3.2.15

The Dyer's Guide. Chapter I. Introductory. On bleaching linen, cotton &c.

The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.

With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.

By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.

"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.

"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.

Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.

London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.


We cannot enter with much minuteness into this part of the subject, more especially as the art of bleaching is usually a separate one from that of dyeing. Yet as in fact the arts of dyeing and of bleaching depend in a great degree on the same principles, some notice of bleaching, in a treatise on dyeing, seems absolutely necessary.

Linen, cotton, and other cloths, were for ages deprived of their colour, in other words, bleached, rendered white, by a tedious process. Thus, the article to be bleached being boiled in a solution of pot-ash, was washed, and hen spread on the grass in a field, watered occasionally, and, thus exposed to the atmosphere for two or three months, became white. This method is, however, in part, if not now entirely, dispensed with. M. Berthollet, an ingenious French chemist, to whose valuable work on dyeing we have before alluded, employed what was then called oxygenated muriatic acid, now chlorine, to perform in a few days what before took months to accomplish. His method was as follows. To six pints of powdered oxide of manganese he added sixteen of muriate of soda, (common salt) and twelve of concentrated sulphuric acid diluted with an equal quantity of water. These were placed in a leaden retort and distilled: the product was oxygenated muriatic acid, or chlorine, which being conducted to a vessel containing the material to be dyed, produced the same effects as the former tedious process, and bleached as much, in two or three days, as was before done in two or three months. This process has been since much further improved by the use of a combination of chlorine with lime, called chloride, or oxymuriate of lime. This article is at present used in almost all the bleaching grounds in the United Kingdom. It appears, therefore, that upon the use of the agent, chlorine, does the expedition and whiteness of modem bleaching principally depend. Yet it ought, nevertheless, to be stated, that although, in the hands of scientific and judicious persons, chlorine is one of the most powerful agents in bleaching that ever was discovered, still, in the hands of bungling and avaricious persons, it may contribute greatly to the destruction of the cloth; and therefore, even now, a demand is occasionally heard for the old method of bleaching.

These processes constitute the art of the bleacher; the dyer has seldom any thing to do with them except in piece-goods or rough cambric, which he has sometimes to dye black as they come from the bleacher's in a state which they call once boucJced; and sometimes he has them just as they come from the weaver; in which case, if for black, they need not be bleached white, but should be boiled in pot-ash, to take out the grease, &c.

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