IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING AND BLEACHING FIBROUS VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES, AND IN MACHINERY EMPLOYED THEREIN
Year: 1857

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Richard Archibald Brooman at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 2nd April 1857.-A communication from Henri Bouchet.
I, RICHARD ARCHIBALD BROOMAN, of 166, Fleet Street, in the City of
London, E. C., Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING AND BLEACHING FIBROUS VEGETABLE
SUBSTANCES, AND IN MACHINERY EMPLOYED THEREIN," communicated to me by
Henri Bouchet, a foreigner residing abroad, to be as follows:-
The plants or fibres to be acted upon are placed in large cisterns; boiling
caustic and other leys (which may have been previously used) are added, and
should they not be sufficiently strong I introduce hot water saturated with
quicklime, and thus obtain caustic retting. These cisterns may be kept
heated by a jet of steam. Three, four, or five days, according to the plant or
fibrous substance operated upon, will generally be found sufficient to bring
it to a good state of retting, and for being passed through a breaking or
decorticating machine, in order to open up the fibres and separate foreign
matters from them.
The plants or fibres are fed on to an endless belt, which delivers them into a
shoot, from whence they fall between a hollow semicircular stationary plate,
smooth-toothed or fluted, and a rotating drum with a fluted or roughened
surface; after getting out of the action of the drum, the fibres are received into
a trough at the bottom of the machine, and are then washed in clear water.
The fibres being now deprived of the greater part of the gum, resin, and other
foreign matters adhering to them, and having also received a commencement

page_text: of disintregation and cleaning, the lye, which is about to be explained, is
intended to remove the remainder of these substances, and to prepare the
complete separation of the filaments from each other, and to commence the
decoloration of these filaments, which the washing, after coming from the
baking machine, only prepared.
For the next operation, a rotating closed boiler is preferred, but a closed
wooden or metal vessel may be used. The vessel is charged with the barked
and washed filaments; a sufficient quantity of water is introduced, as that
when boiling the matters shall be covered by it; or if a rotating boiler is used,
less water will be needed than for a stationary vessel; and for every 200 lbs.
of filamentous matters, add in the boiler or vessel 2 lbs. sub-carbonate of soda,
crystallized, and 8 or 10 quarts of liquid chloride of lime, at 2° to every 100
quarts of pure water. When the fibres have been exposed to the action of
these agents for a time, varying with the nature of the material under treatment,
they are removed to a double acting washing, opening, and separating machine.
This machine is fed with clear cold water. It is divided lengthwise through
the centre, and at opposite ends, and on opposite sides there are two inclined
fluted metal surfaces, the faces of which are armed with blades, and working
towards or against these blades are other blades projecting from a cylinder or
drum, to which rotary motion is communicated. In the machine there are
also placed two washing drums, to which rotary motion is also communicated.
The fibrous substances are continuously subjected to the action of the armed
cylinders and plates, and to the action of the washing drums. When
sufficiently washed, which experience will readily dictate, the quantity of water
is diminished in the machine, and the bleaching is commenced introducing
some of the bleaching agents set forth in a Provisional Specification filed by
me, the 2nd Dec 1856, No. 2851. After a certain time these bleaching
agents are drawn off, cold water is introduced, and the fibres are subjected to
another washing. When well washed they are removed to or run into another
vessel, where they receive their final bleaching. In this vessel agitation is
kept up by means of a paddle wheel, to which slow rotary motion is com-
municated. After the bleaching has been effected, the bleaching agents are
<drawn off, clear water introduced, and washing drums extending across the
machine are set in motion to finally wash the fibrous matters.