A NEW MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL
Year: 1856

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Durand Gardissal, of 10, Bedford Street,
Strand, London, and of 29, Boulevart St. Martin, Paris, Patent Agent,
for the Invention of "A NEW MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL."-A
communication.
Sealed the 24th February 1857, and dated the 28th August 1856.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles Durand Gardissal
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
28th August 1856.
I, CHARLES DURAND GARDISSAL, of 10, Bedford Street, Strand, London, and
of 29, Boulevart St. Martin, Paris, Patent Agent, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "A NEW MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL,"
(a communication,) to be as follows:-
My Invention relates to a manufacture of fuel consisting of alum, clay, coal
dust, and nitrates, or nitric acid. The clay used for the purpose must be spread
and exposed in the open air or in a drying room until it is deprived of its
moisture, when it is pulverized in a suitable mill, afterwards sifted, and then
thoroughly and intimately mixed with the refuse coal. The mixture is after-
wards taken to another mill, there to be crushed and worked together with the
alum solution containing the desired quantity of nitrates. Thus a homogeneous
pulp or paste is formed, which is afterwards moulded either by manuel labour or
mechanical means. The resulting cakes are dried either in the open air or in
a drying stove or room, when they are fit for use.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Charles Durand Gardissal in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 26th February 1857.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
DURAND GARDISSAL, of 10, Bedford Street, Strand, London, and of 29,
Boulevart St. Martin, Paris, Patent Agent, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-eighth day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, in the twentieth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Charles Durand Gardissal, Her special licence that I, the said Charles
Durand Gardissal, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said Charles Durand Gardissal, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at
all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully
might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for
"A NEW MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL," a communication, upon the con-
dition (amongst others) that I, the said Charles Durand Gardissal, my execu-
tors or administrators, by an instrument in writing under my or their, or one
of their hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed,
and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six
calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters
Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Charles Durand Gardissal, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to
be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement (that is to say):-
This Invention relates to the manufacture of a new combustible composed of
clay, coal dust, and a nitrate, or of nitric acid. The essential base of this com-
bustible is clay and marl, or a mixture of the two in the proportions herein-
after described; this base is worked up with a solution of alum, a certain
quantity of nitrate of soda or nitrate of potash, and the detritus or dust of
charcoal or other coal, the largest particles of which should not exceed the size
of small peas.
All the materials foreign to the clay combine with and are
diffused throughout the whole mass in a proportion of about seventeen per
cent. of the whole mass. It results, therefore, that this mass of combustible

page_text: material is formed principally of clay, which distinguishes it from all those in
which the presence of clay serves merely to combine or agglommerate the
combustible parts.
Although all kinds of clays and marls may be used for the composition of
this combustible production, it is preferable that the clayey mass should be of
the following composition :-
Of alumnia
Of silica
And of lime
It is always possible to find and form clayey
mixture by adding the necessary quantity of lime.
fifty-five parts.
-
forty parts.
-
five parts.
earths which present this
The proportions entering into the formation of this combustible are, by
weight, as follows:-
Clay
Alum
Detritus of coal
Nitrate of soda, or of potash, or nitric acid
•
eighty-three parts.
one and half
fifteen parts.
parts.
one-half part.
The clay must be exposed to the air in summer and in a stove in winter till
it has entirely lost its quarry water; it is then worked up and sifted, and
afterwards mixed intimately with coal dust; after the coal dust is properly
incorporated it is worked up a second time with a solution of alum containing
a quantity of nitrate in the proportion herein-before given. One part in weight
of water added to the clay is sufficient to render the material sufficiently
plastic for the purpose. When the mixture has become homogeneous, it may
be moulded into bricks either by hand or by a machine. The moulded pro-
duct is dried in a stove or on drying frames in the open air, according to the
season. When dry, the combustible bricks are fit for use.
In burning ordinary bricks, by means of these combustible materials, they are
placed in the ovens, kilns, or piles of bricks in the position where fires are
required in the mass of bricks to be baked or burned; these combustible
bricks not only bake or burn the others, but they bake themselves, and are
removed from the oven or mass in a state of perfect but porous bricks, which
may be used as ordinary bricks.
Although I have specified bricks alone, it must be understood that the same
process applies to the manufacture of tiles, drain pipes, or other ceramic or
earthenware manufacture. It will be readily understood that these combustible
materials may be equally distributed and numerously diffused through the
mass of bricks or other articles to be baked or burned, which conduces to the
perfect and uniform baking or burning of the whole.

page_text: This improved combustible can be used for various heating purposes, such
as for heating bakers' ovens, baths for dyeing, the manufacture of chemical
productions of lime, &c., one of its advantages being that it burns as slowly as
may be wished.
Having described the nature of this Invention, and the manner in which it
may be performed, I declare that what I claim as the Invention to be pro-
tected by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is,-
First, the manufacture of bricks, tiles, drain pipes, or other earthenware or
ceramic manufactures of combustible material, as herein-before described,
serving as a combustible or fuel for baking or burning a manufacture of the
same or other kinds, and forming after complete combustion a brick, tile, drain
pipe, or other article of itself.
Secondly, the manufacture and use of combustible material, as herein-
before, described, for all other purposes for which it may be applicable as
a fuel.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Durand Gardissal, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of February, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven.
C. D. GARDISSAL. (L.B.)