IMPROVEMENTS IN FURNACES, APPARATUS, OR. ARRANGEMENTS FOR REDUCING OXIDES AND OBTAINING IRON, POTASSIUM, SODIUM, PHOSPHORUS, CHLORINE, OR THEIR COMPOUNDS
Year: 1871

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Anderson, of Newbuildings, in the County
of Londonderry, Ireland, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
FURNACES, APPARATUS, OR. ARRANGEMENTS FOR REDUCING OXIDES AND
OBTAINING IRON, POTASSIUM, SODIUM, PHOSPHORUS, CHLORINE, OR THEIR
COMPOUNDS."
Sealed the 7th November 1871, and dated the 23rd August 1871.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Anderson at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 23rd August 1871.
I, JAMES ANDERSON, of Newbuildings, in the County of Londonderry,
3 Ireland, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "Ix-
PROVEMENTS IN FURNACES, APPARATUS, OR ARRANGEMENTS FOR REDUCING OXIDES

page_text: AND OBTAINING IRON, POTASSIUM, SODIUM, PHOSPHORUS, CHLORINE, OB THEIR
COMPOUNDS," to be as follows, that is to say :—
This Invention relates to furnaces, apparatus, or arrangements de-
signed more particularly for the better carrying out of the system:
wherein silicates and aluminates or other salts of potassium and sodium i
are added to the materials ordinarily put into an iron smelting furnace,
and provision is made for the withdrawal, collection, and utilisation of
potassium, sodium, phosphorus, chlorine (and also sulphur), or com-
pounds thereof from the part of the furnace at which they exist in a
vaporised state; but the improvements are also applicable to some
extent for obtaining iron (with or without the other products) from the
materials ordinarily used.
The furnace is somewhat like an ordinary blast furnace, but the
top is covered in and fitted with various valved inlets or doors for the
introduction of the materials. There is a central inlet for coal or car- 1
bonaceous matter, and a set of inlets round it for the ores or oxides, the
silicates, aluminates, or other salts, and the lime or flux, the central
inlet being by preference at the top of a channel extending higher than
the other inlets, and also reaching down inside, so as to keep the coal
separate from the other materials for a certain part of their descent.
An air blast may be applied to the furnace in the usual way by means
of tuyeres at the bottom, but it is preferred to draw the gases out of the
furnace by exhausting apparatus acting by passages leading away from
the upper part of the furnace. Only a comparatively small portion of
the coal is to be introduced by the central inlet at the top, the larger
portion being put into chambers or channels formed at the sides of the
lower part of the furnace. One or more horizontal or nearly horizontal
passages are formed in connection with the hearth at a suitable height
for the slag to flow off by, leaving the iron in the bottom of the hearth
to be withdrawn by a separate outlet, and the air supply enters by what i
may be termed the slag passage or passages, and in doing so takes
heat from and so cools the slag. At the points where the slag in the
passages begins to solidify it is raked into wagons in tunnels constructed
at a lower level, and the air also enters by such tunnels, so as to further
cool the slag in the wagons, and itself take up heat in doing so.
The
air thus entering and becoming heated in the slag tunnels and passages
finds its way into a gallery formed round the lower part of the furnace,
up

page_text: whence it enters the interior, first passing through the coal or coke in
the bottoms of the lateral coal chambers, and thereby having its oxygen
converted into carbonic oxide. The coal in the chambers becomes
gradually coked through the action of portions of the hot gases re-
sulting from the combustion in the lower part, and passing up through
it and the gases and vapors evolved from it are led by suitable passages
into the interior of the furnace to assist in reducing and heating
the ores. At and above the part of the furnace where the reducing
action terminates air is admitted to complete the combustion of the
gases and vapors, and thus more completely utilise them for heating
the ores and other materials. Provision is made for the withdrawal of
gases and vapors from the furnace, and the return of gases to it for
the purpose of removing the vaporised potassium, sodium, phosphorus,
sulphur, and their compounds, as described in the Specification of
Letters Patent granted to the present applicant, and dated 17 March
1871 (No. 718).