SYNTHETIC SILK FROM MILK

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

SYNTHETIC SILK FROM MILK

German Scientist s Experiments

Mr. Benjamin Roos, 41-year-old Ger- « man chemist, now working in England, ■: L trying to produce a perfect synthetic ; silk from milk, says the “Sunday Ex- ? press.” Already he has been ten years on his ’■ task and has made silk from milk m i his laboratories, silk of fine texture * and colour. In 1931 Mr. Roos sent Government analysts in Berlin a sample of real silk and a sample of his own invention. The analysts declared it was impos- > sible to distinguish between them. : ■ Mr. Roos is not satisfied. So far he lias spent more than £25,000 in research work, and for .years has kept laboratories going in four countries. But always the secret of combining in his product every quality of the finest silk has eluded him. He has set himself to obtain five essentials—beauty of colour, strength, softness, elasticity and non-shrinkable-ness. At present he can combine up to any four of these qualities, but the remaining point of perfection escapes in the process. Mr. Roos has now succeeded m a remarkable experiment. He is arranging for two cows to. be fed fo r three weeks on mulberry leaves, which is the only diet of the silkworm. “I intend taking two cows in fine con-

dition and have them left to pasture in the ordinary way for a week, he said.

“Then I will analyse their milk, the butter made from it, and the casein remaining in the skimmed milk. Casein is the raw material from which I make my synthetic silk. “Next, the cows will have a proportion of mulberry leaves fed them. The same tests will be carried out. Later I hope to feed them for three weeks almost entirely on mulberry leaves, again testing the results.

“If the cows fed on mulbery leaves produce casein which is more suitable for my silk than that from ordinarily fed cows, I Shall attempt to make a chemical analysis to establish the difference between the two caseins. “If the chemical constituents of this difference are once ascertained it should be possible to improve the normal casein by manufacturing the difference’ in the laboratory.” An average cow, every day it is milked, can produce enough casein to manufacture nearly 21b. Boz. of synthetic silk.

This is after butter has been made from the milk. It takes more than 30,01)0 silkworm’s, who will eat a ton of ripe mulberry leaves, to yield 121 b. of raw silk properly reeled.