Cotton fiber | Cellulosic fiber | Vegetable fiber | plant fiber | natural fiber

 Cotton fiber | Cellulosic fiber | Vegetable fiber | plant fiber | natural fiber

Biological spiecies: Cotton fiber. This is the natural fiber extracted from cotton plant belongs to the biological family Gossipium under the category Mallow. 

Cotton growing countries : The cotton is grown in the tropical and sub-tropical of the globe and continents America, Africa, India, Australia. These are the major continents, major area of the globe, contributing to the growth of the cotton. American cotton,that is Pima cotton. African cotton, that is from country Egypt, Egyptian cotton. Indian cotton and Australian cotton. Even these are the major countries or continents growing cotton, but countries that is middle east countries, Europe countries, Pakistan, Bangladesh,even China, are all  growing cotton. But totally compared to globe, India is the major country contributing cotton production.

Chemistry of cotton fiber : The major content of cotton substance contained in the cotton fiber is cellulose, is the natural chemical element found in cotton fiber contributing about 90 to 92 % of its content in the cotton fiber. But this cellulose not only found in cotton plant, cellulose is also available in forest trees and other plants in woods. But in other wood and forest trees, the cellulose available is only 40 to 45%.But in case of cotton fibers, it is more than 90%.Because of this substance cellulose, the cotton is having demand. It gives the quality; it gives comfortness and other required properties of the clothing. The natural God gifted fiber cotton plant.

Cotton cultivation environment : The environment required to grow the cotton plant are, its required plenty of sunshine and moderate rain  fall of  about 60 to 120 cms. And soil need to be very heavy. And the cotton plant grows in frost free period.

Cotton plant : The cotton plant is having number of flowers. Each flower is producing a pod. The petals of the flower are covering this pod. When flower gets dried, the ball of the cotton fibers, that is compact form of the cotton fiber, that is wet conditioned fibers are packed together in the of the ball. The ball is called as pod. And in this pod, the number of fibers produced in the origin, that is the origin of the fibers are the seeds. The Seeds are covered with the fibers. The pod containing both seeds and the fibers. Both are attached together. Seed producing the fibers.

Cotton pod contain fibers with seeds

          When harvesting time comes, these all pods, that is when these pods almost all in their dried form (90% of the pods are dried), the harvest taking place in the sunshine period. These pods are plucked by the farmers. And collected and kept for drying. Plucked cotton fibers along with seeds are called the raw fibers or raw cotton. This raw cotton fibers are not only a mixture of seed and fiber but also containing the foreign impurities like husk, dried leaves, dust & dirt and other unwanted natural stains, etc,.

Cotton ginning : The raw cotton taken to the Ginning process. Here we have not written that process.In this Ginning process, the raw cotton fibers are separated from the seeds. That is the process of separating fibers from the seed and cleaning it or free from the dust & dirt and foreign impurities. And make the fiber pure one is called the Ginning process. This Ginning process is processed in the roller Gins. In olden days, it was done by hand rolled gin. Slowly the technology has been updated and improved. Nowadays automated ginning machines are used. The efficiency of the Ginning machines per day or per hour are improved a lot as technology has been improved.

Cotton bales

Cotton bale : When the Ginning process is completed, the outcome of the ginned fiber is having the pure cotton is packed and sold in the bale form. The bale is an international package form for the cotton. And this bale is measuring approximately about 1.400 x 0.53 x 0.69 m.And weight is around average 480 to 496 pounds in British system or 218 to 225 Kgs in MKS system. 

          Thus, in Ginning mill the raw cotton is purified into white cotton, not pure white cotton, but its free from other un wanted materials / impurities. And these bales are send to or sold to the spinning mills to process further  into the yarn, that is fibers are spun into yarn and then yarns are woven into fabrics.

Global cotton production: Now the total world production including all countries, all continent, all areas approximately about 25 million tons of cotton produced annually. But now a day, because of the variation in the climatic conditions, variations in the environmental requirements, that is required for the growth of the cotton plant, that is varying. Even the scarcity of water, limitations to irrigation or agricultural problems, natural calamities and one or the other reasons, now a day’s compared to olden days the cotton cultivation has gone down. The production of the cotton that is efficiency of the cotton grown worldwide has decreased. But the cotton has not lost its demand. This is the king of the cotton textile industry.            

Note: This note will be updated as and when required.                

Source: Based on the qualification and knowledge of the blogger had post graduation in Master of Technology in Textile Technology.