JMPROVE- MENTS IN APPARATUS AND MATERIALS FOR FILTERING LIQUIDS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Rudolph Schomburg at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th March 1880.
RUDOLPH SCHOMBURG, of Plauen, near Dresden, in the German Empire, but at
present of Clifton Villas, South Norwood, in the County of Surrey. "JMPROVE-
MENTS IN APPARATUS AND MATERIALS FOR FILTERING LIQUIDS."
According to one part of my present Invention I employ in filtering apparatus
a combination of filtering materials consisting of one or more layers of slag-wool
with or without one or more layers of charcoal arranged at the inlet end of the
filtering chamber in combination with one or more layers of spun glass arranged at
the outlet end of the chamber, so that any small particles of the slag wool or
charcoal that may be carried with the liquid as it passes through these materials
are intercepted by the comparatively long and exceedingly fine filaments of the
spun glass as the liquid passes through this material.
The said combination of filtering materials is by preference applied to filtering
apparatus wherein the liquid is forced or drawn through the filtering chamber by
pressure or suction. In constructing such apparatus according to another part of
my Invention I arrange the filtering chamber with the inlet for the liquid, and
consequently the slag-wool and charcoal filtering material at the lower end, and
with the outlet for the liquid and the spun glass filtering material at the upper
end, and I provide below the inlet orifice and below a perforated or porous bottom
on which the filtering material rests a space or recess, into which the impurities
that are separated from the liquid by the filtering materials descend from the latter
by gravity and collect, so that on the introduction of the fresh liquid through the
inlet orifice this passes up through the filtering materials without disturbing and
being contaminated by such deposit of impurities. The said recess or space is
provided with a blow off cock, through which the accumulated deposits can be.
discharged from time to time, and a small perforated pipe is provided underneath
the porous or perforated bottom carrying the filtering material, through which
water is forced by a bigh pressure water supply or by other means for clearing off
from time to time the impurities deposited on the underside of such porous or
perforated bottom.
For smaller filtering apparatus the filtering chamber is by preference constructed
of a stand or base carrying the inlet pipe and deposit chamber, upon which is
mounted a cylinder of glass or other material, which is closed at the upper end by

page_text: a cover carrying the outlet pipe. These parts are secured together with suitable
packing intervening by a rod passing through them, and provided at its ends with
screw threads and nuts, by which the parts can be pressed firmly together. This
rod carries also the perforated bottom supporting the bottom layer of filtering
material, which may be arranged in any desired number of separate layers with
intervening perforated division plates, through which the said rod passes, and
above the top layer is also placed a perforated plate, which, by means of a nut
screwed upon the upper end of the rod, can be forced down, so as to compress the
various layers of filtering material to any desired degree, according to the pressure
or the velocity of the liquid passing through or to the degree of its impurity.
When the filtering materials have become charged with impurities and require
renewing they may be readily withdrawn by means of the rod on removing the
cover, and the whole apparatus can be easily taken to pieces and cleaned. The
outlet end of the apparatus is by preference provided with a small branch pipe,
which may be used either for drawing off samples of the filtered liquid or for
attaching a pressure gauge to ascertain the pressure.
For larger apparatus it is preferred to provide the filtering chamber with a
trunnion or trunnions at its middle, by which it can be mounted either on a stand
or against a wall, so as to be inverted or turned from a horizontal to a vertical
position for facilitating the removal and introduction of the filtering material.
For this purpose it is also preferred to provide the filtering chamber with a fixed
perforated middle partition, so that the lower layers of filtering material can be
removed and replaced without disturbing the upper layers, and vice versa.
The above described apparatus may, among other applications, be employed for
filtering beer in public houses, for which purpose the inlet pipe thereof is connected
to the pipe leading from the beer cask, while the outlet pipe is connected to the
pipe leading to the beer engine, so that on the latter being actuated the beer is
drawn from the barrel through the filter.
Although I prefer to employ the first described filtering materials in combination
with the above described construction of filters yet these may also be employed in
combination with any other known filtering materials.