US22590A - Improvement in defecating and clarifying cane-juice - Google Patents

Description

R. A. STEWART.

Defecating and Clarifying Saccharine vLiquids. No. 22,590. Patented Jan. 11, I859.

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NiTnn STATES PATENT @rrrcn.

RICHARD A. STEWVART, OF ST. BERNARD PARISH, LOUISIANA.

IMPROVEMENT IN DEFECATING AND CLARlFYING CANE-JUICE.

Specificationforming part of Letters Patent No. 5225590, dated January 11, 1839.

T0 at whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, RICHARD A. STEWART, of the parish of St. Bernard and State of Louisiana, have invented a new and useful improvement in the defecation and clarification of cane-juice, sirup, molasses, and saccharine matter generally, when in a liquid. or semiliqnid state, of which the following is a speciiication.

My invention or improvement consists in passing or disseminating in any convenient manner throughout the saccharine matter sulphurous acid or gas produced by a slow con1- bustion, in a nearly closed retort, of sulphur or common roll brimstone. There are obviously various modes of producing this gas and of disseminating it through thesaceharine liquid, all of which are useful and will involve the principle or character of my invention, and I leave to all the adoption of such of the obvious modes of effecting the object as may be preferred; but the means I have assayed and found to produce the most satisfactory results, defecating and clarifying the saccharine liquid as perfectly and more economically than I have ever before seen it in the manufacture of sugar, is as follows: I use a horizontal air-tight cylindrical retort, rsay twelve feet long and three feet diameter-made of iron, references being had to the drawing hereto annexed, and making a part hereof. This cylinder may be lined partially or wholly with any substance upon which the burning sulphur will not act. At one end of this retort there is an opening to admit the sulphur, having a door or stopper and a small perforation, asay one inch diameter-capable of adjustment for the slow admission of air. At the other end there is an opening-say four inches diameter-communicating with a pipe, I, of similar diameter, the other extremity of the pipe P communicating with an air-tight vessel of water, XV, and its end may dip downward into the water a short distance; and, if thought desirable, there may be another similar vessel of water connected with the first by a pipe of similar diameter opening into each above the water-line. Thescwater-vesselsmay bethesize of a common barrel. From the water-vessels there is a pipe, P about four inches diameter, extending to the upper end of a vertical air-tight cylinder,V, which I term the vacuum-cylinder, about ten feet high by three feet diameter, and this vacuum-cylinder communicating at its lower end with the top of the steam-boilers B by a pipe, P say two inches diameter-and with the receiver of the cane-juice by another pipe, P, at its upper end. The tubes in the bottom of said receiver have small perforations on their upper sides,

and such perforations being numerous to dis tribute the discharge from the pipe uniformly throughout the juice. The pipe from the top of the vacuum-cylinder, leading to the perforated tubes in the bottom of the juice-receiver, should rise above the receiver and lead downward.

The operation is as follows, viz: The brin1- stone pulverized I spread from end to end along the bottom of the retort a, and ignite it at the end nearest the pipe P. The admission of air being very slow, sulphurous gas or acid is constantly produced, with, perhaps, a small quantity of sulphuric acid, all of which remains in the retort until allowed to pass forward. lVhen it is allowed to pass forward to the vacuum-cylinder, it passes first through the water-vessel \V, when any sulphuric acid which may have been formed in the retort will be principally absorbed. The juice-receiver is filled with cane-juice. The stop-cocks c and c are opened, whereby the steam passes into the vacuum-cylinder, expelling the air there from. The cocks c and c are then closed, and the condensation of the steam in the vacuumcylinder produces a partial vacuum therein. The stop-cock c is then opened, and the sulphurous gas passes forward to fill the vacuum-cylinder. The stop-cock c is then closed and c and c are opened, when the steam rushes into the vacuum-cylinder, forces the sulphur ous gas therein through the pipe P and perforated pipes throughout the cane-j nice in the receiver. I prefer to pass the sulphurousgas through the cane-juice; but it may be beneficially introduced in more advanced stages of the process of making sugar. I sometimes pass two or three successive charges of the gas through the saccharine liquid, which is accomplished in a few minutes and at an expense of but few cents to the hogshead of sugar.

To render the vacuum more perfect, jets of cold water may be used in the vacuumchamher.

My improvement entirely dispenses with the necessity of using either bone-black or bisulwhat I claim as new in the defecation and phate of lime in the process of clarifying and clarification of cane-juice and other liquid or defecating. semi-liquid forms of saccharine matter, is

The apparatus I have described is suffieient Disseminating throughout the same sulphurfor the largest sugar-house. ous gas or sulphurous-acid gas, for the pur I Having fully madeknown the nature of my poses herein set forth. improvement and the manner in which I have reduced the same to practice, I do not claim, W'itnesses: broadly, the use of sulphurous gas or sulphur- C. II. DAVIS, ous-aeid gas in the manufacture of sugar; but I OHS. G. ALLEN,

RICHARD A. STEWART.

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