IMPLICATIONS OF PECTIN ON COTTON FIBER PROCESSING

摘要

Increasing speeds of cotton yarn production in the textile mill have rendered traditional physical fiber measurements such aslength and strength less reliable as predictors of yarn spinning efficiency. With the goal toward addressing this problem, thiswork attempts to characterize the pectin component of the cotton fiber in order to develop a chemistry-based methodology bywhich currently unknown factors involved in yarn spinning efficiency may be elucidated. A mathematical relationship ofpectin content with fiber micronaire measurements is first established and subsequently used in the comparison of the normalizedpectin content with fiber friction measurements. Results indicate that fiber friction decreases as the pectin layerthickness on the cotton fiber outer surface increases. This is an important observation not only from the standpoint of beingable to set fiber processing equipment parameters based on chemical measurements, but it also raises the question of whethercotton can be bred in order to produce desirable spinning characteristics based on the level of pectin production during thefiber growth period.