Carl Daniel Ekman
Carl Daniel Ekman (born March 17, 1845 in Kalmar ; † November 3, 1904 in Gravesend , Kent ) was a Swedish chemical engineer who was the first to successfully industrialize the sulfite process for cellulose production from wood.
Ekman, son of a doctor and the youngest of 14 siblings, trained as a pharmacist and studied at the Royal Technical University of Stockholm (then Polytechnic) from 1865 to 1868. He had very good final grades and was already earning money with a kerosene cooker he had invented Oven. He then worked at a winemaker and then at Bergvik's paper mill. Here he developed the sulphite process in 1872 by boiling groundwood under pressure with magnesium bisulphite. In 1874 he implemented it industrially in Bergvik. He worked with the Englishman George Fry, who had a paper mill in Ilford. The process had already been invented in the USA by Benjamin Chew Tilghman (who, however, did not manage to implement it industrially), and by Alexander Mitscherlich and Karl Kellner . In 1879 he went to England and founded a paper mill in Northfleet (Ekman Pulp and Paper Company) at the mouth of the Thames in 1879 and 1886 . In England he worked with TM Weguelin. As a consulting engineer, he was also involved in the establishment of further paper mills based on his method (Lachendorf, Celle, Dieppe, Rumsford on Rhode Island, St. Petersburg, Corfu, Italy). In 1881 he received a British patent and a US patent in 1882. He became infected with malaria in French Guiana as he traveled extensively in search of raw materials for paper. After he finally got typhoid, which further ruined his health, and lost a lawsuit for the pollution of his paper mill (a limestone mine processed because sulfuric acid from his mill attacked the stone) he died impoverished in Gravesend.
His invention made it possible to produce high-quality paper (which did not turn yellow due to the acid-prone lignin) from wood, which was previously mostly made from rags. He also experimented with rayon made of cellulose, which was only developed to industrial maturity by others (see viscose , cupro ). In 1897 he received a gold medal at an industrial exhibition in Stockholm.
He married Rosina Noble in 1888, with whom he had three sons, and lived near his factories in Gravesend.
literature
- George Carruthers Paper making , Toronto 1947 (Chapter 8, based on a biography by Torsten Althin)
- Klaus Beneke: Benjamin Chew Tilghman and on the history of paper and its raw materials, University of Kiel, pdf
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ekman, Carl Daniel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish chemical engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1845 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Squid |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 3, 1904 |
| Place of death | Gravesend , Kent |