IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL
Year: 1864

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Smith at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 3rd May
1864.
I, WILLIAM SMITH, of Lower Baggot Street, in the City of Dublin, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the mixing of peat, charcoal, coal slack, culni,
coke, or other combustible material with peat, either dry in a state of minute
division, or wet and rendered plastic by pugging or other suitable means, and
moulding the mixture into blocks of fuel. When preparing peat charcoal for
the smelting of iron I reduce the charcoal to powder, and then add to it about
equal weights of well pugged peat, which when plastic will contain from
eighty to ninety per cent. of water, and blend the mixture intimately together;
or I add the pugged peat to the peat charcoal, and allow the charcoal to be
reduced to powder in mixing it with the pugged peat. I then pass the com-
pound through moulds, and submit the blocks so formed to pressure, or submit
the blocks to pressure in the moulds. I then dry the blocks, and when dry
they are ready for use. Peat charcoal thus prepared will stand the blast and
burden of a blast furnace. In preparing fuel with the use of coal slack or
culm I first reduce the materials to a state of minute division, and wash them
so as to free them from impurities. When I use dry peat I reduce it to a
state of minute division, and mix, say, from two to three parts of peat with
from one to two parts of the washed coal slack or culm prepared by mixing

page_text: with tar in the proportion of from five to twenty gallons of tar to each ton of
the said materials. By mixing tar with the said materials before adding them
to the dry peat I readily make any description of fuel desired, as the tar is
thus prevented from clotting the peat and rendering the mixture unequal in
composition or difficult to manage in moulding. The mixture of tar assists
in combining the said materials with the peat, and without its use the blocks
of fuel would be very friable. The mixture of dry peat and materials so
prepared I submit to pressure in moulds, and for this purpose I prefer a
mould open at both ends in which resistance is obtained by the friction of the
blocks against the sides, and in which the blocks are formed continuously by
a piston working into one end of the mould and fitting it accurately. The.
blocks of fuel thus formed are ready for use. When wet pugged peat is used
I mix it with about equal weights of the said materials reduced to a state of
minute division and washed as before mentioned (when the materials are of
an anthracitic nature I mix them with from five to twenty gallons of tar to
the ton). I then pass the mixture of wet pugged peat and said materials
through moulds, and thus form blocks of fuel, which I afterwards dry either
in the air or by the aid of artificial heat. In some cases I coat the blocks of
fuel so formed, when dry, with tar, or a composition of tar and pitch, to protect
them from the injurious action of wet.
In manufacturing the said fuel I do not restrict the mixtures to the exact
proportions I have mentioned, but they will generally be found the most
advantageous.
In places where coal is plenty I prefer to use wet pugged peat, and where
peat is plenty, but coal scarce, to use dry peat.