THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER FROM A PULP OBTAINED FROM WOOD AND ALL OTHER VEGETABLE PRODUCE OF A WOODY NATURE, BY MEANS OF THE ISOLATION OF THE CELLULAR FIBRES
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary Joseph
Blondel, Merchants, of Nantes, in the Department of Loire Inférieure,
in the Empire of France, for the Invention of "THE MANUFACTURE OF
PAPER FROM A PULP OBTAINED FROM WOOD AND ALL OTHER VEGETABLE
PRODUCE OF A WOODY NATURE, BY MEANS OF THE ISOLATION OF THE CELLULAR
FIBRES."
Sealed the 9th August 1861, and dated the 16th February 1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Ernest Henry Barré
and Charles Mary Joseph Blondel at the Office of the Commissioners of
Patents, with their Petition, on the 16th February 1861.
We, the undersigned, ERNEST HENRY BARRE and CHARLES MARY JOSEPII
BLONDEL, Merchants, of Nantes, in the Department of Loire Inferieure, in
the Empire of France, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER PROM A PULP OBTAINED FROM WOOD AND ALL OTHER
VEGETABLE PRODUCE OF A WOODY NATURE, BY MEANS OF THE ISOLATION OF THE
CELLULAR FIBRES," to be as follows:-
The pulp from which paper is manufactured is obtainable from wood and
every species of ligneous plant, the entire secret cousisting in isolating or
separating the cellular tissue, which decomposition being effected, and several
washings having taken place, a brown pulp will be obtained, more or less fine

page_text: according to the greater or lesser degree of preparation which it will have
experienced, and which pulp will offer all the advantages of pulp obtained
from rags.
We propose cutting the wood into thin pieces, which we place in a closed
receptacle in contact with an equal weight of the nitric acid of commerce, and
leave in maceration from twenty-four to thirty hours, according to the hardness
(of the wood). We add a quantity of cold water equal to four times the
weight of the nitric acid used, and boil until the wood disintegrates easily.
We propose then to saturate the nitric acid with a sufficient quantity of
carbonate of soda. The pulp thus prepared will require several washings to
clear it entirely from the nitric acid which it may contain, and its bleaching will
be completed by the use of chlorine and the ordinary processes.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary Joseph Blondel in
the Great Seal Patent Office on the 14th August 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, we, ERNEST
HENRY BARRÉ and CHARLES MARY JOSEPH BLONDEL, Merchants, of Nantes,
in the Department of Loire Inferieure, in the Empire of France, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing dato the Sixteenth day of February, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
us, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary Joseph Blondel, Her
special licence that we, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary
Joseph Blondel, our executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as we, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary Joseph Blondel, our
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 "THE MANUFACTURE OF PAPER FROM A PULP
OBTAINED FROM WOOD AND ALL OTHER VEGETABLE PRODUCE OF A WOODY NATURE,
BY MEANS OF THE ISOLATION OF THE CELLULAR FIBRES," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary
Joseph Blondel, our executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing

page_text: under our, or one of our, their, or one of their hands and seals, should par-
ticularly 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 we, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles
Mary Joseph Blondel, do hereby declare the nature of our said Invention, and
in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:-
Previously to describing the process by which we obtain paper from wood,
we would lay down the principle which has led us to such result. The matter
of which the paper is composed is a substance known in chemistry as cellulose
or cellular tissue which forms vegetable fibre, and which, save a few incrusting
matters, is almost exclusively the constituant part of every plant, whether
ligneous or herbaceous; therefore, if the cellulose or, to speak more clearly,
the vegetable fibre, can be isolated, the material for the manufacture of the
paper is obtained. The question being thus put it remains to find a chemical
agent sufficiently energetic to effect the isolation or separation of the ligneous
fibres promptly and, as much as possible, without loss of substance. Amongst
the chemical agents capable of separating the ligneous fibres, nitric acid
seemed to us to present the most incontestable advantages, and in effect
its action is prompt, and after being used it may be regenerated or recovered,
if not wholly, at least, in great measure, as, notwithstanding a very indifferent
plant, we have been enabled to recover four-fifths of the acid employed, and
lastly, its price is relatively very moderate. The acid which we use is the nitric
acid of commerce, marking thirty-six degrees by "Baumé's" aerometer.
We will now set forth the result of our observations of the action of the
acid upon the wood, and the process followed by us in arriving at the result
sought, previously observing that our observations and our process are applicable
not only to wood but equally to every vegetable substance containing ligneous
fibres, but the quantity of acid necessary to the disaggregation of certain
substances is less than is required for wood, for example, straws and other
herbaceous plants may be dissolved with twenty-five per cent of acid. If upon
a certain quantity of wood be poured one half its weight of nitric acid the
matter will become red, heat promptly, and disengage nitrous vapours issuing
bi-oxyde of azote. This elevation of temperature and disengagement of bi-
oxyde of azote are produced by the energetic manner in which the acid com-
bines with the incrusting substances of the wood. This phenomena, which
involves the partial decomposition of the acid, will be partly avoided if care be

page_text: taken to pour the acid on wood soaked with water and not dry. The wood
recovers by degrees its original outline, and the acid which penetrates it
disaggregates the ligneous fibres and renders it soft and flexible; in this state
the ligneous fibre requires but a feeble effort to complete its disaggregation;
it would suffice to wash it and throw it on the crushing cylinder, but not-
withstanding all the washings it would be difficult to drive out every trace of
acid, and further, this acid would itself be lost in the cleansing baths. To
obviate these inconveniences we have combined the acid with an alkaline base
(carbonate of soda); the alkali entirely neutralizes the acid and permits its
recovery in the nitrate of soda formed by the combination of the two bodies.
By the addition of the soda tho liquid, which was yellow, assumes a dark
brown tint, occasioned probably by the presence of a certain quantity of carbo-,
azotic acid, formed by the action of the nitric acid on the resinous matters
contained in the vegetable. This operation terminated, the matter is removed
to a press, and the baths or solutions reserved; they contain in solution the
nitrate of soda, and may therefore be evaporated to cristallization; the nitrate
of soda thus obtained will be strongly tinged with brown, but the coloring
matter, which is not more than two per cent., will disappear in the manufacture
of nitric acid. In effect the sulphate of soda is submitted in the manufacture
of nitric acid to a heat sufficient to destroy the organic coloring matters.
By the treatment and processes above set forth we have now obtained the
vegetable fibres isolated or separated from all foreign matter or bodies, and to
render them fit for paper making it would suffice to wash them repeatedly,
bleach with chlorine, and submit them to several hours crushing. But this
method of operating is slow, and we have sought and found a means of
accelerating the course of tho operations, such means being the adoption of
heat. When the wood or other fibrous vegetable placed in contact with nitric
acid is saturated therewith, and is becoming flexible or soft, which is the
case in about twenty-four hours of maceration, it is boiled in a quantity of
water sufficient to cover it, and in a few hours the disaggregation is complete.
The vases we use are of cast iron enameled, which are now manufactured of
very large size and perfectly resist the action of the acid, but when we elect
to operate cold or beat with steam, earthen vessels will suffice. We have
some remarks to make respecting the wood; we can, if necessary, use any
description of wood, but wo give the preference to those rich in ligneous fibre;
white and soft woods offer the greatest advantage in this respect, and further
they are not rare or dear, and are easily operated upon. We cut our wood
in pieces of equal size like matchwood, as it thus more regularly absorbs the
acid. We also use the different kinds of straw and hay, reeds, millet, the stem

page_text: of the sunflower, dahlia, Jerusalem artichoke, or maize, broom, seaweed, and
every species of more or less ligneous vegetable produce.
We may sum up our process as follows:-The vegetable, cut in pieces of
equal size, is placed for twenty-four hours in contact with a sufficient quantity
of nitric acid at thirty-six degrees "Baumé," (fifty per cent. of its weight being
required for wood, and only twenty-five per cent. for other vegetable matter;
the whole is then brought to ebullition by an open fire or by steam. The
produce is saturated with carbonate of soda, and lastly, the ligneous fibres
freed from the nitrate of soda, washed, the colour discharged, and bleached
with chlorine, forms a paste which has now only to be submitted to the
crushing cylinder. Paper of every quality may thus be made, from the coarsest
to the finest, and will cost much less than the papers now manufactured
from rags.
In witness whereof, we, the said Ernest Henry Barré and Charles Mary
Joseph Blondel, have hereunto set our hands and seals, this Seventh
day of August, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred
and sixty-one.
E. HI. BARRÉ.
(L.S.)
C. M. J. BLONDEL. (L.S.)
E. H. BARRÉ.
(L.S.)
C. M. J. BLONDEL. (L.S.)