FOUND ACCIDENTALLY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 101, 23 January 1936, Page 16

FOUND ACCIDENTALLY

Discovery of New Shade

of Blue

The colour Blue has long been the bugbear of decorators; it fades quickly and is adversely affected by the elements. Now, thanks to a remarkable British scientific discovery, artists will be able to make so much greater use of blue that the future of. industrial design is likely to be considerably affected. . ~ ■“Monastral Fast Blue BS” is the technical name of the new pigment, and the producers claim that it is the most important discovery of its kind for a century. At a display of the new colour in London, handbags, flooring material, enamels, wall-papers, oil paintings, bookbindings and printing inks, in all. of which “Monastral blue” had been employed, were to be seen. At present the pigment is not soluble, but experiments are now being carried out for extending its use to textiles. “We are 85 per cent, of the way toward making it soluble,” said an official connected with the production, “and when we succeed it may well replace indigo as the most important blue dye for textiles. For the past four years workers have been experimenting to produce a satisfactory blue pigment. “The final discovery came about almost accidentally; one of our chemists al Grangemouth was struck by the appearance of some fungus which had formed on the side of a retort. It was the study he made of the fungus which eventually led to Monastral blue, which was developed at our laboratories at Huddersfield and Manchester and at Cambridge University. “The special properties of Monastral blue are that it is extremely fast to light and heat, absolutely fast to alkalies and acids, and insoluble in oil, spirit and nitrocellulose solvents, while it is characterised by high tinctorial value and brilliance of shade.”