The New York herald., 1922-12-24
Wood Pulp Under Chemists Magic
Produces Six Powder. Cotton

Another fact which cannot be over
looked in connection with the sulphite
pulp industry is that it furnishes a
raw material not only for the produc-
ton OF news and bond papers but also
for the manufacture of artificial silk.
The forest chemist has become the
silk worms competitor. He has not
actually synthesized real silk. which is
a protein substance, but he has made
strong, lustrous artificial fiber of
wood cellulose, resembling silk in many
of its properties and daily becoming
more and more important in the
worlds textile industries. To-day the
material In thousands of sweaters.
sport skirts, tricolette waists and
stockings and carloads OF draperies
and plush coverings are the products
of our coniferous forests.
The explosives industry in recent
times has looked to these same ever
green forests for one of it's important
raw materials. Chemical wood pulp
had been used successfully In the pro-
duction of sporting powders for sew
eral decades. 1t had also found place
as absorbent in dynamite manufac-
ture. However cotton linters, because
Of their cost and the relatively simple
methods used in their publication,
were looked upon as the best raw
material for the manufacture of nitro
cellulose explosives.
During the war, when conditions
changed with such Kaleidoscope rapid
ity that Germany and Austria found
themselves with little or no cotton on
hand but with plenty of trouble ahead.
the more aggressive of the Central
Powers turned to her wood supply
(and the wood supplies Of her neigh
bors) and developed a chemical weed
pulp which served in place of cotton
linters in nitrocellulose manufacture.
Germany had previously gathered a
mass Of fundamental data on the
chemistry of wood. Her forests, al
ways intelligently managed and util-
lied. never rapaciously depleted by ex-
ploiters. now served her in good stead.
Whatever forest depletion German y
resorted to during that memorable
Period she very carefully kept within
tile confines of those territories which
he had inv. d'f!
Other uses have been found for wood
pulp. One Of them involves tho pro :
duction of "vulcanized fiber" So
called, a cellulose material, which, like
the human animal, varies in its nature
with the treatment received. 1t may
take the form of hard. tough. horny
mass, or Gf it has been properly
sweetened and tempered with grape
sugar or glycerine) it may be a flexi.
BILE. plant material.
A fact which often surprises the
layman is that ethyl alcohol (often
termed grain alcohol can also be
made from wood waste. We are not
now referring to the poisonous wood
alcohol but to beverage alcohol.
1t had been known for years that
wood waste when treated with certain
acids, like our indispensable sulphuric
acid, could be converted into various
sugars, some of which when treated
with suitable yeasts would be fer
mented TO ethyl alcohol. Only recently
have the results of very extensive r..
searches been published. They show
that the sawdust OF coniferous woods
like the pines, spruces. frs and hem
locks give yields of twenty to twenty
five gallons OF alcohol Chemically the
same alcohol as that obtained from
grain) per ton of dry wood. AS a
bootlegger Western larch stands in
class by itself and can furnish as
much as forty gallons OF alcohol for
each ton. 1t is not beyond the
realms of possibility that in the dis
tant future, long after our present
petroleum supplies have vanished. the
tropical forests will yield inexhaustible
supplies of grain" alcohol as motor
fuel to a chastened automotive indus
try.