THE MANU- FACTURE OF PURPLE DYE STUFFS FROM MANNA SUGAR."
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS PATENT James Alfred Wanklyn, Professor of Chemistry at the
London Institution, Finsbury Circus, for the Invention of "THE MANU-
FACTURE OF PURPLE DYE STUFFS FROM MANNA SUGAR."
Facture of Purple Dye Stuffs fROM MANNA Sugar.”
Sealed the 4th November 1864, and dated the 10th May 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Alfred Wanklyn
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
10th May 1864.
I, JAMES ALFRED WANKLYN, Professor of Chemistry at the London Insti-
tution, Finsbury Circus, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention,
for "THE MANUFACTURE OF PURPLE DYE STUFFS FROM MANNA SUGAR," to be as
follows:-
I take manna sugar, or mannite, and boil it in a retort or other suitable
vessel with a strong aqueous solution of hydriodic acid, which is of such a
strength that it boils at about 259 Fahrenheit, using one pound of mannite
to thirty pounds of the aforesaid solution of hydriodic acid, and adding the
mannite gradually to the acid, and adding small pieces of phoshorus from
time to time in order to combine with the iodine which is produced during
the boiling of the mixture of hydriodic acid, and mannite, and I then take
the oily liquid heavier than water which distils off from the aforesaid mixture
of hydriodic acid and mannite, and wash it with a dilute solution of caustic

page_text: potash in order to remove iodine and hydriodic acid from it, and then I mix
it with one-half its weight of a salt of rosaniline (the fuchsin or aniline red
of commerce) and about a quarter its weight of the strongest "liquor ammonia"
and twenty to thirty times its weight of alcohol, and I beat this mixture for
several hours to about 250° Fahrenheit until the required dye stuff is formed.
The dye stuff produced by this aforesaid process is found in alcoholic solu-
tion at the termination of this aforesaid process, and is a purple having a more
red shade if the heating be short, and a bluer shade if the heating be long.
The dye stuff may be obtained from this alcoholic solution by evaporating
away the alcohol:-The addition of a little sulphuric acid to it forms a deep
blue solution which becomes purple, and to a red purple on dilution with water.
The alcohol solution of the dye stuff poured into hot water forms a dye bath,
which will dye wool or silk, and when the dye bath is rendered slightly acid
with sulphuric acid the dye is bluish purple, when the dye bath is alkaline
with ammonia the dye is red purple. By regulating the quantity of acid various
shades of purple may be obtained from one and the same sample of the purple
dye stuff. Much strong sulphuric acid removes the color, instantly giving a
brown solution, but on diluting with water the color often returns.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said James Alfred Wanklyn in the Great Seal Patent Office
on the 10th November 1864.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
ALFRED WANKLYN, Professor of Chemistry at the London Institution, Finsbury
Circus, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Tenth day of May in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-seventh year of Her
reign. did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said James. Alfred Wanklyn, Her special licence that I, the said James
Alfred Wanklyn, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or. such
others as I, the said James Alfred Wanklyn, my executors, adminis-
trators, or 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 PURPLE DYE STUFFS FROM MANNA

page_text: SUGAR," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said James Alfred
Wanklyn, 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 inmediately after the
date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said James Alfred Wanklyn, do hereby
declare the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same
is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement :-
This Invention consists in the manufacture of purple dye stuffs from manna
sugar.
I perform it as follows:-I take a quantity of a strong aqueous solution of
hydriodic acid of specific gravity 1-7, or thereabouts, and I heat it to its boiling
point, and then I add to it from time to time small portions of manna sugar
and phosphorus, and distil, and I thereby produce an oil which distils over, and
I then heat this oil with about its own weight of rosaniline and a little alcohol
to a temperature of about 250° Fah. and by following this aforesaid process
I produce purple dye stuffs which may be either at once dissolved in alcohol
and used in the usual way for dyeing and printing or else purified by the
usual processes, and then dissolved in alcohol and used for dyeing and
printing.
I prefer to take 20 pounds of the strong aqueous solution of hydriodic acid,
and to add the manna sugar in portions of half a pound at a time, and to add
just so much phosphorus as will cause the oil to be nearly colourless when it
distils over.
Instead of employing the substance called rosaniline, which is the base of
the salts known in commerce under the names of magenta, red aniline dye,
fuchsine, &c, and which when in a state of chemical purity is colourless, but-
which as it is ordinarily met with is more or less tinged red, owing to the
presence of traces of salts of rosaniline, I sometimes employ a mixture of a salt
of rosaniline with ammonia which is chemically equivalent to employing the
base rosaniline itself.
The dye prepared as aforesaid is purple, which may be altered in tinge by
the addition of a little acid, which makes the dye bluer. By prolonging the
heating of the oil with rosaniline as herein-before describeil, the color of the
dye becomes also bluer.
Having thus described the nature of my Invention, and the means by which

page_text: I prefer to carry it out, I hereby declare that I claim as my Invention, the
production of an oil from manna sugar by acting upon manna sugar with
hydriodic acid and phosphorous in the manner aforesaid, and I also claim
the conversion of this oil as herein-before described into purple dye stuffs
by acting upon it with rosaniline as before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said James Alfred Wanklyn, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Tenth day of November, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four.
JAMES ALFRED WANKLYN. (L.S.)