Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

ine bleaching needed control and was not easy to dose.
The printers were particularly afraid of the chemically active
residual chlorine, because of the damages caused by aggressive
halogen which could also effect corrosion. In the
first half of the 19 th century there existed a series of further
approaches for the industrial bleaching of papermaker’s
raw materials. Hypochlorite liquids and bleaching powder
became accepted for the treatment of raw materials step by
step until the middle of the 19 th century, but they were not
able to solve finally the problem of the shortage of raw materials.
Gottlob Friedrich Keller from Hainichen who became interested
in the raw materials problem of the papermakers
through publications of the years 1839/40 wrote down in
his ‘Poecketbook of Ideas’ in 1841/42: “To produce paper
by wooden fibres, which are manufactured by friction.”
Presumably without knowledge of Schäffer’s studies, he
started his wood grinding experiments in December 1843.
Adding 20 percent rags in the paper Mill of Carl Friedrich
Gottlob Kühn at Alt-Chemnitz 5–6 reams of paper from
mechanically processed wood pulp were produced. Afterwards
calendered in a cotton mill at Hainichen and on October
11 th , 1845 printed at the print shop of Carl Gottlob
Rossberg in Frankenberg for the number 41 of the ‘Intelligenz-
und Wochenblattes für Frankenberg mit Sachsenburg
und Umgebung’, published at November 1 st , 1845 as the
first print product worldwide on mechanical wood pulp paper.
Subsequently, Keller signed a contract with Heinrich Voelter
(1817–1887) to the effect of the economic exploitation
of the process. Voelter had to go systematically after applications
for Patens in the German countries and abroad,
which due to the multitude of the German countries and
their own patent laws which caused a lot of costs and
which were not in a well balanced relation to the attainable
profit, since the duration of the protection often lasted only
for five years. The invention did not pay off for Keller and
so additional two decades passed, during which the machine
manufacturer Heinrich Voelter began first alone later
on together with the engine builder Johann Matthäus Voith
(1803–1874) from Heidenheim to make efforts concerning
technological development and commercialisation. Voith
build 21 wood grinders in the period 1852–1860, which
Voelter supplied to buyers at home and abroad. The world
exhibition of 1867 in Paris alone brought the breakthrough
(Ill. 14). Voelter exhibited there a complete furnished wood
grinding mill inclusively all auxiliary machines and samples
of the finished paper. From that time on the raw materials
shortage for the developing paper industry was solved and
one not depend any more alone on textile remains, which
till then the ragmen could get hold of in towns and in the
countryside.
While Keller had cleared the way for making paper of
wood by mechanical means, others tried to use chemical
dissolving methods. The English chemists Hugh Burgess
(1825–1892) and Charles Watt produced sodium pulp from
cottonwood and hemlock wood in 1851. According to this
method at first in America pulp has been produced in industrial
scale since 1863, but without any commercial success.
Already before Mellier in France invented a method to
produce straw pulp in 1854. Benjamin Chew Tilghman
(1821–1903) tested the influence of sulphur dioxide on fats
Ill. 14: Title page of Voelter’s advertising brochure from 1867 on
the world exhibition in Paris. In the cartouche Voelter’s wood
grinder is reproduced.
in 1857 and observed on this occasion how it affected and
softened wood. Tilghman had experimented with that sulphur
method for two years, but in spite investing a lot of
money he was not able to avoid the failures in sealing the
digester and resigned at the end. It was not until 1871 the
Swede Carl Daniel Ekman (1845–1904) succeeded to boil a
usable sulphite pulp using magnesium bisulphite. A
Swedish mill produced using this process starting in 1874.
Concurrently with Ekman the German chemist Alexander
Mitscherlich (1836–1918) conducted long test series in order
to find usable digester materials for preparing sulphite
pulp. Only an acid resistant stone coating proved to be a
sustainable solution for the problem which Tilghman
fought with. Alexander Mitscherlich and his brother Richard
received a series of domestic and international patents
within the years 1874 to 1878, e.g. the first German patent
dated February 5 th , 1875. Alexander Mitscherlich was able
already in the year 1877 to supply by wagonloads the paper
industry with his chemically prepared pulp. The sulphite
process needed wood with low resin content and was very
well applicable to the digestion of spruce wood. The pulp
prepared herefrom had already after the digestion a high
degree of whiteness and was well bleachable.
On the other hand the sulphate method developed by
Card F. Dahl in Danzig in 1879 was well applicable to all
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