IMPROVE- MENTS IN EFFECTING THE DISTILLATION OF COAL, SHALE, WOOD, PEAT, AND OTHER BITUMINOUS OR CARBONACEOUS SUBSTANCES
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jacob Buhrer and Astley Paston
Price at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their Petition,
on the 1st February 1867.
i
W'e, JACOB BUHRER, of Munich, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, but at present
residing at 13, Keppel Street, in the County of Middlesex, and ASTLEY PASTOŃ
PRICE, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County aforesaid, Consulting
Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN EFFECTING THE DISTILLATION OF COAL, SHALE, WOOD, PEAT, AND OTHER
BITUMINOUS OR CARBONACEOUS SUBSTANCES," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the production of permanent gas for the purposes
of illumination or for heating purposes, and also to the production of oils and
other distillatory products from coal, shale, wood, peat, and other bituminous
or carbonaceous substances, and consists in subjecting the before-mentioned
materials, previously reduced to a fine state of division, to a process of distilla-
tion by causing the same to pass or fall through the interior of a heated
vertical tube, chamber, or retort, or series of the same, in such a manner as
that the several particles in their descent or passage shall be subjected to the
action of heat in order that the desired products may be obtained therefrom.
The tubes, retorts, or chambers are so constructed as that they may be heated
externally, and that the finely divided materials being supplied at the upper
portion of the same shall by reason of their own gravity descend to the inferior
pertion; and the distillatory apparatus is so arranged as that the process of

page_text: distillation shall be effected previous to the arrival of the residual particles at
such inferior portion thereof.
The apparatus is provided with arrangements for supplying the materials to
be distilled, and with outlets for carrying off the several gases and resulting
volatile products; the residual products which will be found at the lower
portion of the distillatory apparatus may be removed therefrom by means of
an endless screw working in a closed chamber in connection therewith, but
any other convenient air excluding mechanical arrangement for the removal
of the same may be employed. The character of the distillatory products
being dependent on the degree of heat which is employed for their production
it follows that the apparatus before mentioned must be heated more strongly
when it is desired to obtain illuminating or permanent gas than when the
object is the production of oil and other condensible products.
It will thus be seen that the entire apparatus consists of an externally heated
vertical tube or chamber provided with any well-known contrivance for
removing the residual products of distillation and with outlets for the volatile
products of distillation. The means of distillation consist in allowing the
finely divided coal or other substance before referred to to gravitate or fall
through the highly heated tube or chamber, and be thereby distilled during
its descent or passage through the externally heated tube.