Calico Printers

Carothers also produced a number of aliphatic linear polyesters but these did not fulfil his requirements for a fibre-forming polymer which were eventually met by the polyamide, nylon 66. As a consequence the polyesters were discarded by Carothers. However, in 1941 Whinfield and Dickson working at the Calico Printers Association in England announced the discovery of a fibre from poly(ethylene terephthalate). Prompted by the success of such a polymer, Farbenfabriken Bayer initiated a programme in search of other useful polymers containing aromatic rings in the main chain. Carbonic acid derivatives were reacted with many dihydroxy compounds and one of these, bis-phenol A, produced a polymer of immediate promise. 

Tartario acid is much used by dyers and calico-printers for the removal of certain mordants from portions of the doth. It is also used in preparing effervescing draughts. In the blood, tartrates are changed into carbonates. 

Artificial dyes in the laboratory of the Lancashire calico-printer John Lightfoot included his own invention of aniline black he also pioneered new methods for mordanting and the use of vanadium in aniline black printing.104A general account has been given of the role of rosaniline in the development of the synthetic dye industry.105 A paper on quinones focuses chiefly on the case of anthraquinone and the synthesis of alizarin from anthracene.106... 

Several compounds of this nature were prepared, but none of them was suitable for spinning because the melting points were too low. It was Whin-field and Dickson, working in the laboratories of the Calico Printers ... 

Calico Printers, and Textile Colour Chemists, London, Scott, Greenwood, 1901. 

Iron liquor 116 A black liquid solution of crude ferrous acetate used as a mordant by dyers and calico printers. See protoacetate of Iron. 

This little Work will prove of the highest importance to Calico Printers, Bleachers, Dyers, Manufacturers of Soap, l per, and Prussiate of Potash also, to Chemists, and to Dealers in Alkalies, Acids, dec. ... 

The charge was drawn into iron pots, cooled, and ground to a desired size with cast iron, toothed, crushing rollers. If drawn into water, it would break into small fragments which were difficult to dry. However they were readily dissolved by heating the water. The disilicate was easier to dissolve and was recommended for the calico printers. With soda ash as alkali source he could draw six charges a day. 

Polyester polymers are materials which exhibit various chemistries but all contain ester linkages in the polymer chain. They have attained industrial importance as moulded materials, fibres, packaging film and as structural materials which are reinforced with fibres and fillers. Chemists, John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson, employees of the Calico Printer s Association of Manchester, patented polyethylene terephthalate in 1941, after advancing the early research of Wallace Carothers. Poly (ethylene terephthalate) is the basis of polyester fibres and fizzy drinks botdes. The first polyester fibre known as Terylene was also developed in 1941. 

John Mercer (Dean or Great Harwood, nr. Bolton, Lancs., 21 February 1791-Oakenshaw, Lancs., 30 November 1866), a calico-printer, discovered mercerising (1844), the use of potassium ferrocyanide and potash for the discharge of indigo (1848), the use of arsenates as a substitute for phosphates in dunging the manufacture of sodium stannite and stannate, stannous sulphate from tin and copper sulphate solution, Turkey-red oil, the solubility of cellulose in ammoniacal copper solution, and blue-print photography. He taught himself chemistry from a second-hand copy of the Chemical Pocket-Book of James Parkinson, of Hoxton Square, London (2 ed. 1801, 3 ed. 1803). ... 

Soaps for Calico-printers.—The soap used by calico printers for clearing alizarine work must be very neutral, the alkali being not only kept down in quantity, but its thorough combination with the fatty acids secured by very careful boiling. The superiority of the madder purples for which the firm of Hoyle and Sons were long famous was due to their practice of re-melting the best soaps procurable with an additional quantity of pahn-oil. 

Mercerization m9r-s9- rlz [John Mercer t 2866 English calico printer] (1859) vt. A treatment of cotton yarn or fabric to... 

Tennant s patent of 23 January 1798 specifies the absorption of oxymuriatic acid (chlorine) in calcareous earths, strontites, or barytes in their carbonated or calcined forms instead of by alkaline substances such as pot or pearl ashes, kelp or barilla. In the subsequent litigation the use of magnesia was mentioned. Davy proposed the absorption in a suspension of magnesia, and says this was used at his suggestion by Duffy, a calico-printer in Dublin, Davy having found that it bleaches without injuring the vegetable fibre and it did not destroy reds and yellows fixed by mordants. 

Whinfield and W. Dickson, working at the Calico Printers Association (2,3). Other polymers pioneered by these workers included poly(l,3-propylene terephthalate), 3GT, poly(l,4-butylene terephthalate), 4GT, and the polyester from ethylene glycol and l,2-6is(4-carbox5 henoxy)ethane, known as CPE-2G or Fiber-0 (4). Of these materials, PET was selected for development as a melt-spinnable synthetic fiber, but commercialization was impossible until after the end of World War II. Eventually, when the various national economies were back on a peacetime footing, PET polymer and fibers derived from it were put into production. The whole market-driving force for polyester at this time was in the form of synthetic fibers. In the United Kingdom, the new material was manufactured by Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd. imder the trade name Terylene, while DuPont introduced it to the United States in 1953 as Dacron (see Polyesters, Fibers). 

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