Improvements in and relating to the Treatment of Vegetable Substances and the like for Preserving and Vulcanizing the same, and for Obtaining Products of Distillation therefrom.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 5th June, 1893-Accepted, 21st Apr., 1894
Improvements in and relating to the Treatment of Vegetable
Substances and the like for Preserving and Vulcanizing the
same, and for Obtaining Products of Distillation therefrom.
I, FRIEDRICH M. GRUMBACHER, of 40 Wall Street, New York, in the United
States of America, Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and
in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:-
My invention relates to the treatment of vegetable substances, more especially
wood, with carbonic acid, while they are heated at a high air pressure. My said
invention is however also designed to be used in the heating of the wood and the
like which is to be treated at a low pressure, and the extraction of products of
distillation from vegetable substances and the like.
When any wood-preserving or hardening process at the high air-pressure (in
the air-tight receptacles), air, dried and heated to about +250 degrees centigrade
is introduced it may occur, especially in the case of inattentive or careless treatment
that the wood will be either carbonized or, if its thickness be great, it will he
heated to an insufficient extent at its core, so that the object of the whole process
will be defeated owing to the insufficient liquefaction of the sap..
For this purpose the common liquid carbonic acid, may be easily introduced into
the wood receptacle wherein a pressure of 10 atmospheres at the utmost exists.
If the air under pressure is sufficiently saturated with carbonic acid, the burning
of the highly heated vegetable substance is made almost impossible and the degree
of heat given to the air introduced may be materially increased, and when the
substance to be treated has been cooled, the hardening process may be highly
accelerated or greatly improved.
If in certain branches of manufacture, especially in the distillation of wood, a
high air pressure must not be produced in the wood receptacle, the introduction of
carbonic acid, admitting of a higher degree of heat, effects at the same time a
greater yield of antiseptic products, especially tar, resin, creosote, and carbolic
acid and other vegetable matters. These latter close up the pores of the wood and
render it much more resistant against the action of fungi and of moisture than in
other methods of treating wood, in which the use of high degrees of heat could
not be rendered possible. Moreover the strength of the wood will be considerably
increased by the binding agent filling up the pores thereof which is first semi-
liquid and subsequently hardens.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is :-
The herein described process of treating highly heated vegetable substances,
especially wood, with carbonic acid introduced at a high or low air pressure for
the purpose of heating to a higher degree the wood so treated for improving and
accelerating the hardening of the wood, and for augmenting the production of the
antiseptic products of distillation.
Dated this 5th day of June 1893.
HASELTINE, LAKE & Co.,
45, Southampton Buildings, London, W.C., Agents for the Applicant.