Artificial Wood from Autumn Leaves

Progress, Volume XIII, Issue 6, 1 February 1918, Page 137

Artificial Wood from Autumn Leaves

Sawdust and "wood flour" have long been used for the making of artificial wood, and now an ingenious inventor has applied for a patent on a new process by which dry leaves are employed for the same purpose, the great advantage, of course, being the greater cheapness of the raw material. Anv sort of leaves can be used, but oak, birch and beech are particularly good. The process is as follows:—It is preferable to begin by having the leaves ground up. They are then mixed with a suitable binder; for this purpose glue (four ounces), resin, water glass, casein, etc., can lie employed, but viscose is the best, as it is possible to make the viscose from a portion of the leaves used. For certain purposes, moreover, it is possible to make use of "fillers" to mix in with the mass, such as asbestos, infusional earth, wood flour, peat flour, etc. The finely ground dry leaves are boiled in soda lye and are then without delay mixed intimately with an already prepared solution of viscose. The resultant mass is placed in suitable press moulds and subjected to a pressure of 350 atmospheres. The shapes obtained are dried and then subjected to a warm "after pressure." The viscose can be made from the "leaf meal" by treating the latter first with soda lye and then with carbon disulphide fumes. To increase the binding power of the viscose, in consideration of the jelly-like cellulose separated out from it small quantities of other binders, such as glue, water glass, casein, waste sulphite liquor, etc., can be added. Colour can be added either to the mass or to the leaf meal.