IMPROVEMENTS IN VACUUM APPARATUS FOR EVAPORATING OR CON- CENTRATING SACCHARINE OR OTHER LIQUIDS
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Hunt at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 3rd February 1882. A communication
from abroad by A. R. Mackenzie of Mackay, in the Colony of Queensland.
EDMUND HUNT, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, Patent
Agent. "IMPROVEMENTS IN VACUUM APPARATUS FOR EVAPORATING OR CON-
CENTRATING SACCHARINE OR OTHER LIQUIDS." A communication from abroad by
A. R. Mackenzie of Mackay, in the Colony of Queensland.
This Invention has for its object to simplify and otherwise improve the
construction and action of vacuum apparatus used for evaporating or concentrating
saccharine or other liquids.
In carrying out the Invention the vaccum is produced by the action of sprays
or films of cold water on the steam or vapor rising during the evaporation or
concentration, the water being got out of the condenser by means of a vertical
pipe which is open at the bottom and is of sufficient length to contain a column of
water corresponding to the vacuum. Incondensible gases or vapors are drawn out
of the condenser by means of a steam ejector; and the steam after acting for that
purpose is led with the gases or vapors which it carries with it, through pipes in
the pan or vessel in which the saccharine or other liquid is being evaporated or
concentrated, so that its heat may be utilised in assisting to heat the liquid.
The vessel may be of any suitable form, for example, that of an ordinary
vacuum pan, and it may be without a steam jacket, the heat required in addition
to that of the steam from the ejector being supplied by means of a steam pipe or
pipes placed inside the lower part of the vessel. The vessel is made with a large
goose neck which turns downwards as near as possible to its junction with the
vessel so that moisture condensing on its inner surface may run into a lateral
receptacle with which the goose neck communicates instead of returning into the
vessel. A large pipe extends from the lateral receptacle upwards to a height
sufficient to allow of the requisite length of vertical discharge pipe from the
condenser with which the large pipe communicates at its top. The condenser is a
casing provided with a close-fitting cover, and with a perforated rose connected to
the cold water supply or injection pipe. Directly under the rose there is a conical
hood under which there is the open end of a pipe communicating with the steam

page_text: ejector. The injection water falls in a shower round the hood and causes the
condensation of the watery vapors whilst air or incondensible gases or vapors find
their way under the hood into tho ejector pipe.
The vacuum pan or vessel is also fitted with a perforated pipe for passing air or
gases, such as sulphurous acid, or carbonic acid, through the liquid that is being
evaporated or concentrated. This perforated pipe communicates with an external
pipe fitted with a stopcock and with a bell-shaped or conical entrance; and
beneath this entrance a small metal cup is fixed in which to produce sulphur fumes
or carbonic acid gas, such fumes or gas being drawn into tho vessel through the
action of the intertal vacuum when the communicating pipo is opened.