Asbestos

It is hard to believe that mittens and twines are weaved from this mineral! Asbestos gives fine fiber that can be spun according to all the rules of this art. Moreover, this stone fiber has one miraculous property: it does not burn in the fire (but it sinks very quickly in water).

Asbestos gives fine fiber that can be spun according to all the rules of this art

Since ancient times, he was met in the mountains, and it is not surprising that the most wonderful legends and fables were told about him. Pliny the Elder, one of the greatest naturalists of ancient Rome, wrote: "There is a stone for cloth that grows in the deserts of India inhabited by snakes, where rain never falls, and therefore he is used to living in the heat. Burial shirts are made of it in order to wrap up the corpses of the leaders when they are burned at the stake; it is made for feasting napkins that can be heated on fire".

Apparently, in the ancient world already knew how to use the fibers of this mineral and prepare asbestos products, fabrics and especially fireproof wicks for luminous with oil.

By the beginning of the 18th century, asbestos had already begun to be applied more widely, and at that time they began to prepare paper and wicks from it in the Pyrenees and in Hungary.

In 1785, Fox began to make experiments on a so-called stone folder, which at one time made a lot of noise. Great hopes were placed on this discovery. The Stockholm Academy helped Fox with money, and the Swedish government gave him the right to do experiments at the royal mills. The experiments carried out in Stockholm in a particularly festive atmosphere and repeated in Berlin took place as follows: a light building was prepared, its walls were covered with a so-called stone folder; the building was filled with shavings and lit, and the folder, which was incombustible by itself, protected the wood from burning, preventing the rapid spread of fire. The applicability of asbestos in fire-resistant construction has been brilliantly proven.

At the same time, a wonderful production started in Italy, in Piedmont: For several years, Elena Perpenti was looking for a way to weave asbestos and, finally, achieved what began to get the finest laces from this mineral. In 1806, the Italian Industry Promotion Society awarded it with a medal of honor for asbestos weaving. The asbestos paper prepared by her turned out to be suitable for writing, and the Moscati State Counselor printed on it a happy new year greeting to the Viceroy of Italy. The merit of Perpenty was that its products were made of pure asbestos, without admixture of linen thread, and therefore did not need to burn them, and the products were stronger. Perpenti was preparing ribbons, wallets, paper, laces and even cuffs.

Since then, more than a hundred years have passed, and the extraction and processing of asbestos has become the largest industry in the global industry. But it is still not enough. Every year its use is increasing, and in many cases asbestos has become an indispensable material. Exceptional strength, flammability, poor thermal conductivity, the ability to mix with a variety of substances allow you to use it in the form of wool and yarn, paper and cardboard. Asbestos is used for the manufacture of large curtains in theaters, fireproof, safe partitions and asbestos roofs, clothing for firefighters, brake bands for cars and asbestos filters for cleaning wine.

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