Important: Safety Warning
This page contains a formula or preparation using substances now known to be dangerously toxic, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, or cyanide compounds. Exposure to these substances can cause severe poisoning, permanent injury, or death.
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
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Home › Recipes › To dye linens and cottons yellow
To dye linens and cottons yellow
The mordant should be acetate of alumine, prepared by dissolving one part of acetate of lead, and three parts of alum, in a sufficient quantity of water. This solution should be heated to the temperature of 100 degrees: the cloth should be soaked in it for two hours, then wrung out and dried. The soaking may be repeated, and the cloth again dried as before. It is then to be barely wetted with lime-water, and afterwards dried. The soaking in the acetate of alumine may be again repeated; and if the shade of yellow is required to be very bright and durable, the alternate wetting with lime-water and soaking in the mordant may be repeated three or four times.
The dyeing-bath is prepared by putting 12 or 18 parts of quercitron bark (according to the depth of the shade required,) tied up in a bag, into a sufficient quantity of cold water. Into this bath the cloth is to be put, and turned in it for an hour, while its temperature is gradually raised to about 120 degrees. It is then to be brought to a boiling heat, and the cloth allowed to remain in it only for a few minutes. If it is kept long at a boiling heat, the yellow acquires a shade of brown To fix a fine mineral yellow upon wool, silk, cotton, hemp, &c: Mix one pound of sulphur, two pounds of white oxide of arsenic, and five parts of pearl-ash; and melt the whole in a crucible, at a heat a little short of redness. The result is a yellow mass, which is to be dissolved in hot water; and the liquor filtrated, to separate it from a sediment formed chiefly of metallic arsenic, in shining plates, and in a small part, of a chocolate-colored matter, which appears to be a sub-sulphuret of arsenic. Dilute the filtered liquor, then add weak sulphuric acid, which produces a flocculent, precipitate, of a most brilliant yellow colour. This precipitate, washed upon a cloth filter, dissolves with the utmost case in liquid annmonia, giving a yellow solution, which colour is to be removed by an excess of the same alkali.