82 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



NEW PROCESS FOR MAKING PAPER FROM STRAW. 



The following notice of a new process for manufacturing paper from straw 

 and other vegetable substance, by M. Helin, of Belgium, is taken from the Lon- 

 don Practical Mechanics' Journal : 



The increasing scarcity of materials for making a cheap and serviceable 

 paper, has been often brought to the attention of our readers ; and other por- 

 tions of the public press have not been backward in stimulating the energies 

 of the inventive and mercantile classes to increase our supplies or cheapen the 

 manufacture. A thousand denizens of the vegetable kingdom can, under ap- 

 propriate treatment, be made to assume the form of paper. "We are continu- 

 ally hearing of some enterprising individual having converted a very unlikely 

 material into a useable paper. But when we inquire into the particulars of the 

 manufacture, we soon find that the cost exceeds the value of the product, and 

 that, in place of having a cheaper article, the paper thus produced could not 

 be sold at so low price as that previously in the market. Again, we are fre- 

 quently receiving intelligence of the vast quantity of raw material which the 

 tropics can supply. We make no doubt that such representations are per- 

 fectly correct ; but against the abundance of supply has to be set either the 

 expense of either getting rid of extraneous matter, in a country where there 

 is no machinery, or the expense of a long carriage by land and sea of a very 

 bulky article. In either case the cost will not allow the paper to be brought 

 into competition with that now manufactured. One of the materials which 

 earliest suggest themselves as suitable for conversion into paper, is the straw 

 of grain-bearing plants. An abundant supply of this material can be obtained 

 at a cheap rate. There is a difficulty however in the manufacture, which one 

 might easily overlook until the experiment is made. Straw contains a good 

 deal of silica, principally in its exterior coating, and it is necessary to get rid of 

 this before it can be made into paper. Now, the cost of the process is consider- 

 able, and has been hitherto found so great as to render the manufacture unre- 

 munerative. The principal object of M. Helin's patented process, to which 

 we will now draw the reader's attention, is to reduce the expense of the de- 

 silicatization of the straw, and thus to add, in a very important degree, to the 

 supply of our paper-yielding materials. 



M. Helin's invention relates to a peculiar treatment of the straw of grain- 

 bearing plants, for producing a pulp suitable for the manufacture of paper at 

 an economical rate. For this purpose it is preferred to employ the straw of 

 rye and wheat, but the same mode of treatment is equally applicable to vari- 

 ous other vegetable substances, such as jute, flax, and hemp. The straw is 

 first steeped entire for 60 hours, which time may be exceeded without incon- 

 venience, in spring, rain, or river water, of a temperature of from 55 to 85 

 Fahrenheit, the temperature being varied according to the season of the year. 

 After some hours, the water becomes gradually warm and discolored, and an 

 active fermentation takes place. After 60 hours the liquid is suffered to run 

 off, and the straw must be washed with a plentiful supply of water, in order 

 to remove therefrom all the soluble coloring matter. The straw is then 



