe so conducting it by means of a continuous pressure or current,
and in order that the whole of the air may be thoroughly mixed before
it is ignited it is allowed first to pass through a mixing chamber, which
may be provided with one or more wire gauze partitions, and from thence
conducted to the furnace or vessel which is to be heated through one or.
more pipes or tubes.
In applying the air thus prepared to the smelting of copper, tin, or
lead, or to other reverberatory and rehcating furnaces and hot stoves,
and generally in calcining ores, stones, or bones, in puddling, heating, or
making steel and other metallurgical operations, I prefer to conduct a
current or currents thereof for ignition to the point usually occupied by
the grate or fire on to the bridge which separates the grate from the
hearth on which the ore or metal is manipulated, and from thence the
prepared air must be thrown in a jet or jets into the furnace so as to
traverse as much of the hearth as possible, but the prepared air may
also be injected into the furnace through other apertures more or less
surrounding it in order the better to envelope its contents with flame,
and a further supply of unprepared air may similarly be added to it by
injecting it separately into the furnace, or it may be conveyed into the
said furnaces by means of iron or fire-clay pipes pierced with small holes,
allowing the jets of flame to issue in such quantity and at such points
as may be deemed most advisable.
Figure 1 is a sectional clevation, and Figure 2 a horizontal section of
a reverberatory furnace to be used with slight modifications either for
calcining or smelting ores or as a puddling or a reheating furnace.

page_text: '
A is the furnace more especially adapted for calcining, showing the
vault sloped from the fire-bridge G to the opposite end H, where the
burnt gases enter the chimney; B, B, B, are hoppers through which the
furnace is charged; C, C, the hearth, which may be of fire-clay, of slag,
sand, or of metal; D, D, D, the side doors through which to introduce
the stirring rabbles for the purpose of spreading the ores uniformly over
the hearth. The carburetted air enters the furnace at the point marked
G, to which it is conducted by means of a number of pipes or tubes, and
they may be made to alternate with or they may be surrounded by
other pipes conveying uncarburetted air to the same point, or they may 1
be mixed previous to their arrival at G, so that the two enter the furnace
together, and a hydrocarbon flame of great heating power will be
obtained, which will partly or wholly traverse the furnace, the products
of combustion being carried off from H through the chimney. Similar
pipes conveying carburetted and uncarburetted air may sometimes also 1
be conducted to the side doors D, D, D, or to other points in the roof of
or surrounding the furnace, and there admitted and ignited.
In order to make the combustion as complete as possible the prepared
or vapourized air must be mixed in the furnace with as nearly as
possible that quantity of atmospheric air which is required to form 2
carbonic acid, but as the former will not always be equally carburated
(vapourized), and as different temperatures of the atmosphere will
require different volumes of non-carburetted air to be added in order
to obtain complete combustion, the supply pipes must be fitted with
ordinary taps or valves marked f for regulating and -controlling from 2
time to time the passage of the proportionate quantities of carburetted
and of non-carburetted air which are wanted in the furnace for each par-
ticular operation. At the extremity of the pipes where they enter the
furnace sometimes it will be necessary to fix incombustible burners or
blast nozzles, and when a very high temperature is required the air may a
be heated before it is introduced into. the furnace, for which purpose the
burnt gases may be utilized after they have left the furnace.
The air thus prepared may also be used for the manufacture of soda,
both for the process of converting the sulphate into carbonate by
heating it in a reverberatory furnace with chalk or limestone and coal, a
in which case the coal which is usually mixed with it may be diminished.
in quantity and also by applying the same to the heating of the

page_text: evaporating pans by the ignition of a number of small jets beneath
them.
The great command over the degree of temperature it is desired to
apply which can be obtained by this process renders it particularly
useful for baking ovens, brick kilns, kilns or towers for drying malt, or for
the burning and enamelling of pottery and china, and for other kilns or
ovens, and the prepared air may pass either directly into the kilns and
ovens and enter into combustion there, or the combustion may take
place only in surrounding passages, the heat being partially or wholly
confined to flues surrounding the kiln or oven so as to heat their contents
without coming in contact therewith; or it may be made to impinge
in small jets upon such portions of the kiln or oven or their contents as
it may be convenient to subject to the greatest heat, and in this last-
mentioned way it is also particularly applicable to the heating of all
kinds of evaporating pans used in the manufacture of salt.
When applied to ovens used for baking purposes or for heating
crucibles or other melting pots, &c., I prefer to build these over one or
more flues A, A, A, through which I conduct hot air pipes B, B, B,
open at one end to admit the outer air or supply pipes for carburetted
air at their other extremity leading into the oven. Beneath these air
pipes I ignite a series of flames of carburetted air, the products of this
combustion being drawn from the extreme end of the flues to a series of
other flues above the arch of the oven which lead to a chimney of a
few feet in height sufficient only to create the requisite amount of
draught to discharge the burnt gases. The air as it is drawn through
the pipes is sufficiently heated for baking purposes, and after passing
through the oven is also drawn upwards to another set of flues above the
arch of the oven which communicate with the chimney, and aid in
heating the roof of the oven. When used for heating crucibles, &c.,
one or more of the bottom flues may be heated by drawing the burnt
gases down from the oven before allowing them to escape through the
chimney.
The oven may be also partially or wholly heated by burning the
carburetted air in its interior by means of a gas pipe fitted with
burners passed round the foot of the under wall of the oven upon
a slightly raised ledge, the products of combustion being carried
upwards from the burners into a series of flues above the roof of the

page_text: '
oven, from whence they may be also drawn down to the lower flue on
their way to the chimney, and thus prevented from mixing with the hot
air inside the oven. These burners should be provided with reflectors to
increase the amount of heat radiated into the oven.
If applied to the manufacture of soap or sugar or to the distillation of
spirits the prepared air may be
conveyed into the soap or sugar pans in
lieu of heating them by steam, or into the interior of the vessels used for
.distillation. These vessels should be traversed by tubes in sufficient
number for the purpose of heating the mixture they contain, and into
these tubes I convey small pipes drilled with a sufficient number of very
small holes to serve as burners, for the prepared air, which is then driven
under pressure into the pipes, and on escaping through the holes is
ignited and heats the tubes to whatever extent may be deemed most
convenient, for the size of the flames will be always under perfect
control, and graduated by means of the degree of pressure put upon the
current of prepared air or by the use of ordinary gas cocks.
The process is also applicable to burning lime, cement, or plaster of
Paris, and to the reduction of pure sulphur ores or to the manufacture of
roll sulphur and flowers of sulphur by applying the heat of the prepared
air in jets or flames to the outside or inside of the reducing ovens, retorts,
cylinders, or pots in which the sulphur is melted, and thus heating them
to the required degree of temperature.
It may also be applied to the desilverization of lead by the process
which is called the separating process, or in French, "pattinsonage."
For this purpose the pots in which the lead is heated, which are large.
. metal pans requiring that the melted lead should be slowly and carefully
cooled, must be heated from below and partially round the sides by one
or more jets of prepared air in a state of combustion impinging upon the
outer surface of the pots.
The prepared air may also be used for cooking and other domestic
purposes, and also for welding and bending iron in open hearths or
smithies, with or without the addition of small coal or charcoal, and in
mining, quarrying, or tunnelling, it may be used for heating rocks, by
which means the use of gunpowder may be in many cases avoided, and
great blocks of rock may be very economically broken away.
All descriptions of blast furnace may likewise be heated by wholly or
partly substituting, for the blast ordinarily employed, the introduction

page_text: •
of air, prepared as above described, into the furnace, which may be also
forced into the furnace from several points in a similar way to that in
which coal gas is now sometimes employed, and thus the quantity of
coal or coke used in the reduction and fusion of ores may be largely
diminished or omitted, and it may also be very advantageously employed
in the manufacture of steel. This may be effected in several ways, viz.,
by heating very rich and pure iron ores in an open bloomery, according
to what is known as the Catalan method of making charcoal iron, and
using for the blast a stream or streams of carburetted air, by which
means a species of steely iron may be produced direct from the ore; by
heating malleable iron with or without the addition of a small quantity
of charcoal to a temperature somewhat below its melting point in
furnaces or chambers in an atmosphere of carburetted air, blister steel
of a superior quality will be obtained; by melting white cast iron
(Speigeleisen) or casily fusible grey cast iron with or without the
addition of charcoal, in a finery hearth or forge and under a blast of
carburetted air, natural steel will be produced; puddled steel will be
obtained from such kinds of cast iron as do not contain substances
prejudicial to steel by operating upon it in reverberatory furnaces, which
must be heated, substantially in the manner previously described..
Having now described the nature of my Invention and the best modes
of applying it to a variety of different purposes, I wish it to be under-
stood that I do not confine myself to the precise details described in this
Specification and in the Drawings, but I claim as my Invention the
production and employment, as herein-before set forth, of vapourized air,
carburetted as described, by means of mineral and other oils or spirits,
for metallurgical and other heating purposes, and the means for regu-
lating and controlling its admixture with other air when so employed,
also as herein-before set forth.
In witness whereof, I, the said Owen Charles Dalhousie Ross,
have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day
of January One thousand eight hundred and seventy-four.
T
DANC
+
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