GB340993A - Improvements in apparatus for the sweating of wax or wax mixtures - Google Patents

Abstract

Paraffin and mineral waxes, purifying.--An apparatus for sweating wax and wax mixtures consists of a vessel containing a support for the wax, without the use of water, and a multiplicity of straight pipes, through which a heating or cooling liquid passes, connected to form horizontal rows, each row being staggered with respect to each adjacent row. A covered rectangular tank 7, Fig. 1, may be divided into two or more chambers 2, each of which contains rows of horizontal pipes 11 connected by short bends 12 to form a continuous serpentine ending in a header 13, Fig. 2. Wax supports, preferably of wire gauze 10, 33, are supported above solid bottoms 8, 31, which are sloped towards the centre of the tank. In operation, a molten wax mixture is passed through the feed pipe 16, and after filling the channel 9 rises through holes 19 and 35 and through the wax supports 10 and 33 to fill the chambers 2, the wax being maintained in molten state by passing a heated fluid through the serpentine 11. When the chambers are full the wax is cooled, and the resulting decrease in volume may be made up by air admitted through the pipes 27 and 28 which are freed from wax by the steam pipe 30, or additional wax may be added through the pipe 16. During solidification, the separated oil passes downwards, and is sweated from the lower layer <PICT:0340993/III/1> <PICT:0340993/III/2> of wax by heating the lower serpentine pipe. The oil passes through the wax support 10 and the pipe 14, and is drawn off through the channel 9 freed from wax by a steam pipe 24. Thereafter the oil-free wax is liquefied by steam supplied through jets 26 opening into the vessel, and is drawn off through the channel 9. The solid bottoms 8, 31 may be replaced by heated cells or jackets as described in Specifications 208,195, 243,447 and 287,714, [all in Class 91, Oils &c.]. In a modification, the horizontal rows of pipes are connected at each end to common headers having horizontal plates to form cells. The circulating fluid is passed from the lowest cell through the pipes to the corresponding cell in the second header from which it flows into the upper cell thereof and through the pipes and returns to the upper cell in the first header.