Specification of William Alexander Lyttle : treating sewage.

  • Lyttle, William Alexander.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of William Alexander Lyttle : treating sewage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Provisional Specification. Lyttle's Improved Process for Treating Sewage. take the place of so much sandstone for flux. There are several ways in which it may he used. Eor instance, the sludge may he deodorized hy peat charcoal, or hy one of those well-known imitations of animal charcoal, consisting of mixtures of peat with lime or clay, or both together, such mixture being coked. The carhon thus added will still 5 further augment the value of the sludge as fuel. The lime, if such is mixed with the charcoal, will also answer to accelerate the fluxing of the ore on account of its intimate incorporation with the silica of the sludge. Sludge can also be used as the means of agglutinating into solid 10 * masses the “duff ” or colliery dust of coal, or the dust of peat charcoal for smelting purposes, with or without an admixture of clay or lime, or both together. The sludge fuel can be made into lumps and thrown into the smelting furnace with the ore in the usual way. Sludge can also be used as an ingredient in the preparation of a 15 metallurgical concrete containing the entire ingredients of a smelting furnace charge in any required proportions, namely, crushed iron ore, quicklime, sand, and powdered fuel; all these materials being well mixed and worked as a plastic mass with the sludge into suitable lumps. 20 The effluent water which passes off when the sludge has been allowed to separate from sewage I propose to clarify as follows :—I provide a pug mill with a false bottom consisting of a bed of gravel acting as a strainer, and I supply peat or any other charcoal to this mill, until, with the admixture of sewage water, it has been worked into a creamy paste. 25 No more charcoal is then added, and by means of a float cock the foul sewage water is allowed to run into the mill at the top as fast as the claiified water escapes through the gravel at the bottom. When the filtering charcoal is exhausted it can be incorporated with the sludge for smelting purposes with or without a previous coking to 30 extract the ammoniacal salts. This pug mill arrangement I designate a vortex filter, and the same filter will be of great value as the means of supplying absolutely pure water to towns. The value of this arrangement of filter lies in the fact that its action cannot be impeded by the clogging of its upper stratum with gummy 35 mattei, the slow movement of the pugging arms maintaining a constant