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A new natural cellulose fibre from cornhusks

Narendra Reddy and Yiqi Yang
University of Nebraska- Lincoln, Nebraska- USA

For the first time, natural cellulose fibres with properties between cotton and linen have been extracted from cornhusks. These fibres have been blended with cotton in various proportions and processed on the ring and rotor spinning machines. Fibres extracted from cornhusks are suitable for high value textile applications and have better processability than natural fibres from other agricultural byproducts such as pineapple and banana leaves and sugarcane. Cornhusks offer an annually renewable, low cost and copious source for natural cellulose fibres. There are several advantages of using cornhusks for textile applications.

Textile applications provide high value addition and huge market for the consumption of cornhusk fibres. Using the byproduct of a major food crop for fibres will reduce the dependence on fibre crops for natural fibres and petroleum resources for synthetic fibres. Also, the process of fibre extraction from cornhusks requires lesser energy and is environmentally friendly in comparison to regenerated and synthetic fibre production processes. Products made from cornhusks are biodegradable as well. These advantages are in addition to the significant economic impact that is possible by using cornhusks.

Cornhusk fibres have properties between cotton and linen. It is seen from Table 1 that the strength of cornhusk fibres is between cotton and linen but the elongation of the fibres is much higher than cotton. The lower strength and higher elongation is largely due to the lower crystallinity and poor orientation of the fibres. Moisture regain of cornhusk fibres is about 9 % at standard testing conditions. The higher moisture regain of the fibres is again largely due to the higher amorphous regions in the fibres.

Cornhusk fibres have a lower modulus than linen and jute and will therefore be softer and more flexible. However, the higher work of rupture of corn fibres means that the fibres can withstand higher loads and will be more durable than cotton, linen or jute. The exceptional properties of moderate strength, high elongation and toughness will make products made from con fibres to have unique properties.

Cornhusk fibres were blended with cotton and polyester and processed on the ring and rotor spinning machines. Cornhusk fibres were blended with cotton in the ratio of 35:65 (corn: cotton) and processed on the open end spinning machine to produce 30 and 84 tex yarns. Cornhusk fibres were also blended with cotton in the ratio of 50:50, 30:70 and 20:80 (corn: cotton) to be processed on the ring frame. 30, 38 and 50 tex yarns were made using these blends. In addition, cornhusk fibres were blended with polyester (35: 65, corn: polyester) and processed on the ring frame to produce a 23 tex yarn. Control yarns of the same size were made from 100 % cotton and 35:65 cotton: polyester blend to evaluate the properties of the corn blended yarns. The strength and elongation of the corn blended yarns are comparable to the control yarns. The yarns produced are suitable for apparel and other textile applications.

The yarns made from 35% corn and 65% cotton blend was knitted into a garment. This garment was dyed using reactive red color. Studies on the dyeing behavior of corn fibres using direct, reactive, vat and sulfur dyes show that corn fibres have dyeability similar to cotton.

Based on the annual world production of corn, about 45 million tons of cornhusks are available every year. More than 9 million tons of natural cellulose fibres suitable for textile applications can be extracted from the cornhusks available every year. This makes cornhusk fibres second only to cotton in terms of availability of natural cellulose fibres.

Cornhusk fibres can be produced using common chemicals and the cost of producing corn fibres would be very competitive to prevailing cotton prices. Corn fibre technology is available for technology transfer to the textile industry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.