IMPROVEMENTS IN RECOVERING THE WOOL FROM FABRICS IN WHICH THE SAME EXISTS TOGETHER WITH SILK OR VEGETABLE TEXTILE FIBRES
Year: 1856

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Abraham Gerard Brade at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 14th
January 1856..
I, ABRAHAM GERARD BRADE, of Paris (France), Civil Engineer, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN RECOVERING
THE WOOL FROM FABRICS IN WHICH THE SAME EXISTS TOGETHER WITH SILK OR
VEGETABLE TEXTILE FIBRES" to be as follows :—
The object of this Invention is to recover the wool or other similar animal
textile fibres, such, for instance, as alpaca; cashmere, goats' hair, &c., in a state
fit for being again manufactured, from fabrics in which the same exist together
with silk or vegetable textile fibres, such, for instance, as cotton, flax, hemp,
jute, china grass, phormium tenax, &c., or for relieving such fabrics from the
silken or vegetable sewing threads. Hitherto this has been effected by submit-
ting the fabrics to an agent, such, for instance, as sulphuric acid, exerting a
more powerful dissolving or disintegrating action on the silken or vegetable
fibres than on the animal fibres, but the consequence of this method was to
leave these latter behind in a more or less injured state. My process consists
in submitting the fabrics first to an agent having the property of preserving
the animal textile fibres from the injurious action of the agent to be employed
afterwards for disintegrating the silk or vegetable fibres, or I may at once
submit the fabrics to the combined actions of a preserving agent of the animal,
and of a disintegrating agent of the silk or vegetable, fibres; thus, for instance,
sulphate of zinc, having a preserving action on animal fibres, and sulphuric

page_text: acid, a disintegrating action on silk or vegetable fibres; I may submit, the
fabrics first to a bath of sulphate of zinc dissolved in water, and afterwards to
a bath of diluted sulphuric acid, or I may submit the same at once to a bath
of sulphate of zinc dissolved in water and diluted sulphuric acid. In both
cases the silk or vegetable textile fibres will be entirely dissolved or sufficiently
disintegrated, whereas the animal textile fibres will remain unattacked, care
being taken that in both cases the preserving agent of the animal fibres and
the destructive agent of the silk or vegetable fibres do not neutralize or
interfere with each other, but, on the contrary, as much as possible mutually
enhance their action. A dissolution of sulphate of zinc, for instance, may be
employed (or serve) as a preserving agent for the animal fibres, whereas
sulphuric acid may be used as the destructive agent for the vegetable fibres.
The preserving agent for the animal fibres and the destructive agent for the
silk or vegetable fibres may be derived from the mineral, vegetable, or animal
kingdom, and be employed in a liquid, aëriform, or other suitable warm or
cold state, and applied directly or by the method of double decomposition;
fermentation and electricity may also be made subservient, and the action of the
agents aided by applying steam or other vapours, and a more or less elevated
atmospheric pressure, or even a partial vacuum. After having been submitted
to these processes, the goods are to be well washed in water, alkaline, soap, or
other suitable solutions, & dried.