A NEW MEANS FOR PROCURING THE MORE PERFECT COMBUSTION IN THE BURNING OF FUEL
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Tony Petitjean at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 30th
November 1866.
I, TONY PETITJEAN, of No. 4, Brydges Street, in the County of Middlesex,
Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "A NEW
MEANS FOR PROCURING THE MORE PERFECT COMBUSTION IN THE BURNING OF FUEL,"
to be as follows:-
My process of burning fuel consists in having at the entrance of the
chimney of a furnace a chamber of peculiar arrangement and dimensions,
which I call a "reproducer" kept constantly filled with fuel. The products
of combustion are caused to pass through the mass of combustible material,
and by the heat they evolve they ignite it so that it is by what is called
"waste heat" that I get the fuel red-hot..
This arrangement works as follows:-When the combustible material has
developed all its heating power its carbon is, as well known, transformed into
carbonic acid and its bydrogen into aqueous vapour; when they leave the
combustion room of the furnace to enter into the reproducer these gases are
caused to pass through the ignited carbon so as to absorb a part of it, and
then the bulk of carbonic acid evolved is converted into two bulks of carbonic
oxide; the aqueous vapour is in the same manner decomposed by the ignited
fuel and re-arranged into two equal bulks, one of hydrogen, and the other one
of carbonic oxide. It must be observed here that the heating power of a
bulk of hydrogen is very nearly the same as a bulk of carbonic oxide. It is

page_text: also known that a bulk of carbonic oxide is converted by its own combustion
into an equal bulk of carbonic acid; consequently the amount of heat given
out by any fuel is always doubled in my process, however perfect may be the
mode of combustion used hitherto. The same fuel is in a continual and con-
stant circulation, becoming alternately carbonic acid and aqueous vapour
where the combustion is going on then re-converted into carbonic oxide and
hydrogen at the exit of the "reproducer" to re-enter as gaseous fuel into the
fire-place, and so on indefinitely. It must be thus be borne in mind that by the
mode which regulates the action of my process the quantity of gaseous fuel
produced by the means of my "reproducer" is double that which is necessary
to heat the furnace; hence it evidently follows that two fire-places of equal
sizes and completely independent from each other are necessary. The first
one is provided with a "reproducer," and so continual circulation of the same
fuel is secured; the second fire-place is arranged in the ordinary manner, and
the products of combustion are thrown away by the chimney to determine the
draught if a mechanical draught is not preferred. It results from the above
explanation that in my method of combustion gaseous fuel is most especially
used..
Two conditions are indispensable to obtain the entire useful effect of my
new method, firstly, the air necessary to the combustion must be reduced to
the quantity strictly indispensable; secondly, the action must be regular and
continual. To secure those ends the burning is effected by a great number of
points on ranges of blow pipes supplied with air and gaseous fuel by a peculiar
arrangement which insures an infinitessimal division of the combustible
material. This fractional division of the combustible material gives an easy
control over the quantity of air to be admitted on the perfect mingling of air
and gaseous fuel, and also over the regularity of the burning. The waste
heat of the second furnace may be turned to use for different purposes, but
not in the same manner as in the first furnace, as no gain could be obtained
in that way.