IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING HOP BINES AND HOP ROOTS
Year: 1874

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Josephi Barling, of No. 7, High Street, Maidstone
in the County of Kent, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
TREATING HOP BINES AND HOP ROOTS."
Sealed the 25th September 1874, and dated the 6th July 1874.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Joseph Barling at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
6th July 1874.
I, JOSEPH BARLING, of No. 7, High Street, Maidstone, in the County
of Kent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING HOP BINES AND HOP ROOTS," to be as
follows:-
For some purposes of manufacture it may be necessary to use parts of
the hop bine or roots separately from other parts.
For other purposes of manufacture it may be necessary or economical
to treat the hop bine or hop root as a whole, thereby saving time and
cost of separating one part from another, and more perfectly utilising

page_text: the whole bine or whole root. The bine of the hop and the hop root
consist each of an outer sheath of bark consisting of long fibre and of an
inner core of woody substance, the cell walls of which consist of short
fibres agglutinized together by vegetable gums, and enclosing vegetable
compounds of a chemical character differing in quality or in degree very
much from the compounds existing in the outer sheath of bark.
In the Specification of a former Patent granted to me, No. 960, in the
year 1854, I described a course of treatment to be applied to the outer
sheath of bark either of the bine or root of the hop, and which does not
impair the bleaching qualities of such outer sheath of bark, but which
course of treatment, if applied to the combined materials of outer sheath
of bark and inner core of woody substance, would greatly impare or
wholly prevent the bleaching of the inner core of woody substance.
By my present Invention I am enabled to bleech the hop bine or hop
root as a whole. This result I arrive at by so controlling the preliminary
treatment of the whole bine or whole root in the process of boiling in an
ordinary alkaline solution, that while I sufficiently soften the whole
bine or root of the hop plant and free them from the gums, and some of
the coloring matters which must be discharged before good bleaching
can be accomplished, I so control the temperature of the boiling as to
keep it under that point to which if the temperature be raised some of
the chemical constituents of the core or woody substance of the bine or
root of the hop would be so altered as to become a fixed dye in that
portion of the bine or root. Such control of temperature being observed
both in the boiling in alkaline solution and in the subsequent boiling
in water.
In some cases also after the alkaline solution has been withdrawn
from the bine or roots of the hop plant I submit them to a steaming
process, the temperature of the steam being similarly controlled.
In some cases also I employ steaming in conjunction with alternate
solutions of alkali, such steaming having for its object the removal of
some coloring matter of the bine or roots or parts of the same.
After the hop bine or hop root has been prepared in the above manner
it may be submitted to the ordinary bleaching processes. The pulp is
suitable for making white paper and for other purposes.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Joseph Barling in the Great Seal Patent Office on
the 6th January 1875.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOSEPH
BARLING of No. 7, High Street, Maidstone, in the County of Kent,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Sixth day of July, in the year of our
Lord One thousand cight hundred and seventy-four, in the thirty-
eighth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors,
give and grant unto me, the said Joseph Barling, Her special license
that I, the said Joseph Barling, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, or such others as I, the said Joseph Barling, 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, exercise, and
vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN
TREATING HOP BINES AND HOP ROOTS," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Joseph Barling, 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 Joseph Barling, 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 thereof, that is to say:-
The purpose of my improved treatment of hop bine or hop roots or
+ to obtain and neo is that of

page_text: of such bleaching effective to both the inner woody portion of these
substances, and to the outer bark or long fibre of them without requiring
to separate for the purpose of bleaching the outer bark of the bine or
root from the inner woody portion of these substances. This purpose I
am enabled to effect through having discovered that certain vegetable
acids existing in the hop bine and hop root have power to act as a die
of more or less intensity on the inner woody portion of these substances
under treatment that does not produce any dyeing effect on the outer
bark or long fibre of the hop bine or hop root, and by adopting means
of neutralizing the dyeing properties of such vegetable acids on the
inner or woody portion of the bine or roots. The means I adopt for
such neutralization of the dyeing properties of these vegetable acids are
such as assist in preventing combinations of insoluble colouring matter in
the substance of the inner woody portion of the hop bine and hop roots,
and in avoiding such treatment as I find has the effect of intensifying
the insolubility and degree of colour in such coloring matter on the
inner or woody portion of the hop bine and roots.
The use to which I adapt the hop bine and hop roots or such parts of
the same as I find convenient to obtain and use, being that of bleached
paper pulp, I proceed to describe the process or treatment to which I
submit these substances to obtain such bleached pulp :-The bine or
roots I submit to the action of cutting machines, in most cases a chaff
cutting machine, by the action of which the material is cut into short
pieces, from one to two inches answers very well, though the exact
length is not of consequence further than that if the material is cut
shorter it is more costly to cut, and if cut longer it occupies unnecessary
room in the boiling vessel into which the cut bine or cut roots are put
for the purpose of being boiled in an alkaline solution, the alkaline
solution having been made caustic in the usual manner. The proportion
of such alkaline substance to the weight of the dry hop bine or hop
roots which I find suitable is that of from 20 to 30 per cent. of dry soda
ash or its equivalent weight of caustic soda; the per-centage of alkaline
matter varies a little and dependent in part upon the period at which
the bine or roots are worked, the bine worked soon after the hops are
gathered requiring rather less, and the bine worked at a period more
remote from the gathering of the hops requiring rather higher per-centage
of alkaline matter.
The vessel in which the boiling takes place may ha of one form

page_text: construction, but that to which I give preference is a boiler with a lid
or cover that can be securely fastened, to which closed boiler in any
convenient manner an orifice is provided by means of a pipe provided
with a grating, or otherwise arranged to admit of vigourous boiling taking
place without the bine or roots being able to escape from the boiler,
while the grated pipe or other small orifice restrains the temperature of
the boiling fluid to about its boiling point. The bine or roots subjected
to such treatment in such boiler for a period of from 6 to 8 hours,
dependent somewhat upon the stoutness or fineness of the bine or roots,
and the season at which they are worked, is now freed from the coloured
and spent alkaline solution by the latter being run out of the boiler by
a suitable valve placed under a perforated false bottom which is fixed
inside the boiling vessel, and on which as the spent boiling liquor is
discharged the bine or roots rests. This spent boiling liquor it is
important to discharge as soon as the boiling of the bine or roots is
completed, for if such coloured liquor is allowed to cool down, while bine
or roots is in it portions of the inner woody matter takes in and fixes
this colouring solution, so that bleaching of such bine or roots is very
imperfect and very costly.. The spent boiling liquor being discharged as
soon as the boiling is completed I immediately turn steam under the
perforated false bottom of the boiling vessel for the purpose of more com-
pletely discharging a portion of the colouring matter. This is effected in
part by the action of the steam driving out the colouring liquor which is
in the woody cellular substance of the inner portion of the hop bine and
hop root, and partly by the bleaching action of steam in union with a
portion of alkaline matter within or on the material exposed to the
action of the steam. Such steaming I continue for a space of 4 or more
hours, as I find necessary, and when such steaming is discontinued a
shower of warm or cold water is distributed over the steamed bine to
remove a further portion of coloring matter, or to cool down the contents
of the boiler previous to emptying it; during such steaming as above
described, the orifice or grated pipe of small area attached to the boiler
has allowed a portion of steam to escape and restrained the temperature
of the steam from rising much in excess of the boiling point.
The purpose I effect by restraining the temperature of the boiling
alkaline solution, and the steaming process to which the hop bine or
roots is subjected is the prevention of insoluble coloring in the inner
woody portions of these substances, and also preventing the intensifying

page_text: of the degree of color that may under certain conditions be produced on
the inner woody portions of the hop bine or hop root by the union of
certain substances contained in the water in which the hop bine or roots
mixed with alkaline substances arc boiled.
Water containing calcareous matter has especially the power of fixing
the color, and the degree of color is intensified by an increase of
temperature beyond the boiling point in solutions holding such calcareous
matter, which appears to unite with the vegetable acids before-mentioned,
and to fix and increase their dyeing power on the portions of the hop bine or
hop root before described. The hop bine or roots being boiled and steamed
and washed in the boiler is now discharged from the boiler and submitted
to the action of a rag engine, in which engine it is broken up as half
stuff, and at the same time it is continuously washed till the water
leaving the rag engine is free from the color of the hop bine or roots,
about / portion of the water is then withdrawn from the engine by the
process understood by the term washing down or otherwise. The hop
bine or roots being thus brought into the condition of half stuff I
proceed to partially bleach the same, and prefer to effect this by adding
a solution of bleaching powder or liquid chloride of lime to the half stuff
and water remaining in the rag engine, the action of the roll of the
engine thoroughly incorporating the bleaching liquor with the half stuff,
and the half stuff is kept circulating in the engine till the bleaching
liquor appears spent, when the contents of the rag engine are drawn off
into suitable chests or tanks furnished with perforated draining plates,
and suitable valves under such draining plates, which admit of being
closed so as to retain both the half stuff and bleaching liquor, or of
drawing off the spent bleaching liquor and draining the half stuff when
such valves are opened. I prefer to draw off the spent bleaching liquor
from this first partial bleaching process at once and allow the half stuff
to drain as perfectly as the time will admit.
The draining being effected I put the partially bleached half stuff into
the rag engine, into which a solution of chloride of lime is added
sufficient to accomplish the degree of bleaching required, the roll of the
rag engine thoroughly mixing the half stuff with the bleaching liquor,
which when accomplished I draw off the contents of the rag engine into
chests or vats as before described, the valves of such chests or vats being
closed that the half stuff may steep in the bleaching liquor, the whole
being agitated or stirred so as to be equally exposed to the bleaching

page_text: action of the chloride of lime solution, or the bleaching may take placo
in a poaching engine, as may be convenient, and in a manner well
understood during the partial bleaching, or in the subsequent bleaching
the half stuff may be soured either for the purpose of setting free any
chlorine or the purpose of assisting in the separating of the fibres of the
half stuff.
Though I prefer to effect the bleaching by two operations as described
I do not confine myself to this exact method. The half stuff may be
bleached either wholly or in part by chlorine gas, or it may be bleached
by one operation with solution of chlorine, but whether bleached either
way such bleaching will be more certain and more economical of
bleaching material as applied to the whole hop bine or hop roots, for the
purpose of adapting these substances for bleached paper pulp through
the treatment I have described for neutralizing the dyeing action of the
vegetable acids of the bine or roots under the conditions explained.
I would also explain that the whole hop root is rarely obtainable but
in some districts in which hops are cultivated portions of the hop root
are pruned or cut away from the root which remains in the ground, but
whether using such prunings or the whole hop root or whole hop bine
my treatment extends to the entire material operated on without
separation of the outer bark from the inner woody portion of these
substances, for the purpose of a separate treatment of one part distinct
from the treatment of the other part of the bine or roots for the purpose
of bleached paper pulp.
Having now described the treatment to which I subject the hop bine
or hop roots for the purpose of adapting these substances for use as
bleached paper pulp, I would state that I claim as new and as my
Invention the treatment of hop bine and hop roots in the manner herein-
before described, for the purpose of adapting these substances as a whole
and without having occasion to separate the outer bark of the hop bine
or hop root from the inner or more woody portions of these substances to
the purpose of bleached paper pulp.
I also claim as new the application of steam to the hop bine and hop
root after they have been boiled in alkaline solutions at about ordinary
atmospheric pressure, such steaming serving both for the purpose of
mechanically expelling the coloring matter from the woody cellular
matter of hop bine and hop roots, and also for its partial bleaching

page_text: action in combination with the alkaline substances both on and in the.
substances named under the conditions described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Joseph Barling, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Sixth day of January, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy- 5
five.