Pigments, Paint and Painting: A practical book for practical men

by George Terry

Fig. 11.—Apparatus for making Lamp-black from Creosote or Shale Oil.

At these works a horizontal brick flue a about 18 inches square and about 10 feet long is provided. At one end it enters the black-house b, and is here provided with a damper c to shut it off when not working. The other end opens to the air, and here is a sliding door d which, when shut down, leaves an opening round a small pipe e, which enters in this situation from a main pipe that conveys oil in a similar manner to four burners of this description placed side by side. At the bottom of the flue is an iron tray f to catch any liquid that falls from the tube, and in this tray the oil is burned. The burning of oil in one of these flues is not allowed to go on for more than three hours, and, when the combustion is over, the communication with the black-house is closed, the entrance door of the flue is opened, and the cover is taken off the chimney g so that the flue may become cooled, and another flue is taken into use.

The black-house is a brick chamber into which the smoke passes, and where it deposits its sooty particles. In some works there is only one undivided chamber; in other works there are more than one, and the chambers communicate by flues through which the smoke passes from one to another. At other works the chamber is divided by vertical partitions, springing alternately from the two ends, so as to constitute one high zigzag flue, along which the smoke must travel to its outlet from the black-house. This chamber must needs have an opening somewhere to the outer air. The opening is sometimes a small chimney in the roof, and sometimes a short louvre tower. This is necessary to produce a trifling draught, just enough to carry the smoke into the chamber and no more.

In some works, the black from the black-house is also calcined, the object of the “calcination” being to get rid of all greasiness, a point of great importance when the lamp-black is to be used for making fine pigment. This process is conducted in circular iron pans, usually about 2¼ feet high and 2¼ feet diameter, which are provided with removable iron covers. A pan of this size will hold about 2 lb. of lamp-black. A bowlful is first put in and lighted by a red-hot iron; more and more is added from time to time as the ignition proceeds. When the pan, being full, leaves off smoking, the calcination is known to be complete, and the pan is then covered and its contents are allowed to cool. The loss undergone in this process is about 25 per cent. The smoke which comes off is acrid and very irritating to the eyes, like that proceeding from boiling oil, and it is difficult for a person unaccustomed to it to remain many minutes in the chamber where calcining is going on. This process is sometimes conducted within a chamber, but frequently under a shed or even in a building freely open to the air.

There are three sources from which nuisance may arise in lamp-black making: 1. The smoke which issues from the chimney of the black-house, small as it sometimes is, often constitutes a nuisance to near neighbours; but the nuisance is not a very serious one, and it does not extend very far from the works, never to a greater distance than about 50 yards. The odour, even when but little smoke escapes, is oppressive and suffocating in character, and resembles that diffused in a room by a smoking table-lamp. It occasions headache, but is not otherwise injurious to health. 2. A similar nuisance of suffocating smoke sometimes proceeds from the burners, but this is when they are leaky or when there is a deficiency of draught through the black-house, or when the doors of the burning chambers do not shut closely, and when there is much wind blowing past them. This nuisance chiefly occurs when the burners are open to the air and merely protected by an open shed. 3. The escape of acrolein and other offensive vapours from the calcining house.

The best mode of preventing nuisance from the black-house is so to elongate the chamber as to give abundant opportunity for the soot to deposit in the course of the smoke along it to the outlet, and by taking means to consume by fire what little smoke escapes deposition. A most effectual arrangement for the accomplishment of these ends is to have a black-house 150 feet long, and so divided by partitions within as to cause the smoke to traverse a distance of altogether 500 feet before it finds an exit; the exit from the chamber communicating with a fire, in which the last of the smoke is consumed, and which serves to assist in regulating the draught through the chamber.

The regulation of the draught through the burner and black chamber is of importance in order to avoid the escape of smoke from the burners. If the draught be too great, too much black is lost from the chamber, but if, on the other hand, it be too little, the smoke instead of passing into the chamber will come out into the works and create a nuisance, especially where the burners are erected in the open air, under circumstances in which variation in the force of the wind cannot fail to interfere with due regulation of draught. This part of the manufacture should be conducted within a building of some sort.

The best mode of preventing nuisance from calcination is in operation at Shackell & Edwards’ works, in Hornsey Road, Islington. At these works the black is calcined in a chamber 20 feet square and 25 feet in greatest height, with a paved floor and arched roof. In the centre of the roof is the opening where a fire was formerly placed, but which is now closed by a sky-light, capable of being raised. The calcining pots are ranged round this chamber, and a fan, employed to draw off the vapours from the oil-boiling pans, is further utilised to draw off also, from the upper part of the calcining-house, the vapours arising from the calcination, and to drive them into the boiler fire, where they are consumed. Calcination should always be conducted in a closed building duly ventilated so as not to create nuisance.

The transport of lamp-black is effected in barrels or bags; when in the latter, these should be previously soaked in water containing some clay in suspension, which stops up the pores of the sacking, and thereby prevents loss.

The particular virtue of lamp-black as a pigment lies in its state of extremely fine division, which could not possibly be attained by artificial means; this quality renders it invaluable as the basis of black pigments, all of which contain it in a greater or less quantity. Indian ink and printers’ ink are also composed principally of this substance.