GB180315A - Improvements in or relating to the distillation of combustibles - Google Patents

Abstract

180,315. Soc. de Fours Ó Coke et d'Entreprises Industrielles. May 18, 1921, [Convention date]. Retort furnaces. - An apparatus for effecting the distillation of fuel in two stages, at temperatures of, say, 500‹ and 900‹ C. respectively, comprises two groups of retorts which are alternately heated to the required temperatures. The apparatus shown in sectional plan in Fig. 4 comprises two groups of vertical retorts 1 - - 6 and 1<1> - - 6<1> heated by vertical flues fired by gas and air supplied at their lower ends. In one stage of the operation combustion is effected in the flues of the retorts 1 - - 6, and the heating gases drawn off through the flue 14 are passed first through a heat-exchanger 10 and then downwards through the flues of the retorts 1<1> - - 6<1>. In the interchanger 10 the air for combustion is heated, and the heating-gases are correspondingly cooled to the temperature required for the first stage of the distillation process. When the second stage of the process has been completed in the retorts 1 - - 6 and the first stage in the retorts 1<1> - - 6<1>, the beating operation is reversed. If the first stage should be completed in one group of retorts before the second stage in the other the gas supply to the first group may be cut off and the heating of the second group completed by air passed through the flues of the first group.