IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON
Year: 1867

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Jacob Geoghegan Willans, of 9, St. Stephen's
Crescent, Bayswater, in the County of Middlesex, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON."
Sealed the 10th March 1868, and dated the 19th September 1867.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 19th September 1867.
I, JACOB GEOGHEGAN WILLANS, of 9, St. Stephen's Crescent, Bayswater,
5 in the County of Middlesex, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON," to be as
follows:-
My Invention relates to the treatment of ores and other substances con- .
taining oxides and salts of manganese preparatory to their application in blast.
furnaces sinelting in the ordinary manner iron ores which are deficient in the
desired amount of manganese...
My Invention also relates to the manufacture of spiegel eisen or com-.
pounds of iron, manganese, and carbon from manganiferous iron ores in blast:
furnaces.
Hitherto substances yielding manganese have been applied in iron blast
furnaces charged with the fuel and ores in the ordinary. manner, and man-
ganiferous iron ores are smelted in blast furnaces in the ordinary way,
.but

page_text: the difficulty experienced is to prevent the manganese going off in the slag.
In order to improve upon this I take care that the oxide of manganese becomes
better reduced to the metallic state before its descent to the tuyeres, and
that a high temperature be obtainable for its reduction and amalgamation
with the iron from the ores at same time smelted.
My method is to mix up the manganiferous substance in a divisible or
divided state with so much caking coal as will when coked together form a
more or less cohering coke, and to coke this mixture or otherwise adhere it
together before its being put into the blast furnace. I prefer to use as little
of the caking coal as will suffice to give a cohering mixture after calcination,
as the intermixed carbon is not required for affording heat at the tuyeres.
In blast furnaces smelting iron ores in the ordinary way sufficient heat is
obtained by the added fuel, and when smelting the manganiferous iron
ores alone I obtain it by the addition of a more homogeneous fuel for heating
purposes.
Instead of caking coal other kinds of carbon having a cohering effect after
calcination will answer for mixture with the manganiferous substance.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 18th March 1868.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JACOB
GEOGHEGAN WILLANS, of 9, St. Stephen's Crescent, Bayswater, in the County
of Middlesex, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters:
Patent, bearing date the Nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, in the thirty-first year of Her reign
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Jacob Geoghegan Willans, Her special licence that I, the said Jacob Groghegan
Willans, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the
said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, 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 niake, use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an, Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS. IN THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, my executors or adminis-

page_text: trators, 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 Jacob Geoghegan Willans, 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 thereof; that is to say :-
My Invention relates to the smelting of manganiferous iron ores so as to
obtain spiegel eisen or similar compounds of manganese, carbon, and iron.
Hitherto difficulty has been experienced in smelting such ores, especially when
they contain much silica in consequence of some if not nearly all the
manganese going off in the slag. Where the manganese thus passes into the
slag not only is it lost, but it also causes rapid wear of the furnace.
According to my Invention I facilitate the absorption of the manganese into
the cast iron by first mixing the ore with caking coal or other carbonaceous
matter (which if necessary is made adhesive by coal, tar, pitch, or similar
material) which at a red heat will cohere so as to form masses of ore and
coke compound, and I melt the ore and coke compound by separate fuel in a
low blast furnace. I prefer to have the ore reduced to a state not larger
than peas, and have the coal somewhat smaller, and I prefer to use as little of
the caking coal or other carbon as will suffice to agglomerate the coke
together at a red heat. I find 1 ton of Wigan coal when mixed with :2 tons
of crushed calcined ore to form a sufficiently cohering coke, but the proportions
may be varied according to the ore and coal. The mixture may be coked in
any convenient manner; cast-iron pipes or gas retorts sufficiently heated by
waste heat will do, or the mixture may be coked in the upper part of the
furnace if it be rendered adhesive by pitch or other suitable carbonaceous
matter. In this way sufficient carbon is brought into intimate contact with
the manganese and iron to ensure their better reduction and alloying, whilst
at the same time there being but little excess of carbon in the agglomerated
mixture it is exhausted almost as soon as the metal is reduced, so that the
reduced ore is left free to run together and to amalgamate with the fluxes at
the lower part of the furnace, where intense heat is raised by the blast acting
on more homogeneous fuel. I charge the coked mixture in layers in a low
furnace along with one half as much coke or fuel as generally suffices with
similar ores in bigh furnaces smelting in the ordinary manner, and I add at

page_text: the same time limestone,, if necessary broken very small (less than walnuts), or
such other flux as an iron smelter would ordinarily add.
I prefer to use a furnace 10. to 12 feet high, 20 inches square at the
tuyeres, widening upwards to 3 feet at the top with 3 blast pipes ths in
diameter at nozzles and 35 inches above the bottom with blast from 2 to 3 lbs.
pressure, the height of the furnace should not be so great as to crush the
coke and ore compounds before it be sufficiently acted upon by heat, or that
it should obstruct the ascending gases or cause disorders in the furnace.
I am aware that it has before been proposed to intermix crushed iron ores
with caking coal and to use the coked compound as fuel to smelt its reduced
ore contents. In such case the amount of carbon is so large and the ore so
disseminated throughout it that the blast when oxidizing or consuming the
carbon surrounding the metallic particles reoxidizes the manganese to a great
extent. I am also aware that compounds of iron and manganese oxides have
been proposed to be similarly treated with coal; I am also aware that they
have been proposed to be ground up with clay or lime and other materials to
adhere them before application in furnaces: But what I claim as the essence
of my Invention is the forming a mixture of manganiferous iron ore and such
coal or other carbon as will cause it to cohere at a red heat, the carbon being
in excess of the quantity required for combining with the oxygen in the ore,
but insufficient to afford by blast the requisite heat for melting it after its
reduction, and the smelting such mixture by other fuel in. blast furnaces
so as to obtain spiegel eisen or similar compound of manganese, carbon, and
iron therefrom.
A
"
In witness whereof, I, the said Jacob Geoghegan Willans, have hereunto
set, my hand and seal, this Sixteenth day of March, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.
J. G. WILLANS. (L.S.)