Tara's candy ship brought back 200 tons of sugar. At the same time, he also brought back a few tons of paper, saying that he would offer it to Marin to see if it could be of great use.
"Damn, Cuba produces paper?" Marin held his forehead, and it seemed that it was not impossible. Cuba is full of wood after all. But the problem is that Cuba has no coal. Is it too wasteful to boil wood?
You should know that now, the century-old oak in European countries has become controlled things, and civilians cannot cut down at will. But in Cuba, if you burn wood and cook pulp... it is not right. Cuba is now a place full of primeval forests, and there is indeed no shortage of wood...
But after getting the paper, Marin discovered something was wrong - the paper seemed rough, but very thick...
"This...is a bit like kraft..."
Kraft paper is a very thick paper as thick as kraft. Generally, kraft paper is used to make wrapping paper bags. For example, kraft paper is used in cement bags.
Sure enough, Tara said on the instructions that this kind of kraft paper can be used to make packaging bags. It can also be sent to Newfoundland Island and soaked in whale oil to process it into moisture-proof kraft oil paper as packaging bags for important materials.
Of course, none of these surprises Marin. What surprised Marin the most was that Tara explained that these kraft papers were made of sugar cane bagasse!
Bastard papermaking? It's a bit high-end...
It seems that later generations of Marin did hear about using sugarcane bagasse to make paper. It is said that it is beneficial to environmental protection. After all, sugarcane bagasse is not easy to degrade and is difficult to be used as a green fertilizer. It is mainly because sugarcane bagasse is mainly cellulose, which is not easy to degrade and digest, and the degradation rate is relatively slow. As people in later generations often say, fiber vegetables are difficult to absorb and digest, but they are prone to fullness.
In later generations, sugarcane bagasse is easy to solve. It is difficult to decompose, right? I used a crusher to completely beat it into powder, which will easily degrade into biological fertilizer.
But in this era, without a high-speed crusher, it is best not to throw away the fibers of sugar cane bagasse. Incineration as fuel has become a good choice. The grass ash obtained after burning is actually a good green manure.
Originally, sugarcane and bagasse from the Cuban colonies were also used as firewood. But all this changed after a craftsman arrived...
The craftsman was named Keller, a German. Originally, Keller was a paper craftsman in the paper mill on Cape Breton Island. But more than a year ago, an injury accident caused Keller to break his right leg. After being disabled, Keller could not continue working at the Cape Breton Island paper mill. He originally wanted to return to his hometown to retire in Cologne, but Garland, the governor of Cape Breton Island, disagreed. After all, Cologne is the chassis of the Archbishop of Cologne. What if Keller went back and leaked the technology of Beihai Country's wood papermaking?
Just so happened that Keller's son, Little Keller (both father and son both named the same name) was taken by Tara to the Havana colony of Cuba as the manager of the sugarcane plantation. So, Old Keller simply went to his son's place to retire.
After arriving at the Cuban sugarcane plantation, Old Keller had a leisurely retirement period at the beginning, but after that, he was not very excited.
Why? Because no one is playing with him!
If a group of retired old men and women were playing together like later generations, they would be comfortable. But where is Cuba? It was a colony that had only been developed for more than ten years. Most of the people came from young people, with almost no elderly people. Therefore, Old Keller could only meet his son after work every night.
Because of loneliness, Old Keller simply wandered around with a cane. Just so happened that he saw slaves drying sugarcane bagasse. When he asked, he said he wanted to dry it as firewood.
But Old Keller, a paper craftsman, was sick. He twisted the bagasse with his hands and found that it was all fibers.
"Maybe...can be used to make paper..."
He did it as he said, and his son, Little Keller, was the manager of the plantation and had a lot of power. Then, Old Keller took the few black slaves arranged for him and began research on using sugar cane bagasse to make paper.
He first asked the blacksmith to help him build an iron iron pot with a sealed lid. Then, he mixed the Egyptian Glauber's salt with sugar cane bagasse and put it in the sealed iron pot and cooked it.
After the pulping was completed, he copied it himself. Then, he finally got the paper.
But unfortunately, the first batch of paper seemed to be very tough and easily broken. With a slight pull, it broke...
Old Keller was very unwilling to accept it and began to observe the bagasse. After a long time, he found that the fibers of the bagasse are long and short. The long ones are suitable for papermaking, while the short ones are not suitable for it. Even if it is made, it is easy to break.
To prove the conjecture, he separated the long and short fibers in the sugar cane bagasse and cooked pulp and made paper separately. Then, as he guessed, the paper made from staple fibers was very easy to break. The paper made from long fibers was much tougher. However, it was still worse than the paper made from wood pulp. After comparison, Old Keller found that it seemed that the long fibers in the sugar cane bagasse were also a little shorter than ordinary wood pulp fibers...
Then, Old Keller thought of a solution - simply, I used the long fibers in the bagasse to copy thick kraft paper. In this way, the problem of shorter fibers will be covered up by the thick structure...
Finally, the kraft paper made by Old Keller is indeed of the quality. The most important thing is that it is low cost!
You should know that sugarcane bagasse is everywhere in Cuba, and it is used as a food for burning grass. How much sugarcane bagasse is? It accounts for about a quarter of the weight of sugarcane. In other words, a ton of sugarcane contains about 250 kilograms of sugarcane.
After using manure, the yield of sugarcane per mu of Cuba is about 2 tons. In other words, one acre of land can produce 500 kilograms of sugarcane bagasse, which is one thousand kilograms!
Of course, less than half of the long fibers suitable for papermaking are suitable for papermaking. Old Keller can only screen out longer fibers that account for 30% of the total.
But even so, 300 kilograms of long fiber can be screened out from 1,000 kilograms of sugarcane bagasse per mu. Cuba has now reclaimed 100,000 mu of sugarcane land. In addition, 100,000 mu of them are being reclaimed and planted.
In this way, even if you can only use 30% of the sugarcane bagasse, 100,000 mu of sugarcane land, you can get 30 million kilograms, or 33 million pounds! If you can make kraft paper, you can get 24.75 million pounds of kraft paper! There is so much paper that the entire Beihai Kingdom can't use it to make paper bags!
The other 70% of the remaining sugarcane bagasses that have been screened are not waste materials. After drying, they can be used as fuel to help boil sugarcane juice and extract sugar sugar. They can also be used to cook paper pulp and help make paper. It can be said that there is no waste!
Of course, due to manpower, it is impossible to use all the bagasses in Cuba to screen and make kraft paper. However, it is still possible to take out a considerable part of it.
Old Keller's invention attracted Tara's high attention. Why? Because Tara also wants to make meritorious service and earn performance!
He was not very good at making contributions in Cuba. Before, he planted sugarcane, tea trees, rice and fruits, all of which were completed according to Marin's instructions, and there was no place where he showed anything.
Now, under his rule, a good project that Marin had unexpectedly appeared, and he was naturally willing to support it to show his wisdom and wise vision of the governor.
Then, a batch of kraft paper made of sugar cane bagasse was sent back to the local area with sugar and sent to Malin Yulan.
Sure enough, after personally taking the batch of paper made from sugar cane bagasse, Marin was very happy. After all, it was indeed a waste to copy the pulp made of wood on Cape Breton Island into kraft paper. However, it was not wasted to make kraft paper with sugar cane bagasse.
However, kraft paper alone is not moisture-proof and moisture-proof. Therefore, some of the kraft paper made from Cuban sugarcane bagasse is equivalent to sending it to Newfoundland Island, soaking it in whale oil to process it into moisture-proof and moisture-proof kraft oil paper. Then, it can be used in various packaging bags.
Chapter completed!