Littell's Living Age/Volume 128/Issue 1651/A New Paper-making Material
A NEW PAPER-MAKING MATERIAL.
It is perhaps not generally known that but for the large importation of esparto, a species of tough grass, from Spain, to be used in paper-making, great difficulty would long since have existed in producing the enormous quantity of paper now required by the ever-increasing demands of the press. Though inferior to rags in the manufacture of the article, esparto is excellent as an auxiliary, and the possibility of procuring it has been a consolation to paper-makers. Alas! there now comes a pinch. The demand for esparto has been the death of it. We have all heard of that infatuated proceeding, familiarly known as "killing the goose that laid the golden eggs." The Spaniards who had the supply of esparto have killed their "goose." Instead of cutting their esparto with scythes, so as to leave it to grow a fresh crop, they have habitually pulled it up by the roots, and according to last accounts, whole districts of country were desolate. The esparto was gone. So much for reckless mismanagement. A great source of traffic is dried up, or very nearly so.
We need not waste words on the folly committed by Spantsh esparto growers and collectors. They are deaf to remonstrance, and past pity or hope of improvement. Leaving them to their wretched poverty and ruin, the question we have to consider is how we are to find a due supply of materials for the paper-manufacturer. The mountain plateaux of Africa, as we understand, would yield a good supply of esparto, but it is of inferior quality, and much cost and trouble would be incurred in bringing it to any sea-port. Accordingly, it has to be given up, and we must think of something else. In contemplation of the exigency, Mr. Thomas Routledge, of Sunderland, has been seriously considering the subject of cheap substitutes for esparto, and has alighted on what he thinks will answer the purpose. The article is bamboo. In a pamphlet entitled "Bamboo, considered as a Paper-making Material" (London and New York: E. and F. N. Spon), he has just made known the result of his investigations and experiments. Fortunately for the paper-trade, he says, and its supply of materials in the future, two raw fibrous substances exist, to one of which his pamphlet is chiefly devoted.
From time immemorial, several varieties of fine paper have been made from bamboo in China and Japan, and this induced Mr. Routledge to enter upon some experiments to see if it could not be advantageously utilized, although it had previously been tried with results which, commercially speaking, were not a success. Mr. Routledge believes that, with his new system of treatment, bamboo will prove to be as superior to esparto in every respect, as esparto was found to be superior to straw, and he has accordingly patented his invention. The following is a brief sketch of the way in which he proposes to deal with bamboo for the manufacture of fibrous paper-stock: "First and foremost, it is essential to operate on the stems of the plant when young, and preferably when fresh cut. Brought to a factory in this condition, the stems are passed through heavy crushing rolls, in order to split and flatten them, and at the same time crush the nodes. The stems are then passed through a second series of rolls, which are channelled, or grooved, in order further to split or partially divide them longitudinally into strips or ribbons; these being cut transversely into convenient length by a guillotine-knife or shears, are delivered by a carrier, or automatic feeder, direct to the boiling-pans. Both the boiling and washing processes ordinarily in vogue for producing half-stuff or semi-pulp, Mr. Routledge conducts in a battery, or series of vessels connected together by pipes or channels, furnished with valves or cocks, so that communication between the vessels may be maintained, disconnected, and regulated as desired, in such manner that the vessels being methodically charged in succession, the heated lyes (composed of caustic alkali) can be conducted from vessel to vessel. The lyes are thus used again and again (each successive change or charge, of lye carrying forward the extractive matters it has dissolved from the fibre with which it has been in contact) until exhausted or neutralized (when they are discharged), fresh lyes being methodically and successively supplied, until by degrees the extractive matters combined with the fibre have been rendered sufficiently soluble, when hot water for washing or rinsing is, in the same continuous manner, run from vessel to vessel, until the extractive matters rendered soluble by the previous alkaline baths have been carried forward and discharged, leaving the residuary fibre sufficiently cleansed. A final cooling-water is run on and through the fibre, which is then drained, and the contents of the vessel are placed in a press, in order to abstract as much of the remaining moisture as possible. The dry or semi-dry fibre is then submitted to the action of a "willow" or "devil," by means of which it is opened or "teased" out, and converted readily into a tow-like condition, when it is dried by a current of heated air, induced by a fan-blast, and finally baled up for storage or transport. In this condition of paper-stock it may be kept for an indefinite length of time without injury; and when received by the paper-manufacturer, it has only to be soaked down and bleached, in order to fit it for making paper, either by itself or as a blend with other materials. It may here be mentioned that the brochure of which we are speaking is printed on paper made by the author from bamboo.
To turn Mr. Routledge's invention to practical account, it will of course be necessary to form plantations of bamboo in those countries where it flourishes and grows untended, with almost inconceivable rapidity; and, further, to erect there the works and machinery requisite for the manufacture of the paper-stock just described, because, owing to its bulk, and the consequent cost of carriage, it will never pay to bring bamboo to this country in any other form.
The second material which, in Mr. Routledge's opinion, fulfils the main conditions demanded by a paper-manufacturer, is "megasse," or "begasse," the fibrous residue of the sugarcane after it has been crushed to extract the juice. This, when "properly prepared, affords a strong, nervous fibre, or fibrous stock, which bleaches well, and possesses all the characteristics of a first-class paper-making material." For obvious reasons, megasse would also have to be "converted into a fibrous stock at or near the sugar-factory where it is produced, then dried, and put up in hydraulic-pressed bales for economical transport." At present, megasse is only made use of as fuel in the sugar-factories and in some countries as manure. "As its' value, thus considered, is very low," Mr. Routledge thinks that "factories established in connection with existing sugar-mills for the manufacture of paper-stock, where sufficient quantities of so bulky a material could be concentrated, and where other favourable conditions exist (of which an abundant supply of water is an essential), would yield a large profit to the planter or sugar-manufacturer;" indeed, he has "made both paper-stock and paper of good quality from megasse, and determined the profitable nature of such a manufacture beyond dispute." It may be interesting to mention here that bamboo and megasse yield sixty and forty per cent, of fibre respectively.
As Mr. Routledge alludes to it in commenting on the present position of the paper-trade in relation to the supply of raw material, we shall perhaps be pardoned for adding a few words with regard to the attempt which has been made to utilize wood as a material for paper-manufacture, but which has not turned out well. Wood has been tried in two different forms, the one mechanically, and the other chemically prepared. In the former case, pieces of wood, as cut from the tree, are reduced, by means of a grindstone, to pulp, or to the condition of flour; this pulp or flour, however, contains but a small amount of "fibre, and that fibre possesses very little felting property, an essential for a good sheet of paper;" so that it can only be used as, in point of fact, a kind of adulterant in the manufacture of the commonest papers. Of wood chemically prepared, Mr. Routledge remarks that it is "costly in production, as it is only possible to reduce it into pulp by boiling under very high pressure with very strong caustic alkali; several mills established both in England and Scotland to carry out this manufacture, have abandoned it, and such pulp as is now used in the trade is derived exclusively from the countries where the wood is grown. The pulp thus produced, although somewhat hard and harsh, if the wood be carefully selected and properly prepared, will, blended with other material, produce a fair quality of paper." Wood-pulp, thus chemically prepared, sells (unbleached) at from £24 to £25 per ton, but is never likely to be used to any considerable extent.