A Process or Method of Extracting Sugar from Sugar Cane or other Sugar Yielding Substances and Apparatus for the Purpose.
Year: 1889

page_text: Date of Application, 29th July, 1889
Complete Specification Left, 28th Apr. 1890-Accepted, 31st May, 1890
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
[Communicated from abroad by CHARLES ALPHONSO MATTLEY, of Grand Cul-de-Sac,
in the Island of St. Lucia, West Indies, Engineer.]
A Process or Method of Extracting Sugar from Sugar Cane or other
Sugar Yielding Substances and Apparatus for the Purpose.
I, ALFRED CHAPMAN of 17 York Street, Liverpool in the County of Lancaster,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows:-
This invention has reference to the extraction of sugar from sugar yielding
substances and more particularly from the sugar cane.
The invention essentially consists in first disintegrating the sugar cane (or other
sugar yielding substance) by crushing, grinding, shredding, sawing, cutting or
otherwise and in then effecting the removal of the sweet juice or saccharine liquor
therefrom by displacement by means of water or other liquid.
One manner in which the invention may be carried into effect is as follows:-The
wet pulp or saw dust produced by the disintegrating process is placed in a vessel
which is by preference tall and narrow and has a perforated false bottom the
perforations being too small to give passage to the fraginents of cane or the bottom
may be covered with a filter cloth or blanket such as is used in charcoal filters in sugar
refining; the vessel has also a proper bottom provided with a cock or valve. Water
is poured on the pulp in this vessel care being taken to prevent as far as practicable
disturbance of the pulp and admixture of the water with it and for this purpose a
perforated plate upon which the water is poured may be placed in the top of the
vessel. The cock in the bottom of the vessel being opened the juice in the pulp
becomes displaced by the water and flows out. When a saccharometer shows that the
juice has all been displaced the cock should be shut and the vessel emptied ready for
a fresh charge of disintegrated cane. The emptying can be conveniently effected by
having the bottom of the vessel to open on a hinge.
The invention comprises apparatus for carrying out the method or process that is
to say one or more, preferably several, displacing vessels which should be worked in
turn, and be supplied by a disintegrating machine above. There should be conduits
or pipes with regulating cocks or valves to convey the disintegrated material and the
displacing water to the vessels, and pipes to conduct the displaced juice to a tank or
receiver; also a test case and saccharometer.
Dated this 29th day of July 1889
J. C. MEWBURN,
55 & 56, Chancery Lane, London, Patent Agent.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
A Process or Method of Extracting Sugar from Sugar Cane or other
Sugar Yielding Substances and Apparatus for the Purpose.
5. A communication from abroad by CHARLES ALPHONSO MATTHEY, of Grand Cul-de-Sac,
in the Island of St. Lucia, West Indies, Engineer.
I, ALFRED CHAPMAN of 17 York Street, Liverpool in the County of Lancaster,
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
0 following statement :-
This invention has reference to the extraction of sugar from sugar yielding substances
and more particularly from the sugar cane.
The invention essentially consists in first disintegrating the sugar cane (or other
sugar yielding substance) by crushing, grinding, shredding, sawing, cutting or

page_text: .
otherwise, and in then effecting the removal of the sweet juice or saccharine liquor
therefrom by displacement by means of water or other liquid. By disintegration I
mean so breaking up the structure of the substance treated that the cells containing
sweet juice shall not remain closed as in the natural state but shall be broken open so
that they shall yield their fluid contents by displacement, that is to say by the power
which fluids have of displacing each other from minute spaces in which they are held
in opposition to the force of gravitation by what is known as surface attraction or
capillary atraction, and from which spaces mechanical pressure is unable to expel
them.
One manner in which the invention may be carried into effect is as follows:-The
wet pulp or saw dust produced by the disintegrating process is placed in a vessel
which is by preference tall and narrow and has a perforated false bottom, the
perforations being too small to give passage to the fragments of cane, or the bottom
may be covered with a filter cloth or blanket such as is used in charcoal filters in
sugar refining, the vessel has also a proper bottom provided with a cock or valve.
Water is poured on the pulp in this vessel, care being taken to prevent as far as
practicable disturbance of the pulp and admixture of the water with it and for this
purpose a perforated plate upon which the water is poured may be placed in the top
of the vessel. The cock in the bottom of the vessel being opened the juice in the
pulp becomes displaced by the water and flows out. When the juice has all been
displaced, as can be determined by drawing off a known volume of juice from a known
volume of pulp, or by gauging the specific gravity of the outflowing liquid by a
saccharometer or otherwise, the cock should be shut and the vessel emptied ready for
a fresh charge of disintegrated cane. The emptying can be conveniently effected by
having the bottoin of the vessel to open on a hinge.
The invention comprises apparatus for carrying out the method or process, that is
to say, one or more, preferably several, displacing vessels which should be worked in
turn, and be supplied by a disintegrating machine above. There should be conduits or
pipes with regulating cocks or valves to convey the disintegrated material and the
displacing water to the vessels, and pipes to conduct the displaced juice to a tank or
receiver; also a test case and saccharometer.
The accompanying drawings represent diagrammatically an apparatus constructed
according to this invention and comprising four displacing vessels, a, a, a, a are the
displacing vessels each of which is provided with a perforated false bottom 6 and with
a proper bottom e to which a cock d is fitted. The bottom c is hinged to the body
of the vessel at e and has a screw fastening or other suitable contrivance at f to retain
it in the closed position. The perforated bottom 6 moves with the bottom c and the
two are kept apart by distance pieces g, g by which they are connected. is a
perforated plate at the upper part of the vessel a resting on a ledge i and fitted with a
handle for lifting it. is a water supply pipe fitted with a cock m above each
vessel a, and p is a reservoir for the disintegrated cane with shoots or conduits q to
each vessel. is a receiver into which the cocks d discharge. The vessels a are
preferably worked in turn.
In some cases I fit a water-tight lid or cover to the displacing vessel which I shut
when the vessel is full and I apply the displacing water under pressure in order to
facilitate or hasten the passage of the fluid through the woody matter.
Mechanical pressure as exerted in cane mills, presses and other such contrivances
extracts the natural juice of the cane or other sugar yielding substance, but fails to
extract the whole of the juice. The process known as diffusion produces an artificial
juice consisting of the soluble matter of the natural juice dissolved in water supplied
from an extraneous source. In processes such as maceration, imbibition and repression
there is first an imperfect extraction of the natural juice by mechanical pressure and
then one or more imperfect extractions of the residual juice diluted by water.
'by the novel process or method herein described the natural juice of the cane or other
sugar yielding substance is entirely or almost entirely extracted by virtue of the
property herein before referred to which liquids possess of displacing each other from
minute or capillary spaces.
But

page_text: Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion as communicated to me and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare
that what I claim is :-
1. The process or method hereinbefore described of extracting sugar from sugar
cane or other sugar yielding substances which consists in first disintegrating the said
cane or other substance and in then effecting the removal of the sweet juice or
saccharine liquor therefrom by displacement by means of water or other liquid.
2. The apparatus arranged substantially as hereinbefore described for carrying out
the said process or method.
DL: ooit 1
11000
J. C. MEWBURN,
55 & 56, Chancery Lane, London, Patent Agent.
J. C. MEWBURN,
55 & 56, Chancery Lane, London, Patent Agent.