Jute


                                                                                 Jute
Jute is a long, shiny, vegetable fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong thread.
Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibers. Industrial term for jute fiber is raw jute.
Botanical information:-
The botanical name of jute is corchorus.
Cultivation:-
Jute needs plain olluvial soil and standing water. The suitable climate for jute   (warm and wet climate) is offered by the monsoon climate during the monsoon season. Temperature from 20-40 and relative humidity means (water vapors in air) of 70-80% are favorable for successful cultivation. Jute requires 5-8cm rainfall weekly and more during the sowing period.
                                                                                                                             Jute plants (Corchorus olitorius andCorchorus capsularis)
                                   Production and Processing
Jute is a rain fed crop with little need for fertilizer or pesticides. It may grow to 5m (15ft), with a stalk diameter of 20mm (3/4in). The production is concentrated mainly in Bangladesh and some India.
 Jute fibers come from the stem and ribbon (outer skin) of the jute plant. Fibers are extracted by retting. This process consists of bundling jute stem together and immersing them in low running water. They are examed daily until the stage is reached at which fiber can be separated easily from the stem. The strands of fiber, often as much as 2m (7ft) long, are washed and hung up in the sun for dry. They are compressed into bales and sent off to the mills for spinning.
  It is necessary to include small amount of mineral spindle oils into fiber during conversion into yarn. Normal jute goods may contain up to (5%) oil called stainless. Yarn containing (1%) oil or less are commonly available when jute  use for special purpose; e.g. carpet backing, wall covering, etc.
                                       
Picture of cutting lower part of the long jute fibre. The lower part is hard fibre, which is called jute cuttings in Bangladesh and India (commonly called jute butts or jute tops elsewhere). Jute cuttings are lower in quality, but have commercial value for the paper, carded yarn, and other fibre processing industries. Jute fibres are kept in bundles in the background in a warehouse in Bangladesh.                                                 
                                   Structure and Properties
Fiber Structure and Appearance:-
Jute varies from yellow to brown and brown to dirty grey in color with 1-4meter (3-12ft) long.
 Jute has a natural silky luster.
Jute fiber composed primarily of the plant material cellulose (major component of plant fiber) and lignin (major component of wool fiber). It is thus a lingo-cellulosic fiber that is partially a textile fiber and partially wood.
Best quality oh jute is smooth and soft. The individual cells of jute are about 2.6mm (1/10th in) long, on average. The fibers are coated with a layer of woody material.
Seen in cross-section, the cell is polygonal with Den:-13-27 usually with five or six bends. It has thick walls and a broad lumen of oval cross-section. By contrast with the regular lumen of flax jute is irregular. Towards the ends of the cell, which are tapered, the lumen widens; the cell walls become correspondingly thin. Jute contains about 20% of lignin.

                                                
                                                Jute Fabric


                       
                                          
                                                      Properties
Tensile Strength:-
 Jute is not so strong as flax or hemp, nor it is so durable. Individual fiber varies greatly in strength owing to the irregularities in the thickness of cell wall.
Elongation:-
  Jute has an elongation at break of about 1.7%.
Elastic Property:-
 Jute tends to be a stiff fiber which is due to the cell which is cements together in the material.
Specific Gravity:-
                         1.5

Effect of Moisture:-
 Jute is an unusually hygroscopic fiber. Its regain figure is 13.75%. It can absorb as much as 23% of water under humid conditions.

Effect of Age:-
 If kept dry, jute will last indefinitely although the high content of non-cellulosic matter tends to make it sensitive to chemical and photochemical attack. Moisture loses strength of jute with age.
Chemical Properties:-
                       Cellulose=64.4%                                pectin=0.2%
                      Fat and wax=0.5%                              others=23.8%
                         Water soluble=3.9%
Micro-organisms:-
 Jute has more resistance to decompose than either grey cotton or flax  (i. e unclean). If tightly scoured (scoured means clean by rubbing with something rough or detergent) it can have an excellent resistance owing to have the protective effect of the lignin.
Jute in Use:-
1= Jute is cheap and reasonable strong. These characteristics have enable it to become an important fiber for sacks and packing cloths. These are used extensively for the storage and transport of agriculture product.
2= Resistance of a jute fiber to stretching forces has proved a valuable property when jute is used for storage and transport purpose. Sacks and bales remain firmly in place after stacking; they do not distort and shift position as they would if made from a fiber more elastic than jute.
3= Hairiness of jute can be a disadvantage when jute sacks are used for food storage. The fiber end may break away and contaminate the food.
4=the finer quality of jute are made into curtains and furnishing fabrics. After treatment with caustic soda jute mixes with wool and spun and woven into cheap fabrics.

5=Familiar uses for jute include the following;
Sacks, bags, baling and bundle cloths, bedding foundation, bonded fabric, cargo and other separation cloths (e.g in rubber technology), cattle bedding, concrete cleavage fabrics, cables, plastics reinforcement, filter cloths, fire curtains, fuse yarns, furnishing, hand bag and all type of stiff bags. 

Humidification


Humidification is the artificial regulation of humidity in home environments, industrial environments, and health care applications such as artificial respiration.
To be comfortable, people require a certain amount of ambient humidity -- not too high, and not too low. Adequate humidification in a manufacturing environment stabilizes moisture in wood, paper, and textiles, while preventing warping in glue joints.
In all environments, humidification reduces fire risk and static electricity while making the area feel comfortable.

Humidification is achieved using liquid atomisers which distribute moisture to the area, coupled with accurate sensors which measure ambient humidity.

In humidification, two quantities are commonly used.
 Absolute humidification:
        Absolute humidification is expressed in grams of moisture per cubic volume of air.
Relative humidification:
        Relative humidification is expressed as a ratio between the amount of moisture currently in the air and the maximum moisture the air could hold before condensation occurs.
 Many humidifiers are cheap and require little maintenance. In industrial settings, they are often hung from the ceiling among duct work. Humidification is intimately tied to heating and cooling systems. The level of humidity in the air is also a function of the temperature. Therefore, humidity control systems are often integrated with cooling systems.
Humidification systems are designed by mechanical engineers and are also linked to ventilation systems. Given adequate ventilation from the outside, the humidity of an indoor environment will tend to reach equilibrium with the humidity outside. Humidification is also used to "relax" old documents that have become wrinkled with age.
IMPORTANCE OF RH AND TEMPERATURE:
The atmospheric conditions with respect to temperature and humidity play very important part in the manufacutring process of textile yarns and fabrics.
The properties like dimensions, weight, tensile strength, elastic recovery, electrical resistance, rigidity etc. of all textile fibre whether natural or synthetic are influenced by Moisture Regain.
Moisture regain:
Moisture regain is the ratio of the moisture to the bone-dry weight of the material expressed as a percentage.

Many properties of textile materials vary considerably with moisture regain, which in turn is affected by the ambient Relative Humidity (RH) and Temparature. If a dry textile material is placed in a room with a particualr set of ambient conditions, it absorbs moisture and in course of time, attains an equilibrium.
Some physical properties of textile materials which is affected by RH is given below:
·         Strength of COTTON goes up when R.H.% goes up
·         Strength of VISCOSE goes down when R.H.% goes up
·         Elongation %ge goes up with increased R.H.% for most textile fibres
·         the tendency for generation of static electricity due to friction decreases as RH goes up
·         At higher levels of RH , there is also a tendency of the fibres to stick together
Temparature alone does not have a great effect on the fibres. However the temperature dictates the amount
of moisture the air will hold in suspension and , therefore, temperature and humidity must be considered together.

Henequen


                                       HENEQUEN
In Yucatan, the fibre henequen is produced from a plant Agave fourcroydes, which is closely related to the A. sisalana which yields sisal.
Henequen fibre is also a valuable export from Cuba. It is often known as 'Yucatan sisal' or 'Cuban sisal'.

              
                                     Henequen
Production and Processing:-
The henequen plant is very similar to that from which sisal is ob­tained. The leaves are prickly and grey-green in colour. They are first cut, one or two at a time, from plants about six or seven years old. Then, for fifteen to eighteen years, a few leaves are removed twice yearly until the plant flowers and dies.
The leaves are processed in the same way as sisal and the strands of washed fibre are dried in the sun.

Structure and Properties:-
Henequen is very similar to sisal. The strands of fibre, 150cm (5 ft) long, are of good colour and have an attractive lustre. They are usually finer than strands of sisal fibre.
The individual cells of henequen are almost identical with those of sisal.
Denier of henequen is 362-478.
Henequen in Use:-
1-    Henequen is used in much the same way as sisal. It provides much of the world’s agriculture twine.
2-     Coarse fabrics such as canvas have been made from henequen in Mexico since prehistoric times.