IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING OILS AND OTHER FATTY MATTERS
Year: 1853

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Hutchison, of Glasgow, in the County
of Lanark, Merchant, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN
TREATING OILS AND OTHER FATTY MATTERS."
Sealed the 13th April 1853, and dated the 10th February 1853.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Hutchison
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 10th February 1853.]
I, GEORGE HUTCHISON, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark,
Merchant, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING OILS AND OTHER FATTY MATTERS " to be as
follows:
Firstly, the preparation of oils and fats for being converted into
oleate of oxide of ethyle and similar compound bodies by de-
priving or freeing them of such fibrous matter and other impurities
as they contain or hold in solution in their natural or unpurified
state, and this I effect by treating or acting upon them with an

page_text: alkaline solution, or with a solution of chloride of lime, or of chlo-
rine, gas, or other like substance, and then effecting the double de-
composition of the neutral fat (or oil so obtained or prepared, or of
oils and fats not so prepared and purified), and an alcohol by means
of sulphuric acid or other similarly acting agent, and forming
thereby the compound bodies known by the general name of oily
ethers, or by the names of oleate, margarate, and stearate of ethyle,
methyle, and such like.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters
Patent, filed by the said George Hutchison in the Great Seal
Patent Office on the 8th August 1853.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
GEORGE HUTCHISON, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, Mer-
chant, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most, Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Tenth day of February, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, in
the sixteenth year of Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and
successors, give and grant unto me, the said George Hutchison,
Her special licence that I, the said George Hutchison, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said George
Hutchison, my 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 "IMPROVEMENTS IN TREATING OILS AND OTHER
FATTY MATTERS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said George Hutchison, by an instrument in writing, under my
hand and seal, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be-per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great. Seal Patent

page_text: Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the
date of the said Letters Patent.
. NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said George Hutchison, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention, and in what manner
the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascer-
tained in and by the following statement thereof (that is to say):
My Invention consists in a method of making oily ethers imme-
diately or directly from neutral oils or fats (instead of preparing
them from oily acids, as directed in treatises on scientific chemistry),
and of obtaining the ethers in a state of greater purity and less
dark in color than by the process of manufacture described in the
Specification of a Patent granted to me and sealed on the Eighteenth
day of September, One thousand eight hundred and fifty-two. In
carrying my Invention into effect I begin by separating from the
oils or fats used such impurities as they usually hold in solution,
namely, fibrine, gelatine, and such other substances as they derive
from the cellular tissues in which the oils were contained. This I
accomplish by means of chloride of lime, dilute sulphuric acid, or
a weak solution of an alkali, either carbonated or in the caustic
state, in the proportion of about two to three per cent. of the
weight of the fat under treatment. I employ the chloride of lime
chiefly in boiling with fat intended for stearic acid, and I add it
before the lime for saponification, which has the effect of rendering
the resulting acids very free from the accidental impurities of the
tallow. In using weak solution of alkali or dilute sulphuric acid
(both solvents of fibrine and gelatine) I boil the fat intended to be
used in the manufacture of oleic ether for two or three hours with
one or other of them, and afterwards edulcorate with water, and
remove any remaining acid or alkali by mutual saturation.
Having in any of these ways rendered the fat or oil sufficiently
free of foreign matters, it is fit to be converted into oleate of ethyle,
methyle, or of other like base. And I have discovered and regard
as my Invention that the previous decomposition of the neutral fat
or oil is not a necessary step in the process, and that the oleate.can.
be made directly from the neutral oil by employing the oil in the

page_text: manner directed (in the Specification of my Patent above cited) to
be followed in preparing oily ethers from commercial oleic acid. For
the sulphuric acid employed in the process therein described. to de-
compose the alcohol when a neutral oil is used instead of the oleic
acid unites also with the glycerine or natural organic base of the
fat, and the constituents of oleic ether thus presented to each other
in the nascent state combine even more readily than when the hy-
drated oleic acid is used. The following is accordingly the routine
of process which I pursue:-I digest by boiling in a suitable vessel
or still, and over a fire of moderate intensity, a mixture composed:
of one part by measure of sulphuric acid, eight parts of alcohol,'
and four parts of oil or fat, until the union of the base of the alcohol.
with the oily acid is complete. At the end of each operation or
"bout" I replenish the residuary liquor with about an eighth part
of the original charge of alcohol, and about a fourth or fifth part of
the original quantity of sulphuric acid. I do this for the purpose of
maintaining the etherifying power of the mixture, which is gradually
reduced by the appropriation of the constituent and mixed water of
the alcohol. The liquor after being thus refreshed is again digested:
with a new quantity of oil or fat equal to the first charge, and the
boiling is again proceeded with, and continued until the union is
complete as before. The process is thus to be continually repeated
by adding fresh alcohol and sulphuric acid at each charge, and
digesting anew till the alcoholic liquor in the digestor has become so
much weakened by the continual accumulation of water as to be
unfit for further etherification. This I find usually to happen after
five or six charges have been worked off.
Having now described the nature of my Invention, and the me-`
thod of carrying it into effect, according to the best of my knowledge
and belief, I would have it understood that I do not confine myself
to the details of process and manipulation herein set forth, as these.
may be greatly varied without prejudicial departure from the mean-
ing and application of my Invention; but what I claim is, the puri--
fying of neutral fats or oils to be used in the manufacture of oily
ethers from the natural impurities they derive from the cellular

page_text: tissues in which they were contained by treating them with chloride
of lime, dilute sulphuric acid, alkaline solution, or like suitable
rc-agent, and the use of a neutral oil or fat, with an alcohol and a
suitable acid, in the manufacture of oily ethers.
In witness whereof, I, the said George Hutchison, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this Fourth day of August, in the
year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and fifty-
three.
0 Witness,
W. M. BUCHANAN,
37, Paterson St.,
Glasgow.
GEORGE HUTCHISON. (L.S.)