Improvements in treating, purifying, and sterilizing water or contaminated liquids, and an apparatus therefor / [William Lawrence].

  • Lawrence, William
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Improvements in treating, purifying, and sterilizing water or contaminated liquids, and an apparatus therefor / [William Lawrence]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/16 (page 6)
    Lawrence's Improvements in Treating, Purifying, and Sterilizing Water, (f'c. As a backing to the thin porous layer I employ shingle or for instance gravel roughly concreted. Thus I form a filtering medium that may be brushed, in the manner before described and cleansed by reversal of current at the same time, while die sludge, falling into suitable sludge chambers may be daily removed and the slimy sludge not employed as the filtering medium. Dated this 12th day of September 1894. H. J. HADDAN, Agent for the Applicant. COMPLETE SPECIFICATION. 10 15 25 30 Improvements in Treating*, Purifying, and Sterilizing Water or Contaminated Liquids, and in Apparatus therefor. I, William Lawrence of 20 Brackley Terrace, Chiswick in the County of Middlesex, Civil and Mechanical Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement:— This invention relates to the treating of water or contaminated liquids in such a manner as to remove their objectionable qualities by processes of softening sterilizing, filtering or depositing. One of the principal features of this invention is the purifying and softening of 2d water by means of heat so applied that the salts of lime and other matters may be thrown out of solution, or precipitated and caused to aggregate and separate from the water. Another feature is the prevention of incrustation, upon heating surfaces, of precipitated sedimentary matter by mechanical means, or by setting up galvanic action. Another feature is the filtering or screening out sedimentary matter from the water. W ith regard to the first feature of this invention I have observed that when a liquid is heated in a vessel in the ordinary way, a, circulating action is set up and the heated portions rise toward the surface while the parts not heated descend. In this way the whole of the liquid in the vessel is maintained at practically, a uniform temperature and only something approaching the boiling temperature is arrived at or reached. In other words the temperature of the liquid does not increase in proportion to its columnar pressure and the descending portions of the ^,r> liquid abstract the heat from those that are ascending, causing a re-absorption of the gases and vapours that are, for the moment, dispelled. Again, 1 have observed that when crude water is heated by stages, gases contained in it pass oft in regular order as the temperature increases ; those gases that have the least solubility in the water or affinity for substances dissolved in the water passing at the lower temperatures and those‘that have the greatest, at the higher temperatures. Now since the gases in the water tend to buoy up the particles thrown out of solution and to prevent them from settling, it becomes or the first importance to dispel the gases as much as possible before the salts of lime are thrown out of solution. No^, an important part of the present invention is the prevention of the natural action of circulation set up by boiling or heating, and the dispelling of the gases in regular order. To effect this i employ a heating or boiling vessel in which there are suitably isposed diaphiagms, shel\es, plates, trays, or cones that intercept and prevent the cnculation of t.ie liquid. I then pass the water in at the top part of the vessel in 44 45 50