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ABSTRACT
Noncellulosic materials on raw cottons can influence spinning performance. Chemical
and physical tests are conducted on a series of nonsticky single-season upland cottons
originating from three U.S. growing areas. Relationships are determined between yarn
production performance and efficiency and fiber frictional and physical properties as well
as nonfibrous material content for three different spinning systems. Fiber micronaire
significantly influences results. Increases in yarn strength correlate with increasing levels
of total fiber alcohol surface extractables, wax, and potassium content. Processing ends
down increases in ring and open-end spinning and decreases in vortex spinning as fiber
alcohol surface extractables, wax, and light metal content increase. Ends down decrease
in ring an open-end spinning and increase in vortex spinning as the HVI trash measurement
increases. Uster yarn evenness neps and thick and thin places decrease in ring and
open-end and increase in vortex yarns as alcohol surface extractables increase. Fiber
yellowness and grayness increase as concentrations of the metals potassium, magnesium,
and iron increase.
Noncellulosic materials on raw cottons may influence ing areas, and to determine any potential influences they
fiber physical properties, yarn processing efficiency, and may have on ring, open-end, and vortex spinning perfor-
product quality. Concentrations generally depend on a mance and finished yarn quality.
number of contributing factors such as growth area,
genetic variety, degree of fiber maturity, field weather-
ing, length of growing season, growing and harvest aid Experimental
chemical treatments, any insect honeydew present, and
YARN PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING DATA
possible contamination experienced in handling during
the picking, ginning, and baling processes. A number of The samples in this report are from an on-going five-
previous publications have addressed the general affects year study of upland cottons. Twenty-one nonsticky cot-
of different levels of natural, insect, and man-induced tons originating from the Southeast (six varieties), Mid-
materials on ginned cottons and how they may affect south (seven varieties), and West Texas (eight varieties)
yarn quality [1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9]. growing areas were processed into ring, open-end, and
Modern trends in the development of textile machin- vortex yarns at the USDA Laboratory at Clemson. Yarn
ery are to increase production speeds, so greater stresses sizes were Ne 20/1 for open-end and ring and Ne 35/1 for
and demands are placed on fibers to perform. Naturally the vortex spinning systems. Processing efficiency, yarn
occurring materials such as plant sugars, wax, metals, quality, and waste generation data were recorded. Two of
and various organic compounds, which combined can the fourteen different varieties in this single season study
easily exceed 3% of the fiber weight, are generally con- were common to all three growing areas, and four others
sidered to be surface related. Thus, they have the increas- were common to two growing areas.
ing potential to impact fiber and yarn properties, process- Important fiber and yarn physical and processing prop-
ing efficiency, and product quality. erties addressed in this report include HVI measurements,
We have designed this study to measure concentra- Stelometer strength, and carding sliver RotorRing fric-
tions of individual nonfibrous materials found on a va- tion measurements, Suter-Webb mean and upper quartile
riety of single-season cottons from three different grow- length measurements, ring, open-end, and vortex ends
down in spinning, single strand yarn strength, evenness TN. All other fiber and yarn measurements were con-
IPI neps, and thin and thick place measurements. ducted at the Clemson USDA-ARS Cotton Quality Sta-
tion Spinning or Fiber Testing Laboratories.
The significance of these data averages was deter-
ANALYSIS OF RAW COTTON FOR NONCELLULOSIC
mined by SAS for Windows (SAS Institute, Cary, NC)
MATERIALS AND FRICTIONAL PROPERTIES
and statistical t-tests. Correlation coefficients (r values)
All cottons were conditioned in a laboratory for at were based on linear regression (how well data points are
least three weeks before triplicate measurements of fiber related to each other).
moisture content (ASTM method D2495-01) on each
sample. Moisture contents ranged from 6.67 to 7.20% Results and Discussion
(based on the fiber weight). The standard deviation mois-
RAW COTTON PHYSICAL PROPERTY MEASUREMENTS
ture determination was ⫾0.10%. Corrections for individ-
ual cotton moisture contents were used to determine the Growth area had a significant effect on the fiber mi-
subsequent nonfibrous material concentrations. cronaire. We saw a good example of this effect when
Wax was removed from the lint by conducting tripli- comparing the two Fibermax varieties grown in all three
cate six-hour Soxhlet 1-1-1 trichloroethane solvent ex- areas (Table I). Micronaire for all twenty-one of these
tractions of duplicate samples. Total surface extractables cottons ranged from a high of 5.56 for a single Missis-
(wax and other noncellulosic materials) were removed sippi to a low of 2.89 for the Fibermax 832 variety in
using the same Soxhlet extraction procedure as for wax Table I. Table II gives the averages, by growing location,
removal, except the solvent was absolute ethanol. The for raw cotton fiber physical property measurements
standard deviation for wax and alcohol extractions was such as HVI micronaire, strength, color measurements,
⫾3% of the amount determined. and trash. Also included are Stelometer strength, Suter-
Preparation and analysis of the cottons for metal Webb upper quartile and mean lengths, and oven-dried
content followed the procedure previously reported [2, moisture contents. Average Texas HVI micronaire, trash,
3]. The standard deviation for preparing samples and color ⫹b (yellowness), and fiber moisture content were
solutions for metals analysis was ⫾ 4%. At least two significantly different from the other two growing areas.
separate determinations were made on each solution of There were no significant differences between HVI and
triplicate samples. Hence, metal concentrations pre- Stelometer strengths, HVI Rd, and Suter-Webb upper
sented here are an average of at least six determina- quartile and mean lengths for the different growing areas.
tions per sample. The standard deviation for determin- Carding sliver f/f frictions (in joules) averaged about
ing metals was ⫾5%. twice those of f/m frictions. Results were mixed with no
Additional raw cotton and yarn samples were submit- significant differences detect between growing areas.
ted to the Institute of Textile Technology (ITT) labora-
tory in Charlottesville, VA, for RotorRing fiber-to-metal
(f/m) and fiber-to-fiber (f/f) frictional property measure- TABLE I. Average fiber micronaires for two varieties
ments. These measurements determine the amount of common to three different growing areas.
energy (in joules) to open parallel fibers formed on a Micronaire
rotor [5]. At least four measurements for both frictional
Location FM 832 FM 966 Location average
tests were conducted per cotton. Data presented here
represent average values for each friction test. Fiber HVI Texas 2.89 3.20 3.04
measurements (strength, color, etc.) were determined by Georgia 4.04 4.35 4.19
Miss. 3.97 4.53 4.27
the USDA Quality Control Classing Office in Memphis,
TABLE II. Average physical properties of cottons from three different domestic growing areas.a
HVI S.W.
Stelo. Moisture
Loc. N Mic. Str. (g/tex) Rd ⫹b Trash, % str., g/tex UQL, in. ML, in content, %
TABLE III. Average noncellulosic extractables and metal contents of cottons from different domestic growing areas.a
Metals, ppm
FIBER EXTRACTIONS, ASH RESIDUES, AND METALS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAL CONTENT AND FIBER
COLOR
Growing area averages for fiber extractions, ash residues,
and those measured individual metals are shown in Table HVI yellowness (⫹b) and grayness (Rd) measurements
III. There were significantly higher average concentrations showed a tendency to increase as concentrations of cer-
for the amount of surface alcohol and wax extractions, ash tain metals increased. Both Rd (r ⫽ 0.68) and ⫹b (r
residues, and the metal potassium in Texas-grown cottons. ⫽ 0.50) values increased as the potassium content in-
Iron levels were also slightly higher in Texas cottons. creased. Yellowness increased as fiber iron content in-
creased (r ⫽ 0.60). Rd increased as the magnesium
INFLUENCES OF MICRONAIRE ON FIBER PROPERTIES AND content increased (r ⫽ 0.48).
NONCELLULOSIC CONTENT
Fiber moisture content (r ⫽ ⫺0.56), HVI (r ⫽ ⫺0.44), RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN YARN PROCESSING
and Stelometer (r ⫽ ⫺0.52) strengths, Suter-Webb array PERFORMANCE AND FIBER NONCELLULOSIC CONTENT
upper quartile length (r ⫽ ⫺0.71), HVI color Rd
(r ⫽ ⫺0.45) and ⫹b (r ⫽ ⫺0.36), and carding sliver Table IV is a summary of the correlations (r values)
f/m (r ⫽ ⫺0.61) and f/f frictions (r ⫽ ⫺0.77) for all between the nonfibrous materials on the raw cotton and five
twenty-one cottons increased as micronaire decreased. important yarn processing properties, including fiber ethyl
HVI trash increased as micronaire increased (r ⫽ 0.59). alcohol extractables, wax content, HVI trash measured prior
Fiber wax content (r ⫽ ⫺0.71), alcohol surface extract- to processing, and total light metal contents. Yarn process-
ables (r ⫽ ⫺0.88, Figure 1), residues from ashing ing property measurements for the ring, open-end, and
(r ⫽ ⫺0.73), and concentrations of potassium (r ⫽ ⫺0.66), vortex spinning systems include yarn single strand strength,
magnesium (r ⫽ ⫺0.44), and iron (r ⫽ ⫺0.67) each in- actual ends down in spinning, yarn evenness neps, and thin
creased as micronaire decreased. Fiber sodium content and thick places. Correlations represent values calculated
tended to increase as micronaire increased (r ⫽ 0.36). for all twenty-one cottons. While some of the correlations in
this table may seem to be weak or nonsignificant for a
particular spinning system, all correlations are presented to
illustrate similarities and/or differences detected.
Yarn single strand strengths for all spinning systems
increased as ethyl alcohol surface extractables, fiber wax
contents, and total light metal contents increased. Yarn ends
down increased in ring and open-end and decreased in
vortex spinning as alcohol extractables (Figure 2), wax
(Figure 3), and total light metal content increased. Evenness
neps and thin and thick places decreased in ring and open-
end and increased in vortex yarns as alcohol extractables
(Figures 4 and 5), wax content, and total metal content
increased.
TABLE IV. Correlations (r values) between noncellulosic materials on cotton and yarn spinning performance data.
Yarn S.S. Str. 0.51 0.66 0.50 0.57 0.62 0.43 ⫺0.21 ⫺0.29 0.12 0.23 0.46 0.33
Ends down 0.58 0.74 ⫺0.12 0.45 0.57 ⫺0.33 ⫺0.57 ⫺0.40 0.23 0.43 0.52 ⫺0.20
Neps ⫺0.21 ⫺0.14 0.69 ⫺0.01 0.03 0.53 0.44 0.51 ⫺0.50 ⫺0.42 ⫺0.40 0.33
Thin places ⫺0.64 ⫺0.68 0.41 ⫺0.73 ⫺0.52 0.16 0.15 0.47 ⫺0.68 ⫺0.40 ⫺0.44 0.39
Thick places ⫺0.28 ⫺0.64 0.80 ⫺0.42 ⫺0.44 0.64 0.04 0.54 ⫺0.73 ⫺0.47 ⫺0.49 0.55