Soot burner

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Soot pile around 1900

Kienrußbrenner even soot burner called, was a professional of the forest industry. Up until the beginning of the 20th century, soot smelters were still operated professionally in Germany. Pine soot was obtained from resinous materials from the coniferous forest . Wooden parts such as coniferous cones , twigs and pine chips were used, as well as resin greaves , which accumulate as residues of tree resin processing. When the fuel was smoldering in a pine soot distillery built for this purpose, the coveted pine soot was produced, which is almost pure carbon and the like. a. for the production of paint, shoe wax , printing ink and pigment paste . The distribution of the occupation in forest regions is Flurnamen as Rußhütte , Kienrußbrücke or Rußhalde testified.

workflow

The task of the soot burner was to collect the soot-forming substances during the smoldering process of the resinous material with the least possible air supply in the pine soot distillery. The kiln usually stood on a stone base wall in the so-called combustion chamber. The furnace of the resin boilers was partly located in the combustion chamber , which documents the proximity of the trades. The Pechsieder also supplied the soot burner with its starting material via their residues from the ointment burning. The Rußfangraum was affiliated to the Kienrußofen where the thick, smoky smoke (to Schmauch ) collected. The stove had a poke opening on the front and smaller draw holes on the sides with slide controls for air regulation. An opening at the rear led the combustion gases into the adjoining soot trap, where they adhered as soot to the vault walls and were knocked off. Particularly fine soot was caught in the chimney using cloths and marketed as pound soot . Double soot was created by additional annealing of the pine soot in the absence of air. In the bottom of the furnace was an opening with a catcher for the resin oil produced during the burning process, which could be marketed as a by-product. Ancient reports show that ten to twelve pounds of soot could be extracted from a hundred pounds of pitch or resin crackers.

Soot huts

Soot huts were outside of the villages because they burned down almost regularly. The main locations for carbon black production were in the northern Black Forest, Ore Mountains, Vogtland and Thuringia.

meaning

The production of fine soot , which was used as microcrystalline carbon for the production of printing ink , was a prerequisite for the sudden increase in printed products due to the invention of Gutenberg's printing press . The extraction and marketing of carbon black as a raw material can be described as the forerunner of a chemical industry. With the beginning of coal smoldering in the course of the industrial revolution, wood smoldering became too expensive and the job disappeared.

Merit

The soot burner mostly had additional trades such as Pechsieder or Harzer, but a soot burner could also earn its keep by burning soot alone with a thrifty lifestyle. In 1800, KFV Jägerschmid reported from Murgtal that a pine soot distillery had produced 44 quintals of soot per year from 110 fires . Assuming an average price of 25 guilders per hundredweight, this resulted in an income of 1,100 guilders. The soot burner had to pay 736 guilders for fuel, equipment, helpers, taxes and interest. This left him with an annual income of 364 guilders. At three guilders a week, an assistant earned an annual income of 156 guilders.

The Kienrußhütte Enzklösterle

The Rußhütte in Enzklösterle (Northern Black Forest) is advertised as a stone witness to an extinct forest industry and as a monument to German chemical history . The historic building was built in 1829, was in operation until 1895, was rediscovered in 1982 and completely restored from 1992 to 1994.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hieronymus Ludwig Wilhelm Völker: Manual of forest technology . Baumgärtner, Leipzig 1836 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ The German forest can do more than rustle. Early wood professions - no printing ink without a soot burner. on wald.lauftext.de, accessed on May 19, 2017 .
  3. ↑ cultural monument Rußhütte on enzkloesterle.de, accessed on May 31, 2017th