IMPROVE- MENTS IN PREPARING OR TREATING WOOD AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBROUS MATERIALS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF PULP FOR PAPER
Year: 1865

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Clark, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County
of Middlesex, Engineer and Patent Agent, for the Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN PREPARING OR TREATING WOOD AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBROUS
MATERIALS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF PULP FOR PAPER." -A communication
from abroad by Zéphirin Gaspard Alexandre Nathan Pétrone Orioli,
Chemist, Amable Alfred Fredet, Engineer, and Pierre Amable Henri
Mall of Boulement St Martin Paris
Sealed the 19th June 1865, and dated the 10th January 1865.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Clark at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents with his Petition, on the 10th
January 1865.
I, WILLIAM CLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex,
Engineer and Patent Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN PREPARING OR TREATING WOOD AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBROUS
MATERIALS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF PULP FOR PAPER," to be as follows:-
This Invention relates to the application of aqua regia for the purpose of
destroying, dissolving, and effecting the disintegration of all the gummy portions
of ligneous matters without injuring the cellular tissue. The coloring matters
are also at same time transferred into pieric acid and chlorated composites,
which are easily eliminated by washing, steeping, and the use of chlorine.
I

page_text: thus obtain long diaphanous filaments possessing suppleness, elasticity, strength,
and comparable to those obtained from rags. The aqua regia is composed of
from five to forty per cent. of nitric acid and from sixty to ninety-five per
cent. of hydrochloric acid. The nitric acid is employed in a raw state as it
leaves the apparatus in which it is made before being bleached. The hydro-
chloric acid being that used in commerce. The variation in the proportions
of the two acids constituting the aqua regia is rendered necessary by the
difference in the nature of the colored and gummy elements contained in the
vegetable fibre. Thus a preliminary trial is indispensable in each case for
fixing the composition of the acid bath. This point being determined, I
proceed as follows:-
1st, I reduce the wood to shavings, or if straw or other vegetable matters
of small size into fragments, and then dry them for preventing any excess of
water from weakening the aqua regia.
2ndly, I digest these shavings or fragments in the acid bath until they have
absorbed their weight of the reagent. Any excess of acid remaining after this
absorption may serve the same as puro aqua regia for a similar purpose.
3rdly, the ligneous matters after being withdrawn from the bath are washed
in plenty of water, and the fibres then crushed by means of a vertical mill
similar to those employed in the manufacture of straw paper.
4thly, I thus obtain a pulp of a yellowish brown color which after being
again washed may be submitted to the steeping and bleaching operations
usual in the manufacture of paper.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said William Clark in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
5th July 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
OLARK, of 53, Chancery Lane, in the County of Middlesex, Engineer and
Patent Agent, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Tenth day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, in the twenty-eighth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me,
the said William Clark, Her special licence that 1, the said William Clark,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said
William Clark, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any

page_text: time agree with, and no others, from time to time, and at all times there-
after during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN PREPARING OR TREATING WOOD AND OTHER VEGETABLE FIBROUS
MATERIALS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF PULP FOR PAPER," a communication to me
from abroad by Zéphirin Gaspard Alexandre Nathan Pétrone Orioli, Chemist,
Amable Alfred Fredet, Engineer, and Pierre Amable Henri Matussière,
Merchant, all of 29, Boulevart St. Martin, Paris, upon the condition
(amongst others) that I, the said William Clark, my executors or adminis-
trators, by an instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their
hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause
the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar
months next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said William Clark, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the
following statement (that is to say) :-
The
This Invention relates to the application of aqua regia for the purpose of
destroying, dissolving, and effecting the disintegration of all the gummy
portions of ligneous matters without injuring the cellular tissue.
coloring matters are also at same time transformed into pieric acid and
chlorated composites, which are easily eliminated by washing, steeping, and
the use of chlorine. I thus obtain long diaphanous filaments possessing
suppleness, elasticity, strength, which will bear comparison with those obtained
from rags.
The
aqua regia is composed of from five to forty per cent. of nitric
acid, and from sixty to ninety-five per cent. of hydrochloric acid. The nitric
acid is employed in a raw state as it leaves the apparatus in which it is made
before being bleached. The hydrochloric acid is that used in commerce.
The variation in the proportions of the two acids constituting the aqua regia
is rendered necessary by the difference in the nature of the colored and
gummy elements contained in the vegetable fibre. Thus a preliminary trial
is indispensable in each case for fixing the composition of the acid bath.
This point being determined, I proceed as follows:-
1st, I reduce the wood to shavings, or if straw or other vegetable matters
of small size into fragments, and then dry them for preventing any excess of
water from weakening the aqua regia.
2ndly, I digest these shavings or fragments in the acid bath until they have

page_text: absorbed their weight of the reagent, any excess of acid remaining after this
absorption may serve the same as pure aqua regia for a similar purpose.
3rdly, the ligneous matters after being withdrawn from the bath are
washed in plenty of water, and the fibres then separated by means of a vertical
mill similar to those employed in the manufacture of straw paper.
4thly, I thus obtain a pulp of a yellowish brown color which after being
again washed may be submitted to the steeping and bleaching operations
usual in the manufacture of paper.
Having described the nature of this Invention, and the manner of perform-
ing the same, I declare that what I claim as the Invention to be protected by
the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is, the herein described process
for transforming vegetable matters and especially wood into pulp for paper by
the aid of aqua regia as herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Clark, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fifth day of July, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-five.
Witness,
JAMES DAISE,
53, Chancery Lane,
London.
[W. CLARK. (L.S.)