{
    "system": "GoGuides Verified Text",
    "api_version": "verified-text-v1",
    "status": "ok",
    "response_type": "verified_text_record",
    "source_key": "britannica_1926",
    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1926)",
    "license_code": "public_domain",
    "attribution": null,
    "license_url": null,
    "chunk_id": "1926:cellulose:f95860e1d54e",
    "title": "CELLULOSE",
    "section": null,
    "hash_alg": "sha256",
    "hash_sha256": "4dda1d7045e043b5d3826949f70aa223b956e7af735b650919d38e5c605b7a14",
    "normalizer": {
        "name": "ggnorm",
        "version": "1.0"
    },
    "verified_text": "the term cellulose is used broadly and comprehensively as equivalent to “ the component elements of plant structures.” cellulose as a substance, however, is a chemica] individual. in the working and fashioning of cellulose structures as such, the most important industries engaged are the textile, twine and rope making, and paper making (g.v.). - the stress of war conditions incident upon germany in regard io supplies of textile and raw materials led to an extraordinary development in that country of the manufacture and use of twisted paper yarns. a paper web, cut to plane strips, twisted to cylindrical form in continuous length, formed a yarn serviceable as a substitute for the staple textile yarns in many and unex- pected directions. | the manufacture was rapidly developed to an extensive industry, the yarns being woven into clothing, dress fabrics and wrapping cloths, or worked by plaiting into belting. certain of these uses survive on the merits of the goods pro- duced; but in the main a “ felt” of short fibre lengths put to- gether necessarily by wet process is inferior in structural quality to the lowest grades of whole-length-fibre felts produced by the dry process of carding preparation, and the twisting of the felts to yarns only intensifies the fundamental contrast. . this development involves a fundamental principle implicitly stated in the foregoing paragraph, and there remains open the problem of putting together long fibre by wet process to a con- tinuous web, to be slit to strips which are then twisted to yarns as in the process applied to plane paper strips. ka pok.— the use of kapok fibre under naval war exigency was specially developed in the confection of life-saving appliances. the kapok seed hair is a thin-walled tubular cylinder with a smooth surface and therefore lustrous. when tightly packed in a container it still occupies a very large volume—in specific terms 12 to 13 c.c. per igramme. the container being a bag of textile material and suitably waterproofed, the kapok filling confers a floating capac- ity 2-3 times that of cork, such that a belt made up with spccial attention to life-saving conditions, has proved greatly superior in all respects to the cork jackets and other appliances of pre-war times. under the stress of the naval and marine conditions of the world war, these life-saving appliances came in under enormous demand, and kapok floss was elevated to a position of unique value. this is a conspicuous illustration of the adaptation of plant structures as such to man’s necessities. use in aeroplane construction.—another development due to the war is the application of cellulose material to the aeroplane, furnishing the air-resistant surface of the wings. to complete the structure as a taut, and, at the same time, water-resistant mem- brane, a “ dope ” or varnish was required. of the many possible colloidal preparations, the only one filling the specification of qualities was the cellulose acetate or acetic ester; a special form of the product, acetone-soluble, was dissolved in the liquid dope in association with ‘ plastifiers,’ which, after evaporation of the solvent, remained in permanent union with the acetate, modify- ing its properties to increased plasticity and resistance to strain (see artificial silk). cellulose in industry.—there are three groups of industries based on derivatives of cellulose synthesised by chemical proc- ess and retaining the exceptional colloidal characteristics of the mother substance. (a) anhydro esters: mainly nitric and acetic esters formed by combination with the respective acid radicals and with consequent large increase of weight (60-80 °,)—soluble only in special solvents. (b) hydrate esters: the sodium cellulose-xanthogenic derivatives dissolved by water to ‘‘ viscose.” (c) colloidal disperse systems or solutions formed by interaction in aqueous solution with cuprammonium, zinc chloride, sulphocya- niles, etc. nilrates and viscose derivatives: explosives and a rtifictal sik.—in order of technical and industrial importance, the ni- trates and the viscose derivatives are of outstanding prominence. the former, as the basis of modern military explosives, were pro- duced in almost incredible quantities throughout the war period “558 1914-8. the latter as the main raw material of the artificial silk industry has been produced and worked in rapidly increasing pro- portions, even during the world war. the growth of the in- dustry from 8,oo0 tons in 1910 to 62,000 tons in 1924 is mainly that of the viscose products, and, in the main, attributable to british enterprise and capital. in respect of the war-production of the nitro-cellulose explo- sives in great britain, the mere dimensions of the manufacture, reaching a weekly production of 2,000 tons of cordite (from 1,000 tons cellulose raw material), represent great achievement. but outside the industrial, there were technical scientific problems to be solved in standardising the products, for controlling manu- facture, securing uniformity under storage and developing bal- histic efficiency. a main problem is that of chemical purification of the raw material and it is known that the cellulose is modified by the processes, necessarily severe, to which it is subjected. changes in the cellulose are measured by change—the viscosity of its solu- tions (group 3). for a standard of normal condition of the colloid a special method of preparation and a viscosity test based on cuprammonium solution was devised and adopted.’ the stability of the nitrate explosive is prejudiced by minute residues of non-cellulose matters. tor special types of corclite ammunition, it was found necessary to employ an original “long cotton ” prepared by the spinner to the stage of “ sliver.” this preparation imports a considerable removal of non-cellulose foreign matters, and chemical treatment following this mechani- cal purification was found to realise the optimum; and the result justified the obviously large increase of cost.? under the exigency of shortage of supplies of cotton cellulose the wood pulps (cellulose) were adapted in germany to this manufacture by processes of controlled hydrolysis, removing b and ¥ cellulose components and incidentally residues of resinoid and other non-cellulose impurities. (see expiosivers.) paper-making.—the production of the nitrate from this form of cellulose certainly reached relatively enormous figures. but in point of tonnage the figures in either case are only a fraction of the world’s consumption of wood cellulose in the paper-making (q.v.) industry, for which the production of wood pulp (cellulose) by chemical process has progressively increased in 1925 to the figure of 6~7,000,000 tons per annum. in point of cost and money value of the product, the figures, ton for ton, 7.e., for cellulose as nitrate, and in the form of paper, represent a large multiple ratio. the extension of artificial silk, the second of the industrial developments of the cellulose industries, from its position in 1910 to an estimated production of 100,000 tons per annum, is one of the most conspicuous features of the age. the basis of the artificial silk industry in 1925 is very much as in 1910. properties of cellulose—waving fulfilled its predominant functions in the plant world, of which it is the structural basis, it becomes, as nitric ester, a high explosive, but with associated properties by which it can be controlled as the most powerful of agents for calculated destruction and in effect the primary ma- terial basis of modern warfare. on the other hand, by chemical process it is restored to the plastic condition of a water-soluble hydrated colloid, analogous in essential properties to the form in which it subserves its constructive functions in the plant, to be then transformed at will into thread, film or massive solid, to subserve, in continued service, the necds of the complex civilisa- tion of our age. research—there has been a remarkable extension and con- centration of research on the fundamental problem of the sub- ject-matter: what is cellulose in the language and terms of pure science? in america the chemical society has created a special section for the subject—in germany an important technical society has founded a special publication, cellulose chemte, 1 jour. chem. soc., 117, pp. 472, 484, 819 (1920) robertson, gibson, mccall, spencer and marson; also jour. soc. chem. ind., 39, p. 172 (1920). . 2this interesting chapter in the history of ‘ cellulose \" develop- ment is fully treated by sir r. robertson in trans, faraday soc., 16, 66; r. susti, lecture, 1921, ‘‘ war development of explosives\"; ‘* chemistry in the 20th century ” 1924. cellulose also in the kolloid zeitschrift investigations of cellulose and derivatives are prominent. in great britain there are several centres of specialised research: e.g., at woolwich, ardeer (nobel's explosives) and the naval cordite factory. the shirley in- stitute has been founded for research in connection with the cotton industries and its published records (shirley inst. mem- oirs) have already taken a prominent position in science litera- ture. important developments in respect of the root problem of constitution as a chemical individual have resulted from the investigations of sir j.c.irvine and his collaborators at st. an- drews university. it has long been known that cellulose is hydrolysed by acid to the simple “ sugar ” dextrose, and that no other product of such resolution could be identified. later in- vestigations (flechsig, ost, monier-williams) claim to establish the quantitative realisation of the effect :— n (cehi005+ h,0) =n- cgh120¢ in a comprehensive critical survey and investigation irvine avails himself of the newer experimental methods. ‘the cellulose is fully acetylated and the acetate hydrolised to the simpler sugars, chiefly a biose (cy) (ii. ost). in etherification and hy- drolysis, the replacement of the oh groups by o-ch3 and o-coh; isa preliminary to hydrolysis (w.s. denham: lilienfeld). obtaining the products of resolution in corresponding deriva- tive forms, and avoiding complications otherwise attending the breakdown of the cellulose complex, irvine establishes the quan- titative relationship above formulated and is able to draw defi- nite inferences in respect of constitution and configuration of the products, which may apply to the original complex. one other contribution must be mentioned as of critical 1m- portance in relation to the mode of aggregation of the nexose (dextrose) units to the complex of indeterminate dimensions. a. pictet has shown that ccllulose (and starch) when heated at 210°~250° under reduced pressure (10-15 mm.) gives a distillate with a high yield (45°) of a glucosan. this definitely raises the critical question whether the hexose anhydride as such is the unit constituent, or main component group of the cellulose complex, and therefore whether the poly- merisation of the unit is not of a different order from that which has been generally assumed, 7.e., a definite alternative to the c,-o-c, linking upon which hypothesis units of 2.ce, 3.c6, 4.ce dimensions have been put forward gs established by different investigations. this aspect of the constitutional problem is still the subject of active controversy that is sustained by distin- guished german chemists and others, as willstaetter, hess and wittelsbach, karrer, wislicenus, herzberg, hibbert and haworth. the researches of irvine are specially mentioned as compre- hensive—covering the whole field of the sugar carbohydrates, and rigorously and exhaustively methodical, in continuation in fact of the classical researches of emil fischer.’ bisulphite process —the chemical mechanism of the bisul- phite process of treating wood for the isolation of cellulose, 7.e., the industrial production of ‘‘ chemical wood pulp” has been variously interpreted by technologists over the long period of its industrial evolution (1880-1925). it is now shown‘ that the attack on the lignone components of the wood is that of direct sulphonation by the sulphurous acid sosii., the sulphonic group so,h combining at relatively low temperatures (g0°-100°), the reaction taking place with the aqueous acid at 4-6 % so:2 and not being in any sense determined by the basic component of the bisulphite (cao,mgo,na,0). | as an industrial process it is facilitated and controlled by the addition of ammonia in small proportions. the soluble by-prod- ucts from these sulphurous acid processes have many advan- tages over those from the bisulphite process, in which the pro- portion of associated salts is a large percentage of the total solids, and excludes them from a number of industrial applica- tions for which they are otherwise available. (g.1g) 3 the records of these researches will be found in jour. chem. soc., 1911-25; the constitutional problem is generally dealt with in ke- searches on cellulose, vol. 4, c. f. cross and c. doree (london, 1924). ' jour. soc. chem. ind., 1924-5, c. f. cross and h. engelstad, c. doree and l. hall. censorship",
    "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-britannica-encyclopaedia-britannica.-3-encyclopaedia-britannica-inc.-1926",
    "observed_at": "2026-05-17 11:59:28",
    "integrity": {
        "hash_check": "match",
        "hash_scope": "full_normalized_text",
        "computed_sha256": "4dda1d7045e043b5d3826949f70aa223b956e7af735b650919d38e5c605b7a14"
    },
    "machine_use": {
        "read": true,
        "cite": true,
        "decision": "verified_public_domain_text"
    },
    "goguides_data_license": "https://www.goguides.com/data-license",
    "goguides_data_license_version": "2.0",
    "documentation": {
        "white_paper_url": "https://www.goguides.com/white-paper.php",
        "pdf_url": "https://www.goguides.com/whitepapers/goguides-ai-source-clearance-white-paper.pdf"
    }
}