IMPROVEMENTS IN AND IN APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF VAT WASTE TO OBTAIN SULPHUR AND IT'S COMPOUNDS AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Hartley Kenyon at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 4th August 1883.
HARTLEY KENYON of Altrincham in the County of Choster Manufacturing
Chemist "IMPROVEMENTS IN AND IN APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF VAT
WASTE TO OBTAIN SULPHUR AND IT'S COMPOUNDS AND OTHER USEFUL PRODUCTS
"
I remove from the vat waste matters likely to interfere with the action of the
apparatus and introduce the waste into retort chambers wherein it is dried and is
exposed to the action of super-heated steam whereby sulphuretted hydrogen is
produced. In the apparatus which I prefer tile floors carried by brick walls are
arranged side by side and one above another. The waste is fed from hoppers by
means of feed rollers on to the uppermost floors and is raked or moved by
means of travelling or reciprocating rakes from one end of each floor to the other
end where the waste falls to the next lower level and is passed in the same way
from one level to the other until it falls into bottom chambers. The rakes are
preferably formed with triangular teeth which break up the charge when moving
in one direction and draw or propel it when moving in the other.
In the walls of the furnace I build circulating pipes in which steam becomes
highly superheated and is discharged into the bottom chambers. The sulphides
are decomposed sulphur combining with Hydrogen and calcium with oxygen. The
sulphuretted hydrogen and highly heated steam passing over the charge in the
upper chambers carry off the moisture so that the charge becomes dry and beated
before reaching the bottom chambers.
In line with the bottom chambers and at a lower level is a finishing furnace to
which the charge passes from the bottom chambers through rollers in order to shut
off connection for the passage of gases. The said furnace is provided with working
doors and may sustain the rails and carriage of the mechanical raking apparatus
used in the upper retort chambers. I may use mechanical rakes to pass the charge
over the bed of the said finishing furnace. The gases passing from the retort
chambers are conveyed into a washer and treated therein with galvanizer's flux
liquor or with chloride of zinc solution whereby sulphur is precipitated and any
pautathionic acid which may have formed becomes decomposed. The sulphuretted
hydrogen is stored in gas holders and in some cases I combine the said gas with
ammonia to form sulphide of ammonium and therewith precipitate sulphide of zinc

page_text: from chloride of zinc solution. I also burn a portion of sulphuretted hydrogen with
air thereby producing sulphurous acid and combine such acid with another portion
of the said gas whereby sulphur is precipitated.
To facilitate the precipitation of sulphur I may wash the said gas with galvanizers
In the
flux liquor zinc being precipitated and ammonia retained in solution.
treatment of the gas and solution I may use chloride of zinc solution either with
or without hydro-chloric acid. The charge in the finishing furnace is treated
either to obtain caustic lime or carbonate of lime. In one case I pass the products
of combustion from the flue into the said furnace and convey them over the charge.
In the other case I close the passage leading from the flue and admit into the
furnace gas with an excess of air and burn the gas to drive off carbonic acid from
the charge.