AN IMPROVED COMBINATION OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES FOR THE CONVERSION OF FIBROUS VEGETABLE MATTERS INTO PAPER PULP
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Marc Antoine François Mennons, of the British and
Foreign Patent Offices, 39. Rue de l'Echiquier Paris in the Empire of
France, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED COMBINATION OF CHEMICAL AND
MECHANICAL PROCESSES FOR THE CONVERSION OF FIBROUS VEGETABLE MATTERS
INTO PAPER PULP." A communication from Louis Achille Carteron,
residing at Dieuze (Dept. de la Meurthe).
-
France, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED COMBINATION OF CHEMICAL AND
MECHANICAL PROCESSES FOR THE CONVERSION OF FIBROUS VEGETABLE MATTERS
INTO PAPER PULP." _ A communication from Louis Achille Carteron,
residing at Dieuze (Dept. de la Meurthe).
-
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION filed by the said Marc Antoine François
Mennons at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with bis Petition
and Declaration, on the 12th September 1861, pursuant to the 9th
Section of the Patent Law Amendment Act, 1852.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MARC
ANTOINE FRANÇOIS MENNONS, of the British and Foreign Patent Offices, 39,
Rue de l'Echiquier, Paris, in the Empire of France, send greeting.
WHEREAS I am in possession of an Invention for "AN IMPROVED COM-
BINATION OF CHEMICAL AND MECHANICAL PROCESSES FOR THE CONVERSION OF FIBROUS
VEGETABLE MATTERS INTO PAPER PULP," communicated to me by Louis Achille
Carteron, a person resident at Dieuze (Dept. de la Meurthe), and have
petitioned Her Majesty to grant unto me, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, Her Royal Letters Patent for the same, and have made solemn
declaration that it is a communication.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Mare Antoine François Mennons, do
hereby declare that the following Complete Specification under my hand and
seal fully describes and ascertains the nature of the Invention and the

page_text: manner in which the same is to 00 performed, reference being had to the
accompanying Drawings, and to the letters marked thereon, that is to say:-
The Invention communicated to me consists in a combination of chemical
and mechanical processes by means of which fibrous vegetable matters of almost
every description may, in substitution to rags, be transformed into paper pulps
with lesser expenditure of time and manual labour than by any of the modes of
treatment at present adopted.
Plate 1 of the accompanying Drawings represents in elevation and plan tho
complete range of machinery erected in a building of suitable construction and
dimensions.
Plate 2 is a cross section of the same.
In both these plates the similar parts of the combination are indicated by
the same letters of reference. A is the truck by which the sacks of raw
material are brought from the store to the foot of the elevator B; C, truck on
which the sacks delivered by the elevator are carried to the macerating and
acid baths D; E, truck by which the macerated product is carried to the
repose stages F; G, washing and bleaching vats; II, reservoir, containing the
bleaching solution; I, valves, set in the double bottom of the bleaching vats,
and giving passage to the solution into the reservoir II; J, valves for the
thorough washing; K, water cocks; K', stop-cocks, for the bleaching solution;
L, conduits, by which the pulp is carried to the agitating troughs M; N,
purifiers; O, agitating troughs, discharging into the partitioned draining
cases P; Q, extractors; R, reservoirs for the acid bath, communicating by
pipes with the macerating vats; S, large reservoir for the bleaching solution;
T, U, V, main and secondary transmission gear; X, straight rack gear;
Y, cones; Z, recipient for the finished pulp; 1, steam engine; 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 14, retaining walls.
Plate 3, details of the purifiers N. A, straining plate, pierced with orifices
of about one-twelfth of an inch in diameter; B, framework; C, basement;
D, rest; E, supports of the excentric; F, pedestals of the wheel gear G;
II, vertical shaft of the excentric; branch of the excentric; J, nut of tho
same; K, connecting rod; L, L, fast and loose pullies; M, main shaft;
0, oil cup; P, case of the purifier; Q, entry conduit of the pulp; R, water
conduit; S, stop-cock of the same; T, valve of the pulp conduit; U, outlet
of the purified pulp.
Among the vegetable products from which the most advantageous results
are obtained by this improved combination may be noted straw, wood, ferns,
aloes, spartium, nettles, dwarf palm, and banana, but as the modus operandi
is with certain trifling exceptions the same for all, it will suffice here to

page_text: describe as example the application of the Invention to the treatment of
straw.
The first operation is to reduce the straw in its rough uncleaned state to
lengths of from eight to twelve inches by means of ordinary cutting machinery.
To produce, say, two hundredweights of pulp about double that quantity of
this cut straw is carried by the elevator B, and the truck C to the cast-
iron vats D, and over the mass is poured a boiling caustic lye composed of,-
water, about two hundred and twelve pounds; slacked lime, about seventy-two
pounds; crude caustic soda, about thirty-six pounds. After a five hours'
marceration in this lye, the straw is washed by a current of water, on the
completion of which operation it is exposed for two hours to the action of the
acid bath brought from the reservoir R, and composed of water and sulphuric
or hydrochloric acid gauging 1° (Beaumé). At the expiration of these two
hours the acid solution is drawn off by the stop-cocks set in the bottom of the
vats D, which are then turned over on their trunnions and emptied into the
truck E. By this truck the raw material is carried to the repose stages F,
where it is left for twenty-four hours, after which it is passed to the bleaching
vats G, charged with a solution of chloride of lime gauging 3° (Beaumé) and
is there reduced to pulp in about forty minutes. From the bleaching vats G
the pulp falls into the agitators M, from thence into the purifiers N, in which
it is freed from knots and other extraneous matters; from the purifiers it
passes to the drainers K, and finally from thence to the hydro-extractors Q, on
leaving which it is ready for conversion into paper.
Having now fully described and ascertained the nature of the said Invention,
and the manner of carrying it into effect, I declare that, without confining
myself to the precise details herein laid down, I claim and desire to secure by
Letters Patent the improved combination of chemical and mechanical processes,
substantially as above set forth, and represented in the Drawings, by means of
which fibrous vegetable matters of almost every description may be economically
and expeditiously converted into paper pulps.
In witness whereof, I, the said Marc Antoine François Mennons, have
hereto set my hand and seal, this Eleventh day of September, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one.
M. F. MENNONS. (L.S.)