AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR TRANSFORMING HYDROCARBON OILS INTO GAS FOR ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES and Imments in for
Year: 1868

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack, Civil Engineers,
of Brussells, in the Kingdom of Belgium, for the Invention of "AN
IMPROVED PROCESS FOR TRANSFORMING HYDROCARBON OILS INTO GAS FOR
ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Paul Marlin and
Auguste Tack at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with
their Petition on the 1st May 1868.
We, PAUL MARLIN and AUGUSTE TACK, Civil Engineers, of Brussells,
in the Kingdom of Belgium, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR TRANSFORMING HYDROCARBON OILS
INTO GAS FOR ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES," to be as follows t
This Invention of "An Improved Method of and Improvements in
Apparatus for Producing Gases from Liquid Hydrocarbons, and Employing
the same for Illuminating and Heating Purposes," relates chiefly to a
process for transforming the liquid hydrocarbons, and especially the
heavy or dead oils of coals, also called creosote oil, into a gas suitable
for lighting, heating, or burning purposes.

page_text: The process consists in distilling the hydrocarbons or hydrocarburetted
oils and mixing or combining their vapours or gases with ordinary
steam produced in any suitable generator or waste steam that has been
used in the cylinders of steam engines. This gaseous mixture or com-
bination passes afterwards into red-hot retorts filled with incandescent
coke, whereby the vapours or gases of the hydrocarbons and the steam
undergo a double decomposition. The hydrogen of the steam is thereby
made to combine with the excess of carbon of the hydrocarburetted oil,
while the oxygen of the steam combines with the carbon which it takes
up from the red-hot coke. The gas formed in this way is treated in the
washing and purifying apparatus in the same manner as ordinary coal
gas and used in the same way.
The simplicity of the apparatus employed and the facility with which
the process may be applied to the gas retorts now in use establishes a
sufficient distinction between our process and those Inventions which i
have also for their object to convert the hydrocarbons into gas, but
which necessitate the employment of more complicated and expensive
means, such as the use of superheated steam and of apparatus difficult
and expensive to construct.
Another distinctive feature of our Invention is that we mix the
vapours or gases from the hydrocarbons with the steam before intro-
ducing them into the retorts, this admixture being effected in the tube
or pipe itself which receives the vapours from the still or boiler (in
which the hydrocarbons are vaporized) by introducing into the centre
of the said pipe or tube a jet of steam which passes in the same direction
as the mixed vapours are to flow. The movements of these mixed
vapours are facilitated by the vacuum produced in the distilling
apparatus, thus causing the vapours from the hydrocarbons to escape
more freely.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, 3
filed by the said Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack in the Great
Seal Patent Office on the 26th October 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, PAUL
MARLIN and AUGUSTE TACK, Civil Engineers, of Brussells, in the
Kingdom of Belgium, send greeting.
3

page_text: WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the First day of May, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, in the
thirty-first year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto us, the said Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack,
Her special licence that we, the said Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack,
our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as we, the
said Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack, our 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 "AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR TRANS-
FORMING HYDROCARBON OILS INTO GAS FOR ILLUMINATING AND HEATING PURPOSES,"
upon the condition (amongst others) that we, the said Paul Marlin and
Auguste Tack, our executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under our, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
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 six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters

page_text: .
been either too complicated or too expensive, and therefore have never
had any serious result.
With the same, object in view as former Inventors we proceed in a
more simple way, and we claim as our Invention the transformation of
liquid hydrocarbons, and especially the heavy or dead oils of coals
called creosote, into gas by the following means:-
First. We reduce or convert the hydrocarbon oils into vapours in
any distilling apparatus.
Second. Into the tube by which. the hydrocarbon vapours pass from
the still we introduce a jet of steam which is to have the same
direction as tho hydrocarbon vapours. This steam is supplied either
from a steam boiler, or from waste steam, or from any other apparatus.
The water and the oil may be vaporised on heated cast-iron plates,
which plates could form the sides of a close vessel into which the two
liquids would be run in convenient proportions, but the mode of
vaporisation is quite independent from the principle or basis of our
Invention. This steam combines with the vapours of the hydrocarbon
and at the same time facilitates its vaporisation. By regulating the
pressure of the steam as well as the temperature of the distillation it is
easy to control the relative proportions in which the hydrocarbon
vapours and steam are to be mixed,
Third. We cause the vapours and steam mixed to pass into ordinary
gas retorts which can thus be used without any alteration. These
retorts we fill with coke or any other infusible substance, and heat to
a red heat; the vapours enter at one end and passing out at the other
end are conveyed to the washers, condensers, purifiers, and other
apparatus exactly in the same way as ordinary coal gas. The gas
produced by our process may be mixed with ordinary coal gas provided
there be sufficient lime in the purifiers to take up the carbonic acid.
The gas made by this process is easier to purify than the coal gas. If
necessary in case the temperature of the gas oven were too low the
vapours may be made to pass successively through more retorts. In
the red-hot retorts the hydrocarbon vapour and the steam decompose
themselves at the same time. The hydrocarbon vapors give up a
certain quantity of carbon which they contain in a greater proportion
than the gaseous hydrocarbon and pass off in this latter form; at the
same time every particle of carbon set free combines with a portion of
hydrogen produced by the decomposed steam, making in this way a

page_text: particle of permanent gas which possesses lighting and calorific
properties. The oxygen, which is set free at the same time as the
hydrogen combines also with a certain quantity of carbon which it may
take up from the red-hot coke (if this substance be used), and in this
way not only carbonic oxide, which is a combustible gas, is produced,
but especially carbonic acid which may be taken up by the purifier
charged with lime. The transformation is much better performed when
the hydrocarbon vapours and the steam are mixed before hand, and
consequently every atom of carbon which is set free is brought into
contact with particles of decomposed steam. This double decomposition
between the hydrocarbon vapours and the steam is in conformity with
well-known chemical principles which have been often applied and
therefore cannot be patented.
Having now described our Invention, and the manner of carrying the
same into effect, we claim as the Invention secured to us by Letters
Patent as aforesaid, the use of the means above described (and which
allow us to employ without alteration the ordinary coal gas apparatus)
of distilling hydrocarbon oils and mixing their vapours with steam
before introducing them into the retorts.
In witness whereof, we, the said Paul Marlin and Auguste Tack,
have hereunto set our hands and seals, the Twenty-fourth day of
October, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and sixty-eight...
PAUL MARLIN. (L.S.)
AUG. TACK..
(L.S.)