Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/412

406 which was formed by the action of the alkali of the stannate on the stannic chloride, was not permanently fixed in the fibers of the material, and was therefore removed during the subsequent washing. Tin is so expensive that, in a process to be commercially successful, this loss must obviously be avoided.

There are many ways in which stannic oxide may be precipitated from sodium stannate and one of these, commonly used in ordinary analytical chemistry, consists in adding certain soluble salts, such as sodium sulphate or ammonium nitrate to the solution of the stannate, when the whole of the tin is precipitated as oxide or hydrate. In order to find out whether some process of this kind would precipitate this oxide in such a condition that it would remain permanently fixed in the fiber, a number of pieces of flannelette were soaked in sodium stannate and, after thoroughly drying, separately passed through various solutions containing sodium or ammonium salts at the ordinary temperature and at temperatures up to the boiling point. Although, as was to be expected, the results were not uniformly good, a certain degree of permanent fireproofing was always achieved and consequently the matter was systematically followed up with the result that a process was gradually evolved which yielded material possessing quite remarkable properties. The process is briefly this:

The flannelette (or other material) is run through a solution of sodium stannate of approximately 45° Tw. in such a manner that it becomes thoroughly impregnated. It is then squeezed to remove the excess of the solution, passed over heated copper drums in order to thoroughly dry it, after which it is run through a solution of ammonium sulphate of about 15° Tw. and again squeezed and dried.

Apart from the precipitated stannic oxide, the material now contains sodium sulphate and this is removed by passage through water; the material is then dried and subjected to the ordinary processes of finishing. A long series of trials, carried out under the most stringent conditions, have conclusively proved that material, subjected to this process is permanently fireproofed. No amount of washing with hot soap and water will remove the fireproofing agent, or in other words, the property of resisting flame lasts so long as the material itself lasts. I will demonstrate this by exhibiting four different specimens: (i) material as it leaves the process and before washing, (ii) material which has been washed ten times by hand, (iii) material washed 20 times in a machine in a laundry and (iv) a portion of a garment which has been in actual use for 2 years, washed every week and is, as you see, in rags. This extraordinary property of resisting soap and water seems to me to indicate that the oxide of tin is not present merely as an insoluble precipitate in the cloth but must have entered into some actual combination with the fiber, yielding a compound which is not broken down by