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in use in the textile and allied industries, or in hospitals and similar
institutions in those countries, so that it is evident that electrolyticallyproduced
compounds of chlorine can under favourable conditions be far
more economically produced than solutions of chemically-produced compounds
of chlorine hypochlorites (bleaching powder), and not only for
the reason that the cost of production and labour is less, but that the
resultant available chlorine is much more efficient than chlorine of the
chemically-produced bleaching powder. This has been over and over
again demonstrated by authorities. Experimenting in bleaching paper
pulp it has been shown electrically-produced chlorine has a superior
efficiency of 2 to 1. However, some results of recent researches
endeavour to prove that there is but a small difference between the
relative bleaching efficiency of chemically and electrolytically produced
chlorine. I am not a chemist and do not wish to pose as such, but I
have watched the process for six years in Poplar, to say nothing of the
time spent in studying the process before it was installed in the Borough,
and one fact is made distinctly patent to my mind, that the unstable
fluid as it leaves the electrolysers has quicker if not greater bleaching
powers than when it has been made stable. This statement inav be
useful knowledge to bleachers who have no need to store fluid and who
would immediately use the unstable fluid for bleaching purposes. I
believe the greater bleaching properties of the unstable fluid are due to
the presence of hypochlorous acid, hence the best process for bleaching
purposes would be one with the most hypochlorous acid in the fluid in
its unstable state. (See " Lancet," January ISth, 1908 : " Electrolyticallvproduced
fluids containing hypochlorites, their manufacture, and the
rationale and chemistry of the process for securing stability.")
Respecting electrolytic processes which are referred to in opposition
to the one adopted in Poplar, no information is given as to whether a
hypochlorite of sodium, or of potassium, or of calcium, is made, or of
magnesium, as in Poplar, but greater strengths of available chlorine are
put forward as a plea against the Poplar process.*
Hypochlorite of magnesium belongs to the magnesia and not to the
alkali group. It is not caustic, is non-poisonous, and to the clothes is the
least destructive of all the hypochlorites. It is obvious that the stable
solutions of electrolytically-made hypochlorites of magnesium are
* The fluid is made in Poplar at an average strength of 5 grammes of chlorine
per litre, which strength is quite sufficient and requires dilution before using, but if it
be so desired an apparatus could be constructed to produce fluid of a strength of 20
grammes and upwards of chlorine per litre.
H