IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL COAL TARS AND THEIR SOLID DERIVATIVES SUCH AS PHENICAL SOAPS AND SALTS
Year: 1866

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Pierre Alexis Francisse Bobœuf
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 8th February 1866.
I, PIERRE ALEXIS FRANCISSE BOBOEUF, of No. 9, Rue Buffault, in the
City of Paris, France, Chemist, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL COAL TARS
AND THEIR SOLID DERIVATIVES SUCH AS PHENICAL SOAPS AND SALTS," to be as
follows:-
The object of my Invention is to manufacture products which are solid,
non-inflammable, non-corrosive, easy to handle, and transport, and which
are made from the derivatives of the natural or mineral coal tar, producing
therefrom an artificial coal tar superior to the natural one, and at the same
time permitting of the extraction of the essential oils used in commerce
without any deterioration, one great advantage being that the coal tars so
formed can always be depended on, whereas little faith can be placed in
natural or mineral ones, which must of necessity vary according to the
extent of the presence or absence of benzoin and pinic acid, or other
acid oils.
The following is my modus operandi for producing coal tars for agri-
cultural and other purposes:-I take the solid residues produced from the
natural or mineral coal tars after their distillation and after their various
essential oils have been extracted. These residues are dissolved warm in

page_text: neutral oils too thick for dyeing or other purposes, to which a quantity of
pinic acid or other essential acid oil is added in the same proportions that
it is contained in the best natural or mineral coal tars; and, if considered
necessary or desirable, a little napthaline may also be added, varying in
proportion to the purposes to which the article is to be employed. For
instance, I take of,—
Acid oils
Napthaline
10 do.
15 do.
10 do.
100
100
is
In manufacturing phenical substances (produits phéniques) the following
my mode of procedure:-I take a quantity of pinic acid which has been
previously dissolved in caustic soda or potash, which is then mixed with
several cakes of soap, obtained by the usual process of saponification of the
fixed oils and of the fatty and resinous acids in the proportion of one
thousandth part up to fifty per cent., according to the nature of the soap
desired to be produced; that is, whether for the toilet, domestic purposes,
or for use in the manufacture of stuffs and other fabrics. The pinic acid
can be added so as to become saponified at the same time as the other
substances, which renders it non-inflammable, or it can be mixed with
them when the saponification is nearly completed.
In manufacturing as above described solid or lather soaps of soda or
potash, with the addition of 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, and more parts of pinic
acid, new soaps are obtained which are non-corrosive, easy to handle
readily transportable, and non-inflammable, which being very soluble in
water produce aqueous solutions for disinfecting vessels, stables, and similar
purposes, for washing animals, or for curing them of epizootic or other
epidemic maladies. The ordinary phenical solutions of soda or potash
produce the same effect.
In the manufacture of phenical salts (sels phéniques) I mix pinic acid
or the soluble phenical alkalies in water with crystallized salts which are
not likely to change the properties of the acid or the phenical alkalies, and
are capable of being solidified by cold, such, for instance, as the neutral and
soluble carbonates and sulphates of basic. When the crystallized or comm
mercial pinic acid as well as the phenical alkalies cannot be easily and
uniformly mixed with the salts, they may be amalgamated with soluble

page_text: substances which are sticky or clammy, such as treacle, gum, flour, paste,
starch, glue, and other similar substances with which they mix well, at the
same time adding more or less caustic soda. For example,―
100 parts of treacle.
10 do.
flour or starch.
5, 10, 20, 30, or 50
do.
pinic acid.
10 or 20
do.
do. caustic soda.
These amalgams can be made very concentrated, being at the same time
very soluble in water, and may be employed for the same purposes on
board ship, in farms, and other places, as the phenical soaps or aqueous
phenical solutions of soda or pinic acid. I designate, under the head of
the pinic acid of commerce, the re-union of the essential mineral and
vegetable oils of schist, wood, boghead, turf, and the like, which are soluble,
like pinic acid, in the caustic alkalies, and which like it are disinfectant,
anti-putrid, anti-miasmatic, and insecticidal. If, therefore, it is desired
simply to obtain a product destined to remove the bad smell inherent to
linen, or that bad soap communicates to it, it is merely necessary to add to
the several saponificable substances (that is to say, the fixed oils, fatty or
resinous matters ordinarily employed) a very small quantity of pinic acid,
in order that the solutions may not be too astringent and susceptible of
injury to the hands by a prolonged usage, a few hundredth or thousandth
parts will in this case be sufficient. But, on the other hand, the proportions
of the pinic acid are increased according to the nature of the application to
which the phenical soaps or salts are to be employed, whether for the toilet,
the bath, fulling, washing, or finishing various stuffs, or for producing dis-
infectant solutions, anti-miasmatic or anti-epizootic, for the preservation of
tissues, purifying vessels, stables, farms, and other places, or for supplying
the place of the solutions of pinic acid in all their various applications.