WI: Rayon discovered by Napoleonic France

Rayon is a cellulose fibre that can, and is currently being used to an extent, as an alternative to cotton, silk, and other such substances. It was discovered as an alternative to silk in the late nineteenth century, and was the first man-made fibre. It doesn't require a very difficult process to create rayon, but the main restricting factor restricting its potential growth is that it will initially be more expensive than cotton and other alternatives. There is one circumstance where that factor doesn't exist, and that is Napoleonic France.

In Napoleonic France, trade with Britain was highly restricted due to the war going on. This meant that France, and indeed the rest of Europe, was blocked from getting various tropical goods. IOTL, this meant that sugarcane was no longer an option. Although sugar beets were discovered to have sugar pre-war, it was only during Napoleon and the lack of sugar from sugarcane that it became a major way to produce sugar. Otherwise, it would have simply been uneconomical to produce it. So, assuming Napoleonic France discovers rayon, could it then mean that it becomes a major competitor to cotton?
 
Pretty interesting, I suspect it mostly disappear after the Wars, but make a slow return, much like sugar beet. I would suggest Sweden would end up the country dominating the production of it later in the century.
 
Could this have some effect on the run up to the American Civil War? OTL fire-eaters in the South were able to argue that King Cotton was irreplaceable (they were wrong, but only because of cotton supplies elsewhere and because of built up stocks of cotton). What if the existence of Rayon as a cotton substitute were well known and the north even had a small rayon-growing/manufacturing industry? Then you might either get less enthusiasm for secession, or else after the war started, you might not get the OTL self imposed cotton embargo.
 
Could this have some effect on the run up to the American Civil War? OTL fire-eaters in the South were able to argue that King Cotton was irreplaceable (they were wrong, but only because of cotton supplies elsewhere and because of built up stocks of cotton). What if the existence of Rayon as a cotton substitute were well known and the north even had a small rayon-growing/manufacturing industry? Then you might either get less enthusiasm for secession, or else after the war started, you might not get the OTL self imposed cotton embargo.
Does that mean that Britain doesn't step up cotton production in Egypt and India because it knows it can get rayon or keep buying from the South? And what butterflies might it have in those places?
 
Which Rayon process? Is it plausible to do your chosen process economically with the chemistry available at the time? (e.g. did anyone even know of Carbon disulfide at the time?)
 
Honestly from what I can see the process are pretty easy, you just need access to sulphur, large amount of timber and large amount of hydro power. There doesn't seem to be anything to keep the process being developed a century earlier than suggested, outside of people being more clueless about how chemistry worked. But a accidental discovery in the 1730ties could be interesting. In this case Denmark-Norway would be the natural producer of rayon. D-N have access to sulphur in Iceland, Norway have large forests and large amount of potential hydro power. At the same time it embraced mercantilistic policies until the 1780ties. So you could have Denmark invest in some rayon mills in the 1740-50ties, the fact that it's expensive means less when you have a government willing to protect the production through tariffs. So rayon have decades to become competitive, before the tariff are removed, and as the Napoleonic Wars hit even if it's not competitive it will get a new lease on life at that point.
 
Honestly from what I can see the process are pretty easy, you just need access to sulphur, large amount of timber and large amount of hydro power. There doesn't seem to be anything to keep the process being developed a century earlier than suggested,
Hydropower. As in electricity? Which hasn't been invented yet, either?
 
Hunh. OK, this is (to a small extent) probably doable.

1) Get someone to invent CS2 long before Lampadius
http://carbon.atomistry.com/carbon_disulphide.html said:
Carbon disulphide is formed when carbon and sulphur are heated together, and is consequently produced when coal containing iron pyrites is distilled. In this way it was discovered accidentally by Lampadius in 1796, and again by Clement and Desormes in 1802, who, after at first supposing it to be a compound of hydrogen and sulphur, subsequently proved that it contained only carbon and sulphur. It remained, however, for Vauquelin fully to elucidate the nature of this compound by showing that when its vapour is passed over heated copper, carbon and copper sulphide result. Besides occurring in small quantity in coal-gas, from which it should be eliminated, carbon disulphide is also found in crude petroleum and in mustard oil.
My suggestion would be to have someone fiddling with Carbon and Sulphur to try to improve gunpowder. So they discover Carbon disulphide.

For some time, it's pretty useless, but someone eventually tries, oh, say moping up a spill and discovers that after it has evaporated, there's a sheet of something left behind.

Now. CS2 is explosive in air, and burns readily, so you are going to need to keep any bulk processing hermetically sealed away from air. You're also going to need to come up with volume production of the liquid.

Still, it might be possible to enough for it to be at least a curiosity, maybe even a fad for a while in Society. Getting enough to replace cotton, to clothe people with, well.... that's highly unlikely to happen.

Linen's going to be a lot cheaper, and wool.
 
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