IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR TREATING ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FIBROUS MATERIALS, WHICH APPARATUS IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Sherwood at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 27th July
1865.
I, HENRY SHERWOOD, of Hatcham, in the County of Surrey, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MEANS
OF AND APPARATUS FOR TREATING ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FIBROUS MATERIALS,
WHICH APPARATUS IS ALSO APPLICABLE TO VARIOUS USEFUL PURPOSES," to be as
follows:-
This Invention relates, firstly, to improvements in the treatment of fibrous
substances and rags composed of animal and vegetable fibres in order to
remove the vegetable fibres by disintegrating them without injury to the
animal fibres, and to prepare the animal substances for again being used for
manufacturing purposes; secondly, in recovering the vegetable fibres so dis-
integrated, and also in the disintegration of rags, both to be used as paper
pulp; thirdly, in the preparation or production by means of chemical agents,
apparatus, and machinery of the requisite agents to be employed, and in
preparing the products suitably for manufacturing purposes; and, lastly, in
the application of the chemical agents, apparatus, or machinery to other
useful purposes, such as for the preparation of vegetable fibres for textile
fabrics, or for furnaces for steam boilers, and for metallurgical and other
purposes.
Heretofore rags composed of silk or wool, with cotton or linen sewing, have
been prepared for manufacturing by cutting off the sewing, which thereby causes

page_text: a large loss of adhering silk or wool, and still leaves some vegetable fibre in
the rag, causing damage to the goods manufactured therefrom. And, further,
rags composed of silk or wool, woven along with cotton or linen as a warp or
weft, have been prepared by disintegrating the vegetable fibres by means of an
aqueous solution of acids or other salts; also such solutions in a vaporized
state (and in particular hydrochloric acid gas) have been attempted and
claimed to be used; but with the presence of aqueous vapour, or from the
material being intentionally moistened, which means cause the edges of the
scales of wool to be partly broken up and charred, and consequently their
color to be destroyed, their strength impaired, and the felting property of
wool destroyed. Lastly, wool mixed with moits and burrs has been treated
as inst mentioned, or the vegetable matter partially removed by machinery,
causing considerable loss of wool fibre.
To totally obviate the disadvantages resulting from these modes of operation,
I make use of chemical agents to disintegrate the vegetable fibres without
charring them, and without acting on the structure or the color of the animal
fibres. Now in the use of the chemical agents heretofore employed, the
presence of the oxygen of the aqueous or vapour (from reasons becoming
continually better understood) is the cause of destruction of color and
structure of the animal fibres. The chemical immobility of all substances in
a dry state is too well known to need exemplification, yet the abstraction of
the elements of water from intimate union with the carbon of vegetable fibres
is needful to obtain their disintegration. As these elements exist in vegetable
fibre in about equal proportions, and not in union with other elements which
exert a strong affinity for them, they are easily brought into union with the
anbydrides or the anbydrous hydracids without in the least affecting animal
fibres or coloring matters in which the opposite character of composition
exists. I therefore make use of the anhydrides in a gaseous state, such as
sulphuric and others, and also anhydrous gases of the hydracids, such as
anhydrous hydrochloric acid gas, using as diluents, in lieu of atmospheric air,
gases of a deoxidizing nature, as carbonic oxide and others, which have a
tendency to restore the strength and color of animal fibres deteriorated by
exposure and washing. These agents I find perfectly successful, whilst dis-
integrating the vegetable fibres, in retaining and restoring the strength, color,
and felting properties of animal fibres.
I produce these gases by various means, one of which is by a smokeless
furnace, having its air supplied through a tube, at the junction of which with
the furnace the fuel is admitted, which burns downwards taking the air, and
when desired, steam from water (dropped on the surface of the fuel) through

page_text: the mass of fire, issuing as deoxidizing and inflammable gases, carbonic oxide,
and hydrogen, which are mixed with carbonic anhydride with nitrogen,
but absolutely without free volatilized carbon, which alone under ordinary
circumstances can produce smoke. If I require a gaseous anhydride, as sul-
phuric, I can produce it, for example, by passing the ordinary products of
combustion of the furnace through lumps of fused acid sulphate of soda,
leaving neutral sulphate of soda. If I require an anhydrous gas of an
hydracid, as chlorohydric, can obtain it by one means by dropping on the
surface of the fuel its aqueous solution, when the oxygen of the water forms
carbonic oxide with the fuel and anhydrous chlorohydric gas, or I can pass
combustion products mixed with steam (which I produce by throwing water
into a vessel placed beyond and heated by the furnace) through chloride of
sodium and silica (as in the Patent of Blanc and Bazille, No. 8386, 1840),
which I prefer in lumps, which are still available if naturally mixed with
other substances, and passing first through the chloride of sodium, and,
lastly, through the silica, for which purpose I make use of an additional
retort having openings, through which continuously to feed the chloride of
sodium and the silica, and from which to withdraw soda salts. I can also set
a retort for the production of the gases in or beyond the furnace. This
furnace, through its intense heat and draft, further aided by the vessel, which
may be placed in any situation beyond the furnace, producing highly heated
steam acting as a steam jet, also by the character which its products may be
made to bear, is also applicable with great advantage as a producer of
deoxydizing and combustible gases for other uses, as in smelting, various pro-
cesses in working metals, Lenoirs' gas 'engine, Bunsen's burners, and as a
furnace for locomotives, marine and stationary steam boilers, by igniting the
gases with air heated by contact with the sides of the furnace; which gases
can be ignited in a body or conveyed to different parts and there ignited, thus
totally preventing the formation of smoke and deposition of carbon in the
tubes of boilers, affording rapid evaporation, quick circulation, and consequent
economy, which is further increased by permitting the indiscriminate use of
fuel of the lowest character with equal effect with the best. The steam-
producing vessel is also available for the production of steam to be conducted
through a tube or whistle as an intermittent fog signal on ships or loco-
motives. I employ the gases produced by my apparatus by submitting the
fibrous substances to be operated upon to their action in a machine consisting
of a square or other formed receptacle made of glazed or varnished wood or
metal, being perforated in various parts with holes for the reception and
withdrawal of the gases to be used. The gases are caused to enter at the

page_text: bottom and sides of the receptacle, and are drawn out at the top. The
fibrous substances are fed into the machine by means of air-tight rollers
revolving by suitable driving gear, and are conducted along either an endless
feeding band to the opposite side of the machine, where they are delivered
through delivering rollers, or in lieu of the band a series of rollers may be
arranged to carry the fibres through, or an inclined plane may serve to
receive and conduct the fibres by air-tight rollers out of the machine. The
gases may be forced or drawn into the chamber. The fibres may be dashed
about or agitated by dashes or beaters whilst passing through the machine.
These chemical agents and apparatus for producing and using them I also
use for disintegrating rags and other materials of vegetable fibre into pulp for
paper making, and by the admixture or by the use of other gases, such as air,
steam, or alkaline salts vaporized for facilitating the removal of gummy and
other matter on vegetable fibres to prepare them for carding and combing.
I regenerate the disintegrated vegetable fibre from rags or wool by treating
it with alkaline and other salts, as bypochlorite of alumina, dissolving out the
gases and the accidental animal matter, and bleaching it for paper pulp; and
for this purpose I make use of closed cisterns, in which I treat the material
with the salts at a heat under that of boiling, but under pressure of air or
other gases of 1 to 6 atmospheres, which means I use in the preparation of
vegetable fibres for other purposes.