St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1893-07-06
SILK MADE FROM WOOD PULP.

SILK MADE FROM WOOD PULP.
A report has been received at the
State department at Washington
from Consul LOOMS, of St. Etienne,
France, giving some interesting de-
tails and information in regard to
the Chardonnet process for convert
ing wood pulp into silk. This re-
port will soon be published and dis
tributed as q general answer to
numerous inquiries about the pro-
cess. OF course the great question
has been as to whether the new dis
covery could be made practically
useful and valuable.
Consul Loomis thinks that this
question has been answered in the
affirmative by N. De Chardonnet,
who has built mill at Besancon,
where the silk" is now being manu-
featured. The raw material is made
from wood pulp, which is carefully
dried in an oven and plunged in a
mixture of sulphuric and nitric acids,
then washed several times in water
and dried by alcohol. The product
thus prepared is dissolved in ether
and pure alcohol, and the result is
collodion, similar to that used in
photography. This collodion, which
is sticky and viscous, is inclosed i'll a
solid receptacle, furnished with a
filter in the lower end.
An air-pump sends compressed air
into the receptacle, and by its pres
sure the collodion is passed through
the filter, which removes all inn
purites and flows into tube placed
horizontally. This tube is armed
with 800 cocks, of which the spouts
are made OF glass and pierced by a
small hole OF the diameter of the
thread of a cocoon as it is spun by
the sik-warm. The spinner opens
the cock, and the collodion issues in
a thread of extreme delicacy tit takes
six to make thread of the necessary
consistence for weaving). This
thread is not, however, fit to be roll
ed on the spools by reason of its Wis
costly and softness; the matter is as
yet collodion and not silk.
To produce the necessary hardness,
the inventor resorted to a very IN
genious but simble method is sur
rounded by small reservoir of the
same material constantly filled with
water When the thread issues from
the aperture in the manner described
it traverses this water, which takes
up the ether and alcohol and then
the collodiou becomes solidiied that
is to say, it is transformed into an
elastic thread as resisting and
brilliant as ordinary silk, On ac-
count of the materials employed the
stuff manufactured was found to be
dangerously inhammable-its origin
al combustiblity being at the
alarming rate of two centmetres a
second. Mr.. LOOMS says that NJ.
De Chardonnet has apparently re-
moved this difficulty by plunging
the spun thread into a solution of
ammonia, thus rendering it as slow
OF combustion as as any other
material"
The consul adds; This discovery
seems to have great future. |
have talked with great men, silk
merchants, brokers, dyers and men
who manufactured silk goods about
the Chardonpet method of produc-
ing raw silks from wood, and it is
universally admitted that the pro-
cess will eventually yield large
practicable results. A great step
has been made toward this end in
reducing the inhammability of the
Chardonnet silk. Another practical
difficulty to be remedied in the nven-
tion is the frequent swapping Vi the
slender threads issuing from the
cylinder by reason o. unequal pres
sure. This makes it impossible to
maintain a standard quality for the
output and consequently there may
be produced five pounds of excellent
silk followed by five pounds of a
comparatively worthless quality.
This difficulty is being overcome, |
am tOlu, out until IL IS completely
removed men of large means will not
invest largely in the stock of the
company which has been formed to
exploit Count Chardonnet's inven-
ton"
1t appears that down to this. time
none of the great French manu-
facturers have invested largely in the
new enterprise, although all of them
profess to believe in it and declare
that in a few years artificial silk
produced by the new process is
destined to figure largely in the COM
mercial world Consul LOOMS re-
port concludes as follows:
THE disposition today on the
part of capitalists here is to await
Developments. When the process
is once perfected and its results are
wholly satisfactory, there will be a
lively struggle for the control of this
valuable invention; and, as l have