IMPROVE- MENTS IN THE PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PREPARING MATERIALS FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER, AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS FROM AGENTS USED IN THE SAID PROCESS, PART OF THE INVENTION BEING ALSO APPLICABLE TO APPARATUS FOR WASHING
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Michael Henry at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 3rd May
1862. A communication from abroad by Jean Baptiste Vasseur and
Xavier Lamotte, both of 33, Boulevard Saint Martin, Paris, France.
I, MICHAEL HENRY, of 84, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN THE PROCESS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PREPARING MATERIALS FOR THE
MANUFACTURE OF PAPER, AND IN OBTAINING PRODUCTS FROM AGENTS USED IN THE
SAID PROCESS, PART OF THE INVENTION BEING ALSO APPLICABLE TO APPARATUS FOR
WASHING," communicated to me from abroad by Jean Baptiste Vasseur and
Xavier Lamotte, both of 33, Boulevard Saint Martin, Paris, France, to be as
follows:-
Plants and other vegetable materials are prepared for the manufacture of
paper by subjecting them to a process of disintegration or preparation in
order to obtain the cellulose. I may mention that the most usual mode of
disintegration consists in boiling the materials, or subjecting them to heat or
steam, and at the same time treating them with alkaline solutions or other
agents.
Heretofore in various methods of disintegrating, the materials have been
operated on in thick masses or heaps; whereas according to these improvements
the materials are disposed in or separated into thin layers or strata, which are
divided or separated from each other, and in that divided or separate
condition undergo the boiling, heating, steaming, alkaline treatment, washing,
or other disintegrating or preparing process or processes. Moreover while

page_text: the process is being carried on the materials should be kept from contact with
the sides of the boiler, receiver, or holder containing them. They may also be
separated, stirred, or moved about during the treatment.
Here a
Various apparatus may be used for carrying out the Invention, but I
proceed to describe one arrangement well adapted for the purpose.
number of baskets or trays constructed of wirework or perforated or reticulated
metal, and connected by a brace, framing, or mounting are placed in a vertical
boiler or receiver, and are so arranged that they, the said baskets or trays,
fit into one another, one entering the other to about or rather less than half
its depth, so that as the material becomes reduced (as the operation proceeds)
a space is left, or is increased between the layer of material in the basket or
tray and the bottom of the basket or tray next immediately over it.
The arrangement may also be adapted to horizontal boilers or receivers. A
small railway may be used to convey the baskets or trays, or the baskets or
trays may be enclosed in a larger basket or tray revolving within the boiler or
receiver.
The apparatus may be applied to washing textile fabrics and other articles,
especially in lyes.
For some cases it is recommended to carry on the boiling for three to four
hours; under a pressure of four atmospheres; but these details may be varied.
The operation may sometimes be carried on as follows:-After the builing
the lyes are drawn off and collected, and the materials washed in pure water
under the same pressure as that used for the boiling for half an hour more or
less. This wash water or bath is then added to the lyes. The washing may
be repeated as desired. Also, after taking the materials from the apparatus
they may, in some cases, be treated with an acid bath (acidulated with cheap
acids). The materials after being taken from the apparatus may be dried in
their full length, and bleached by the same mode and means as are adopted
for bleaching rags. The materials may be bleached in their entire length by
separating and "insulating" them in either a dry.or wet state. From the lyes a
material may be extracted suitable for the manufacture of picric acid, or an
acid resembling it, or a yellow coloring acid like picric acid, and this may be
manufactured by means of nitric acid. The lyes may be continually "revi-
vified" or restored after extracting the said matters, so as to obtain from them
the alkaline salts which they may contain, by leaving them to cool or evaporate.
The collected lyes hold in suspension a saponaceous compound consisting of
the alkali used in the lye and the portions of the plant that have been
separated from the cellulose. A small quantity of sulphuric or other acid is
added to the lye, and the mixture filtered, and a matter is obtained from the

page_text: filter suitable for manufacturing picric acid, or a like acid. On treating it like
heavy oils distilled from coal with nitric acid, the liquor that has passed
through the filter holds in solution an alkaline salt, of which the acid is to
be saturated with a carbonate, and it is again brought to a caustic condition
by adding to it an alkaline salt, and the whole then treated with lime to obtain
a caustic lye, and precipitate the carbonates, sulphates, and other matters
which are formed. Also the used filtered lyes may be left to cool or
evaporate in the air. or sun to collect and obtain therefrom their alkaline salts.