IMPROVEMENTS IN. MAKING PAPER
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Hay, of Glasgow, in the County of
Lanark, North Britain, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN.
MAKING PAPER."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Hay at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
26th January 1870.
-
10.
I, WILLIAM HAY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North
Britain, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "Im-
PROVEMENTS IN MAKING PAPER," to be as follows, that is to say:—
•
This Invention has for its objects the reducing of the cost of paper
and the utilising of hitherto comparatively waste materials, and consists
in using the husks or hulls of oats as the materials out of which to.
make the paper, either alone or mixed with other known paper-making
materials. The oat husks may be ground, partially ground, or bruised
in the dry state, and then steeped in water, or they may be ground or
•

page_text: reduced in or accompanied by a stream of water. The moistened and
reduced husks are boiled, by preference under pressure, in a solution of
caustic soda or other suitable alkali, and after being freed from the
alkali by washing are bleached by means of chlorine or sulphurous acid.
Or the oat husks may be merely steeped in water before being boiled
with alkali and bleached, the grinding or reducing being dispensed with.
The bleached materials aro converted into pulp in the ordinary paper
makers' beating engine and made into paper in the ordinary way.
-SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said William Hay in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 23rd July 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
HAY, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-sixth day of January, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy, in the
thirty-third year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs, and suc-
cessors, give and grant unto me, the said William Hay, Her special
licence that I, the said William Hay, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said William Hay, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during the term
therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exerciso, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ircland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
MAKING PAPER," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
William Hay, my executors or administrators, 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 Hay, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to

page_text: be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement in writing, that is to say: :—
My said Invention has for its objects the reducing of the cost of paper
and the utilising of hitherto comparatively waste materials, and consists
in using the husks or hulls of oats when suitably prepared as. the
materials out of which to make the paper, either alone or mixed with
other known paper-making materials.
And in order that my said Invention and tlie manner of performing
the same may be properly understood, I shall proceed to particularly
describe the means, treatment, or processes. whereby I prepare or render
the oat husks suitable for making paper on the manufacturing scale.
I first immerse the oat husks in water in a tank or other convenient
vessel in order to float off mustard and other seeds with which
they are generally more or less mixed, and which if not separated
materially deteriorate the quality of the paper. It is of advantage to
have the water well stirred, as it facilitates the separation of the foreign
seeds and allows them to float to the surface. The oat husks are then
allowed to settle, and the surface scum and floating seeds are drawn off
by an overflow pipe at the top of the tank, or skimmed off by a rake or
other tool,.or otherwise removed, after which the water is drained from
the oat husks by a waste water pipe at the bottom of the tank and
beneath a perforated false bottom, or fitted with a strainer which retains
the oat busks. The oat husks may be left to steep in the water for from
five to ten hours after or during the removal of the scum, as this steeping
by softening them and helping to loosen the silica from the fibre
facilitates the subsequent boiling process. Instead of draining off the
water it or part of it may be transferred with the oat husks to the
boiler..
Under a modification of this part of my Invention I grind or bruise
the oat husks before steeping them, by which grinding or bruising they
are opened up and the silica is partially loosened, so that the subsequent
treatment with alkali hereafter mentioned is rendered casier than when
the oat husks are in the rough state or only steeped. After being ground
the oat husks are or may be sifted through an ordinary wire sifter or
through a bolting machine having wire cloth of a mesh that will allow
the dust detached by grinding to pass through and be thus separated
from the larger and more fibrous parts, which latter pass over the end of
the machine and are in a state fit to be conveyed to the boiler. For the
L'

page_text: grinding or bruising operation I prefer to use millstones of the kind
known as "Derby greystones," but other kinds of millstones may be
used, or a pair of rollers, it being expedient for the oat husks to be sifted
after grinding. Or the oat husks instead of being ground or bruised
before steeping may be ground, bruised, or disintegrated after being
steeped by being made to pass in the damp state or with a stream of
water through between millstones or rolls, preferably between rolls the
surfaces of which move at different speeds.
Having prepared the oat husks as herein-before described I boil them
with caustic soda or other suitable alkali in a stationary or revolving
boiler. The object of using a revolving boiler is to obtain a uniform
action of the alkali, to which end it is necessary for the solution and the
oat husks to be kept constantly in a state of agitation, and the agitation
is increased by having blades fixed to the inside of the revolving boiler.
About the same results can however be obtained in a stationary boiler
when fitted, as I prefer it to be, with an agitator, such, for example, as
a revolving vertical shaft having arms or blades near its bottom end, and
nearly in contact with the bottom of the boiler. I prefer to boil the oat
husks under pressure, but the pressure, the proportion of alkali, and the
duration of the boiling process may be varied. Thus the time required
may be diminished either by increasing the proportion of alkali or the
steam pressure; but by way of example I may state that with pressures
from five to forty pounds per square inch fourteen to twenty-four pounds
of caustic soda (containing sixty per centum pure soda) may be used
with every hundredweight of oat husks prepared as herein-before men-
tioned, and the boiling may be continued for from six to ten hours.
With a pressure of two hundred pounds per square inch and with twelvo
to eighteen pounds of caustic soda to the hundredweight of oat husks, I
bave found two to three hours to be a sufficient time for producing the
desired effect. It is known when the boiling with alkali has been
sufficient by the husks feeling soft and greasy, and when pressed not
springing back, but forming a ball or lump in the hand. On the com-
pletion of the boiling process the alkali is carefully washed out of the
oat husks, and these are beaten into pulp by an engine of the kind
ordinarily used for rags and esparto. The pulp is then bleached, say, by
incans of chloride of lime in the ordinary way, or by sulphurous acid,
from ten to eighteen pounds of the chloride being used for every
hundredweight of the oat husks, and the duration of the treatment being

page_text: from six to ten hours. The pulp is next washed and strained, and is
then ready for conversion into paper in the ordinary way, either by itself
or mixed with pulp from rags, esparto, or other material.
By the processes herein-before described the oat husks are converted
into a pulp suitable for white paper, but for making pulp. for brown
papers or millboards, for which the oat husks are admirably adapted,
a smaller proportion of alkali may be used, say from five to ten pounds
of caustic soda to the hundredweight of oat husks prepared as herein-
before mentioned, whilst the bleaching process may be omitted.
Having thus particularly described my said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, I have to state that I do not
restrict myself to the preciso details herein described or indicated; but
that what I believe to be novel and original, and claim as the Invention
secured to me by the herein-before in part recited Letters Patent is, the
applying of oat husks prepared or treated substantially as herein-before
described for making paper, either alone or mixed with other paper-
making materials.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Hay, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-second day of July, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
Witness,
EDMUND HUNT,
Patent Agent,
Glasgow.
W. HAY. (L.S.)