Specification of John Miers : apparatus for the evaporation and distillation of fluids.

  • Miers, John.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of John Miers : apparatus for the evaporation and distillation of fluids. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Miers Impts. in Accelerating the Evaporation of Liquid or Fluid Bodies, §c. immediately after tlie date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters Patent and all liberties and advantages whatsoever thereby granted should utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the said recited Letters Patent, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at large appear. 5 NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said John Miers, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are particularly described and ascer¬ tained in the following explanation thereof (that is to say) That in the construction of vessels used for the evaporation of fluid bodies 10 and their appurtenances, it be provided that all or part of the air which feeds the fire shall first pass over the surface of the evaporating matter. This process consists, first, in the continual or occasional introduction of fresh air, heated or not, to take up the aqueous and other vapours as they are generated; and, secondly, in the rapid removal of the air (charged therewith) by the current 15 occasioned by the fire. This removal of the vapours as they form, promoting the disposition of the fluid to resolve it into steam, greatly accelerates the rate of evaporation, and consequently saves much time and expence; this may be effected by covering the top of the vessel in which the evaporation takes place, leaving open one part for the admission of hot or cold air, and at the opposite 20 end or other part or parts placing a flue or other conveyance or conveyances to conduct the air and vapours to the ashpit, or in any other way that they may pass thro’ the fire, it being understood that the usual entrance to the ashpit is closed. By these means the strong current of air produced by the action of the fire is drawn over the surface of the evaporating bodies. Another 25 essential part of this Invention is to destroy the offensive and noxious effluvia which oftentimes arise in the evaporation of fluids, or in the distillation or calcination of solid bodies; any offensive or noxious effluvia arising in the evaporation of fluids are destroyed by the process just described, or by any other method that will cause the effluvia to pass through the fire. But in the 30 distillation or calcination of solid bodies the process already described is applicable only in some cases; in others the effluvia must be conducted through a heated or ignited tube or tubes, through which at the same time is also transmitted a stream of aqueous vapour, or into which heated or ignited tube or tubes are introduced or placed carbonaceous or other bodies that will 35 either abstract the hydrogenous part of the effluvia, or yield oxygen that will combine with the effluvia, according to the nature of the stench to be destroyed. By these means the effluvia are divested of their offensive qualities. Hence evaporation is accelerated, and offensive effluvia destroyed; and while