Year: 1885

page_text: I JOHN CLAYTON MEWBURN, of 169 Fleet Street, in the City of London, Fellow
of the Institute of Patent Agents do hereby declare the nature of this invention to
be as follows:-
The two processes which have generally been employed up to the present for
obtaining bleached threads are the following:-
According to the first process, the thread from the spinning machine is wound
on cops or bobbins and has to be unwound so as to get it into skeins or lengths for
submitting to the bleaching operations; there are thus hand work and waste. The
bleaching lasts several days (which is a loss of time) and it is well known that after
this treatment the thread has much less strength than when unbleached and has
lost from 4 to 6 per cent of its weight. The bleached thread being in skeins or
lengths has to be rewound on bobbins or cops so as to be used as a warp or weft;
this means more hand work and waste.
According to the second process the thread is bleached on cops but here again
there is a loss of weight amounting to 4 or 5 per cent, and this is on a product the
cost of which has been increased by all the operations in the spinning mill.
Further it is difficult to obtain perfect conformity in the thread and the strength
of the thread is often more or less weakened.
To avoid these objections, the cost of hand labor, loss of time, and waste,
attempts have been made by others to bleach cotton before spinning but two main
defects have always arisen and they have not been overcome. These defects are:
first, that the baths, lyes, and decolorizing substances always affect the fibre
rendering it brittle, harsh and hard for spinning; and second, that the insoluble
residues necessarily left in the bleached fibre soon injuriously act on the cards.
By the process which forms the subject of the present invention the long sought
for result is attained, that is to say, to quickly, perfectly and cheaply bleach the
unspun fibre. The bleaching can be effected in 24 hours, or on a large scale in
two days including the time occupied in drying. The bleached cotton sliver
remains soft and can be worked as easily as the unbleached and without waste or
[Price 8d.l

page_text: supplementary operations. All the strength of the unbleached fibre being pre-
served a strong thread of the desired fineness and uniform whiteness is always
obtained.
To obtain these results the cotton is bleached in the state of carded, drawn, or
combed sliver; this is the characteristic feature of the process. The carded or
drawn sliver thus bleached can be subsequently submitted to the final operations
of drawing and spinning, or even of spinning only, with as much facility as if it
were still unbleached.
In order to bleach the carded or drawn cotton it is placed carefully in lattice or
open work boxes; these boxes are then put into a bleaching vessel or chamber
which is hermetic, its joints being made tight with india rubber. The boxes are
superposed one above another horizontally with spaces between them sufficient to
allow of the free circulation of the liquids which are to be introduced into the
vessel, the boxes being then completely submerged. There is a cock for intro-
ducing air or liquid to the vessel, a suction cock, and one or more emptying cocks.
The carded or drawn fibres are submitted to the following operations in this
vessel:-
1. To the action of a preparing bath composed of quillaria saponaria 1 kilo-
gramme; oxalic acid 500 grammes; water (distilled if possible) 100 kilogrammes.
2. To the action of a special lye made as follows:-To 90 litres of lye marking
about 30° to 32° Baumé and of 19 to 21 alkalimetric degrees per cent, add about
10 litres of solution of chloride of lime (Ca O ClO) of 10 chlorometric degrees and
further about 8 grammes of permanganate of potass.
3. To the action of a decolorizing bath of a hypochlorite and preferably of a
neutral hypochlorite employed in a proportion corresponding to 8 to 14 litres of
decolorizing gas per kilogramme of carded or drawn slivers to be treated and
according to the quality and color of the material.
4. To the action of a washing bath having a base of concentrated ammonia in
the proportion of 1 to 2 per thousand litres of water and at a temperature of about
20° Centigrade.
5. To washing with ordinary water.
When they have been submitted to these operations the cotton slivers in the
boxes are completely bleached and the ulterior drying operations are merely to put
them in the necessary condition of dryness to enable them to undergo without
difficulty the final operations of drawing and spinning or spinning only which at
once produce a perfectly white thread on bobbins or spools.
The process above described may be somewhat varied. For example the open-
work boxes may have substituted for them pipes or sprinklers arranged for the
purpose and the fibres may be manipulated by hand in the bleaching vessel open
or closed, but in practice the vessel or chambers before described are preferable, as
they allow of the baths being raised or lowered by means of vacuum created
through the suction cock, all hand work being thus dispensed with. If it be
required to obtain a bleached thread slightly blued it is sufficient to submit the
bleached fibres before drying to an ordinary blueing bath and this can be done in
the vessel in which the bleaching operations have been carried out.
The whole of the operations described are not absolutely indispensable in al
cases; it is possible while still obtaining good results to dispense not only with
the action of the lye but also with the steeping bath and to proceed at once to the
bypochlorite decolorizing bath.

page_text: Improvements in Bleaching Cotton and in Apparatus therefor.
I JOHN CLAYTON MEWBURN, of 169 Fleet Street, in the City of London, Fellow
of the Institute of Patent Agents do hereby declare the nature of this invention
(a communication from abroad by La Société Leblois, Piceni et Compagnie, of
1 Boulevard St Denis, Paris, France, Manufacturers,) and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement :-
The two processes which have generally been employed up to the present for
obtaining bleached threads are the following:
According to the first process, the thread from the spinning machine is wound
on cops or bobbins and has to be unwound so as to get it into skeins or lengths for
submitting to the bleaching operations; there are thus hand work and waste. The
bleaching lasts several days (which is a loss of time) and it is well known that after
this treatment the thread has much less strength than when unbleached and has
lost from 4 to 6 per cent of its weight. The bleached thread being in skeins or
lengths has to be rewound on bobbins or cops so as to be used as a warp or weft;
this means more hand work and waste.
According to the second process the thread is bleached on cops but here again
there is a loss of weight amounting to 4 or 5 per cent, and this is on a product the
cost of which has been increased by all the operations in the spinning mill.
Further it is difficult to obtain perfect conformity in the thread and the strength
of the thread is often more or less weakened.
To avoid these objections, the cost of hand labor, loss of time, and waste,
attempts have been made by others to bleach cotton before spinning but two main
defects have always arisen and they have not hitherto been overcome. These
defects are: first, that the baths, lyes, and decolorizing substances always affect the
fibre, rendering it brittle, harsh and hard for spinning; and second, that the
insoluble residues necessarily left in the bleached fibre soon injuriously act on
the cards.
By means of the present invention the long sought for result is attained, that is
to say, to quickly, perfectly, and cheaply bleach the unspun fibre. The bleaching
can be effected in 24 hours, or on a large scale in two days including the time
occupied in drying. The bleached cotton sliver remains soft and can be worked as
easily as the unbleached and without waste or supplementary operations. All the
strength of the unbleached fibre being preserved a strong thread of the desired
fineness and uniform whiteness is always obtained.
To obtain these results the cotton is bleached in the state of carded, drawn, or
combed sliver; this is the characteristic feature of the process. The carded or
drawn sliver thus bleached can be subsequently submitted to the final operations
of drawing and spinning, or even of spinning only, with as much facility as if it
were still unbleached.
Figure 1 of the annexed drawings represents an apparatus suitable for carrying
out the process. The carded or drawn cotton to be bleached is placed carefully in
Tattice or openwork boxes, such as those shown at D, D; these boxes are then put

page_text: into the bleaching vessel or chamber C which is hermetic, its joints being made
tight with india rubber. The boxes are superposed one above another horizontally
with spaces F, F between them sufficient to allow of the free circulation of the
liquids which are to be introduced into the vessel, the boxes being then completely
submerged. There is a cock A for introducing air or liquid to the vessel, a suction
cock B, and one or more emptying cocks a, a.
The carded or drawn fibres are submitted to the following operations in this
vessel :-
1. To the action of a preparing bath composed of quillaria saponaria 1 kilo-
gramme; oxalic acid 500 grammes; water (distilled if possible) 100 kilogrammes.
2. To the action of a special lye made as follows:-To 90 litres of lye marking
about 30° to 32° Baumé and of 19 to 21 alkalimetric degrees per cent, add about
10 litres of solution of chloride of lime (Ca O C1 O) of 10 chlorometric degrees and
further about 3 grammes of permanganate of potass.
3. To the action of a decolorizing bath of a hypochlorite and preferably of a
neutral hypochlorite employed in a proportion corresponding to 8 to 14 litres of
decolorizing gas per kilogramme of carded or drawn slivers to be treated and the
proportion being regulated according to the quality and color of the material.
4. To the action of a washing bath having a base of concentrated ammonia in
the proportion of 1 to 2 per thousand litres of water and at a temperature of about
20° Centigrade.
5. To washing with ordinary water.
When they have been submitted to these operations the cotton slivers in the
boxes will be found completely bleached and the ulterior drying operations are
merely to put them in the necessary condition of dryness to enable them to
undergo without difficulty the final operations of drawing and spinning, or spinning
only, which at once produce a perfectly white thread on bobbins or spools.
The process above described may be somewhat varied. For example the open-
work boxes may have substituted for them pipes or sprinklers arranged for the
purpose and the fibres may be manipulated by hand in the bleaching vessel open or
closed, but in practice the vessel or chambers before described have been found
preferable, as they allow of the baths being raised or lowered by means of vacuum
created through the suction cock, all hand work being thus dispensed with. If it
be required to obtain a bleached thread slightly blued the bleached fibres can be
submitted before drying to an ordinary blueing bath.
The whole of the operations described are not absolutely indispensable in all
cases; it is possible while still obtaining good results to dispense not only with the
action of the lye but also with the steeping bath and to proceed at once to the
hypochlorite decolorizing bath. Or the steeping and lye action only may be
effected in a vacuum chamber such as that shown in Figure 1 and the subsequent
operations of bleaching, blueing & be carried out in an apparatus such as that
shown in Figures 2 and 3. On being removed from the vessel or chamber C,
Figure 1, the openwork boxes D, D (a, a in Figures 2 and 3) are put into the places
arranged to receive them in a wheel (Figures 2 and 3) whose shaft b is supported
in bearings on the edges c, c of a vessel å for containing the baths for bleaching,
blueing & The wheel is caused to turn so as to submerge the boxes a, a
successively in the bath. The motion of the wheel can be increased, diminished or
stopped at will according to the requirements of the process and the results desired.
Instead of the wheel, an endless chain can be employed, passing over drums, the
boxes a, a being attached to it, or other suitable arrangements may be adopted for
submerging the boxes a, a in the bath.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, as communicated
to me, I declare that what I claim is:-
1. The bleaching of cotton in the state of carded, drawn or combed sliver,
substantially as set forth.

page_text: 2. The bleaching of cotton in the state of carded, drawn or combed sliver by
submitting it to operations such as are hereinbefore explained in a vacuum
chamber such as that described.
3. The bleaching of cotton by submitting it in openwork boxes to a steeping
operation or operations in a vacuum chamber and then to bleaching or other
operations in a vessel in which said boxes are submerged by means of a wheel,
endless chain or equivalent device, substantially as set forth.
4. The apparatus herein before described for the purpose set forth.