Ginning process

About 80 million bales of cotton are produced annually worldwide, of which about 20
million are produced by about 1,300 gins in the United States. The principal function of
the cotton gin is to separate lint from seed, but the gin must also be equipped to remove
a large percentage of the foreign matter from the cotton that would significantly reduce
the value of the ginned lint. A ginner must have two objectives: (1) to produce lint of
satisfactory quality for the grower’s market and (2) to gin the cotton with minimum
reduction in fibre spinning quality, so that the cotton will meet the demands of its ultimate
users, the spinner and the consumer. Accordingly, quality preservation during ginning
requires the proper selection and operation of each machine in a ginning system.
Mechanical handling and drying may modify the natural quality characteristics of cotton.
At best, a ginner can only preserve the quality characteristics inherent in the cotton when
it enters the gin. The following paragraphs briefly discuss the function of the major
mechanical equipment and processes in the gin.

Seed-cotton machinery

Cotton is transported from a trailer or module into a green-boll trap in the gin, where
green bolls, rocks and other heavy foreign matter are removed. The automatic feed
control provides an even, well-dispersed flow of cotton so that the gin’s cleaning and
drying system will operate more efficiently. Cotton that is not well dispersed can travel
through the drying system in clumps, and only the surface of that cotton will be dried.

In the first stage of drying, heated air conveys the cotton through the shelves for 10 to 15
seconds. The temperature of the conveying air is regulated to control the amount of
drying. To prevent fibre damage, the temperature to which the cotton is exposed during
normal operation should never exceed 177 ºC. Temperatures above 150 ºC can cause
permanent physical changes in cotton fibres. Dryer-temperature sensors should be
located as near as possible to the point where cotton and heated air come together. If the
temperature sensor is located near the exit of the tower dryer, the mixpoint temperature
could actually be 55 to 110 ºC higher than the temperature at the downstream sensor.
The temperature drop downstream results from the cooling effect of evaporation and
from heat loss through the walls of machinery and piping. The drying continues as the
warm air moves the seed cotton to the cylinder cleaner, which consists of 6 or 7 revolving
spiked cylinders that rotate at 400 to 500 rpm. These cylinders scrub the cotton over a
series of grid rods or screens, agitate the cotton and allow fine foreign materials, such as
leaves, trash and dirt, to pass through the openings for disposal. Cylinder cleaners break
up large wads and generally condition the cotton for additional cleaning and drying.
Processing rates of about 6 bales per hour per metre of cylinder length are common.

The stick machine removes larger foreign matter, such as burs and sticks, from the
cotton. Stick machines use the centrifugal force created by saw cylinders rotating at 300
to 400 rpm to “sling off” foreign material while the fibre is held by the saw. The foreign
matter that is slung off the reclaimer feeds into the trash-handling system. Processing
rates of 4.9 to 6.6 bales/hr/m of cylinder length are common.

Ginning (lint-seed separation)

After going through another stage of drying and cylinder cleaning, cotton is distributed to
each gin stand by the conveyor-distributor. Located above the gin stand, the extractor-
feeder meters seed cotton uniformly to the gin stand at controllable rates, and cleans
seed cotton as a secondary function. The moisture content of cotton fibre at the
extractor-feeder apron is critical. The moisture must be low enough that foreign matter
can be easily removed in the gin stand. However, the moisture must not be so low (below
5%) as to result in the breakage of individual fibres as they are separated from the seed.
This breakage causes an appreciable reduction both in fibre length and lint turnout. From
a quality standpoint, cotton with a higher content of short fibres produces excessive
waste at the textile mill and is less desirable. Excessive breakage of fibres can be
avoided by maintaining a fibre moisture content of 6 to 7% at the extractor-feeder apron.

Two types of gins are in common use—the saw gin and the roller gin. In 1794, Eli
Whitney invented a gin that removed fibre from the seed by means of spikes or saws on
a cylinder. In 1796, Henry Ogden Holmes invented a gin having saws and ribs; this gin
replaced Whitney’s gin and made ginning a continuous-flow process rather than a batch
process. Cotton (usually Gossypium hirsutum) enters the saw gin stand through a huller
front. The saws grasp the cotton and draw it through widely spaced ribs known as huller
ribs. The locks of cotton are drawn from the huller ribs into the bottom of the roll box. The
actual ginning process—separation of lint and seed—takes place in the roll box of the gin
stand. The ginning action is caused by a set of saws rotating between ginning ribs. The
saw teeth pass between the ribs at the ginning point. Here the leading edge of the teeth
is approximately parallel to the rib, and the teeth pull the fibres from the seed, which are
too large to pass between the ribs. Ginning at rates above those recommended by the
manufacturer can cause fibre quality reduction, seed damage and choke-ups. Gin stand
saw speeds are also important. High speeds tend to increase the fibre damage done
during ginning.

Roller-type gins provided the first mechanically aided means of separating extra-long
staple cotton (Gossypium barbadense) lint from seed. The Churka gin, which has an
unknown origin, consisted of two hard rollers that ran together at the same surface
speed, pinching the fibre from the seed and producing about 1 kg of lint/day. In 1840,
Fones McCarthy invented a more efficient roller gin that consisted of a leather ginning
roller, a stationary knife held tightly against the roller and a reciprocating knife that pulled
the seed from the lint as the lint was held by the roller and stationary knife. In the late
1950s, a rotary-knife roller gin was developed by the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) Agricultural Research Service’s Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research
Laboratory, US gin manufacturers and private ginneries. This gin is currently the only
roller-type gin used in the United States.

Lint cleaning

Cotton is conveyed from the gin stand through lint ducts to condensers and formed again
into a batt. The batt is removed from the condenser drum and fed into the saw-type lint
cleaner. Inside the lint cleaner, cotton passes through the feed rollers and over the feed
plate, which applies the fibres to the lint cleaner saw. The saw carries cotton under grid
bars, which are aided by centrifugal force and remove immature seeds and foreign
matter. It is important that the clearance between the saw tips and grid bars be properly
set. The grid bars must be straight with a sharp leading edge to avoid reducing cleaning
efficiency and increasing lint loss. Increasing the lint cleaner’s feed rate above the
manufacturer’s recommended rate will decrease cleaning efficiency and increase loss of
good fibre. Roller-ginned cotton is usually cleaned with non-aggressive, non-saw-type
cleaners to minimize fibre damage.

Lint cleaners can improve the grade of cotton by removing foreign matter. In some cases,
lint cleaners may improve the colour of a lightly spotted cotton by blending to produce a
white grade. They may also improve the colour grade of a spotted cotton to light spotted
or perhaps white colour grade.

Packaging

The cleaned cotton is compressed into bales, which must then be covered to protect
them from contamination during transportation and storage. Three types of bales are
produced: modified flat, compress universal density and gin universal density. These
bales are packaged at densities of 224 and 449 kg/m3 for the modified flat and universal
density bales, respectively. In most gins cotton is packaged in a “double-box” press
wherein the lint is initially compacted in one press box by a mechanical or hydraulic
tramper; then the press box is rotated, and the lint is further compressed to about 320 or
641 kg/m3 by modified flat or gin universal density presses, respectively. Modified flat
bales are recompressed to become compress universal density bales in a later operation
to achieve optimum freight rates. In 1995, about 98% of the bales in the United States
were gin universal density bales.

Fibre quality

Cotton quality is affected by every production step, including selecting the variety,
harvesting and ginning. Certain quality characteristics are highly influenced by genetics,
while others are determined mainly by environmental conditions or by harvesting and
ginning practices. Problems during any step of production or processing can cause
irreversible damage to fibre quality and reduce profits for the producer as well as the
textile manufacturer.

Fibre quality is highest the day a cotton boll opens. Weathering, mechanical harvesting,
handling, ginning and manufacturing can diminish the natural quality. There are many
factors that indicate the overall quality of cotton fibre. The most important ones include
strength, fibre length, short fibre content (fibres shorter than 1.27 cm), length uniformity,
maturity, fineness, trash content, colour, seedcoat fragment and nep content, and
stickiness. The market generally recognizes these factors even though not all are
measured on each bale.

The ginning process can significantly affect fibre length, uniformity and the content of
seedcoat fragments, trash, short fibres and neps. The two ginning practices that have the
most impact on quality are the regulation of fibre moisture during ginning and cleaning
and the degree of saw-type lint cleaning used.

The recommended lint moisture range for ginning is 6 to 7%. Gin cleaners remove more
trash at low moisture but not without more fibre damage. Higher fibre moisture preserves
fibre length but results in ginning problems and poor cleaning, as illustrated in figure 1. If
drying is increased to improve trash removal, yarn quality is reduced. Although yarn
appearance improves with drying up to a point, because of increased foreign-matter
removal, the effect of increased short-fibre content outweighs the benefits of foreign-
matter removal.

Figure 1. Moisture-ginning cleaning compromise for cotton

Cleaning does little to change the true colour of the fibre, but combing the fibres and
removing trash changes the perceived colour. Lint cleaning can sometimes blend fibre so
that fewer bales are classified as spotted or light spotted. Ginning does not affect
fineness and maturity. Each mechanical or pneumatic device used during cleaning and
ginning increases the nep content, but lint cleaners have the most pronounced influence.
The number of seedcoat fragments in ginned lint is affected by the seed condition and
ginning action. Lint cleaners decrease the size but not the number of fragments. Yarn
strength, yarn appearance and spinning-end breakage are three important spinning
quality elements. All are affected by length uniformity and, therefore, by the proportion of
short or broken fibres. These                                                                                                
three elements are usually preserved best when cotton is                                                  
ginned with minimum drying and cleaning machinery.

Recommendations for the sequence and amount of gin machinery to dry and clean
spindle-harvested cotton were designed to achieve satisfactory bale value and to
preserve the inherent quality of cotton. They have generally been followed and thus
confirmed in the US cotton industry for several decades. The recommendations consider
marketing-system premiums and discounts as well as the cleaning efficiency and fibre
damage resulting from various gin machines. Some variation from these
recommendations is necessary for special harvesting conditions.

When gin machinery is used in the recommended sequence, 75 to 85% of the foreign
matter is usually removed from cotton. Unfortunately, this machinery also removes small
quantities of good-quality cotton in the process of removing foreign matter, so the
quantity of marketable cotton is reduced during cleaning. Cleaning cotton is therefore a
compromise between foreign matter level and fibre loss and damage.

Safety and Health Concerns

The cotton ginning industry, like other processing industries, has many hazards.
Information from workers’ compensation claims indicates that the number of injuries is
highest for the hand/fingers, followed by back/spine, eye, foot/toes, arm/shoulder, leg,
trunk and head injuries. While the industry has been active in hazard reduction and
safety education, gin safety remains a major concern. The reasons for the concern
include the high frequency of accidents and workers’ compensation claims, the large
number of lost work days and the severity of the accidents. Total economic costs for gin
injuries and health disorders include direct costs (medical and other compensation) and
indirect costs (time lost from work, downtime, loss in earning power, higher insurance
costs for workers’ compensation, loss of productivity and many other loss factors). Direct
costs are easier to determine and much less expensive than indirect costs.

Many international safety and health regulations affecting cotton ginning are derived from
US legislation administered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which promulgates pesticides
regulations.

Other agricultural regulations may also apply to a gin, including requirements for slow-
moving vehicle emblems on trailers/tractors operating on public roadways, provisions for
rollover protective structures on tractors operated by employees and provisions for
proper living facilities for temporary labour. While gins are considered agricultural
enterprises and are not specifically covered by many regulations, ginners will likely want
to conform to other regulations, such as OSHA’s “Standards for General Industry, Part
1910”. There are three specific OSHA standards that ginners should consider: those for
fire and other emergency plans (29 CFR 1910.38a), exits (29 CFR 1910.35-40) and
occupational noise exposure (29 CFR 1910.95). Major exit requirements are given in 29
CFR 1910.36 and 29 CFR 1910.37. In other countries, where agricultural workers are
included in mandatory coverage, such compliance will be compulsory. Compliance with
noise and other safety and health standards is discussed elsewhere in
this Encyclopaedia.

Employee participation in safety programmes

The most effective loss control programmes are those in which management motivates
employees to be safety conscious. This motivation can be accomplished by establishing
a safety policy that gets the employees involved in each element of the programme, by
participating in safety training, by setting a good example and by providing employees
with appropriate incentives.

Occupational health disorders are lessened by requiring that PPE be used in designated
areas and that employees observe acceptable work practices. Hearing (plugs or muffs)
and respiratory (dust mask) PPE should be used whenever working in areas having high
noise or dust levels. Some people are more susceptible to noise and respiratory
problems than others, and even with PPE should be reassigned to work areas with lower
noise or dust levels. Health hazards associated with heavy lifting and excessive heat can
‫‪be handled by training, use of materials-handling equipment, proper dress, ventilation‬‬
‫‪and breaks from the heat.‬‬

‫‪All persons throughout the gin operation must be involved in gin safety. A safe work‬‬
‫‪atmosphere can be established when everyone is motivated to participate fully in the loss‬‬
‫‪control programme.‬‬

‫خاوف السالمة والصحة‬

‫صناعة حلج القطن ‪ ،‬مثل غيرها من الصناعات التحويلية ‪ ،‬لديها العديد من المخاطر‪ .‬تشير المعلومات الواردة من‬
‫مطالبات تعويض العمال إلى أن عدد اإلصابات أعلى في اليد ‪ /‬األصابع ‪ ،‬تليها إصابات الظهر ‪ /‬العمود الفقري والعين‬
‫والقدم ‪ /‬أصابع القدم والذراع ‪ /‬الكتف والساق والجذع والرأس‪ .‬في حين أن الصناعة كانت نشطة في الحد من المخاطر‬
‫وتعليم السالمة ‪ ،‬ال تزال سالمة الجن مصدر قلق كبير‪ .‬وتشمل أسباب القلق كثرة تكرار مطالبات التعويض عن العمال ‪،‬‬
‫والعدد الكبير من أيام العمل الضائعة ‪ ،‬وشدة الحوادث‪ .‬يشمل إجمالي التكاليف االقتصادية إلصابات الجن واالضطرابات‬
‫الصحية التكاليف المباشرة (التعويضات الطبية وغيرها) والتكاليف غير المباشرة (الوقت الضائع من العمل ‪ ،‬ووقت‬
‫التوقف عن العمل ‪ ،‬وفقدان القدرة على الكسب ‪ ،‬وارتفاع تكاليف التأمين لتعويض العمال ‪ ،‬وفقدان اإلنتاجية والعديد من‬
‫عوامل الخسارة األخرى )‪ .‬من السهل تحديد التكاليف المباشرة وأقل تكلفة بكثير من التكاليف غير المباشرة‪.‬‬

‫العديد من لوائح السالمة والصحة الدولية التي تؤثر على حلج القطن مستمدة من التشريعات األمريكية التي تديرها إدارة‬
‫السالمة والصحة المهنية (‪ )OSHA‬ووكالة حماية البيئة (‪ ، )EPA‬التي تصدر لوائح المبيدات الحشرية‪.‬‬

‫قد تنطبق أيضً ا اللوائح الزراعية األخرى على محلج ‪ ،‬بما في ذلك متطلبات شعارات المركبات بطيئة الحركة على‬
‫المقطورات ‪ /‬الجرارات العاملة على الطرق العامة ‪ ،‬وأحكام هياكل الحماية من االنقالب على الجرارات التي يديرها‬
‫الموظفون ‪ ،‬وتوفير مرافق المعيشة‪ ‰‬المناسبة للعمل المؤقت‪ .‬في حين أن الجينات تعتبر شركات‪ ‰‬زراعية وال يتم تغطيتها‬
‫على وجه التحديد من قبل العديد من اللوائح ‪ ،‬فمن المرجح أن يرغب المربون في االمتثال للوائح أخرى ‪ ،‬مثل "معايير‬
‫الصناعة العامة ‪ ،‬الجزء ‪ "1910‬الخاصة بـ ‪ .OSHA‬هناك ثالثة معايير محددة إلدارة السالمة والصحة المهنية (‬
‫‪ )OSHA‬يجب أن يأخذها العُشر في االعتبار‪ :‬معايير الحريق وخطط الطوارئ األخرى (‪)CFR 1910.38a 29‬‬
‫والمخارج (‪ )CFR 1910.35-40 29‬والتعرض للضوضاء المهنية (‪ .)CFR 1910.95 29‬ترد متطلبات الخروج‬
‫الرئيسية في ‪ CFR 1910.36 29‬و ‪ . CFR 1910.37 29‬في بلدان أخرى ‪ ،‬حيث يتم تضمين العمال الزراعيين في‬
‫التغطية اإللزامية ‪ ،‬سيكون هذا االمتثال إلزاميًا‪ .‬تمت مناقشة االمتثال للضوضاء ومعايير السالمة‪ ‰‬والصحة األخرى في‬
‫مكان آخر في هذه الموسوعة‪.‬‬

‫مشاركة الموظف في برامج السالمة‬

‫أكثر برامج التحكم في الخسارة فعالية هي تلك التي تحفز فيها اإلدارة الموظفين على االنتباه للسالمة‪ .‬يمكن تحقيق هذا‬
‫الدافع من خالل وضع سياسة سالمة تشرك الموظفين في كل عنصر من عناصر البرنامج ‪ ،‬من خالل المشاركة في‬
‫تدريب السالمة ‪ ،‬من خالل تقديم مثال جيد وتزويد الموظفين بالحوافز المناسبة‪.‬‬

‫يتم تقليل اضطرابات الصحة المهنية من خالل اشتراط استخدام معدات الوقاية الشخصية في مناطق محددة وأن يلتزم‬
‫الموظفون بممارسات‪ ‰‬العمل المقبولة‪ .‬يجب استخدام معدات السمع (السدادات أو األغطية) والجهاز التنفسي (قناع الغبار)‬
‫معدات الوقاية الشخصية عندما تعمل في مناطق بها مستويات عالية من الضوضاء أو الغبار‪ .‬بعض الناس أكثر عرضة‬
‫للضوضاء ومشاكل الجهاز التنفسي من اآلخرين ‪ ،‬وحتى مع معدات الوقاية الشخصية يجب إعادة تعيينها لمناطق العمل‬
‫مع مستويات ضوضاء أو غبار أقل‪ .‬يمكن التعامل مع المخاطر الصحية المرتبطة بالرفع الثقيل والحرارة المفرطة من‬
‫خالل التدريب واستخدام معدات مناولة المواد واللباس المناسب والتهوية وكسر الحرارة‪.‬‬

‫يجب أن يشارك جميع األشخاص في عملية الجن في سالمة الجن‪ .‬يمكن تهيئة مناخ عمل آمن عندما يكون الجميع‬
‫متحمسين للمشاركة الكاملة في برنامج التحكم في الخسارة‬