A NEW PROCESS FOR THE BLEACHING OF JUTE.

By Messrs. LEYKAM and TOSEFOTHAL.


Jute is well known as a very cheap fiber, and its employment in
textile industry is consequently both extensive and always increasing.
Accompanying this increase is a corresponding one in the amount of old
waste jute, which can be employed for the manufacture of paper.

Up to the present time, only very little use has been made of jute for
the manufacture of thread and the finer fabrics, because the
difficulty of bleaching the fiber satisfactorily has proved a very
serious hindrance to its improvement by chemical means. All the
methods hitherto proposed for bleaching jute are so costly that they
can scarcely be made to pay; and, moreover, in many cases, the jute is
scarcely bleached, and loses considerably in firmness and weight,
owing to the large quantities of bleaching agents which have to be
applied.

In consequence of this difficulty, the enormous quantities of jute
scraps, which are always available, are utilized in paper making
almost entirely for the production of ordinary wrapping paper, which
is, at the best, of medium quality. In the well known work of Hoffmann
and Muller, the authors refer to the great difficulty of bleaching
jute, and therefore recommend that it be not used for making white
papers.