Cotton Science and Technology

Fstc - 6034
By: Dr. ROTICH K. GIDEON (PhD)

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 Norms of the classroom
• Switch off or keep your phone in Silent mode
• Keep time
• Ask and Answer Questions in Class
• Do your assignments on Time and honestly
• Should do well in this class
• Enjoy this course and have fun

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 Evaluation
Proposed
• Review – 20 %
• Review 1 – 10%
• Review document – 15%
• Review 2 – 10% • Lab – 10%
• Oral Exams - 15% • Oral exams – 15%
• Presentation – 25% • Questions from Review – 10 %
(20% - • Presentation – 25%
Presentation, 5% seminars) • ppts – 5%,
• Final Exam - 40 % • Info. – 5%,
• Total = 100% • Prer. – 5%,
• Ans. – 5%,
• Seminar – 5%
• Final Exams – 40 %
• Total = 100%

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 Course Contents

Cotton Ginning

Chemical Composition of Cotton

Structure of Cotton Fiber

Chemical Properties of Cotton

Physical Properties of Cotton

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 COTTON GINNING
Class 1

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 Class contents
• From planting to harvesting
• Ginning
• Ginning machineries
• Types of ginning
• Effects on fiber quality

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Planting Cotton from planting to harvesting
Ready for
harvest Ginnery
Harvesting

Hand picking

Young
plants Baling

Mature plants
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 Seed-cotton Production
• Many factors affect seed-cotton production and, thereby, the quality
of the derived fibers.
• Of these factors, the following have a demonstrated effect on field
productivity and fiber quality:
– Variety,
– Crop management practices (crop protection, sowing date, etc.),
– Biotic (pests, diseases, weeds, etc.) and abiotic (soil, climate, etc.) environment.
• Fiber quality characterization results obtained from bale samples
depend on the interaction between three major items:
– Production conditions from sowing to picking,
– Storage and ginning conditions, and
– Accuracy of the fiber quality characterization.

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 Ginning
• Ginning
– Process of separating cotton Seeds
fibers from the seeds. removed
– Cotton Gin produces two
products with cash value;
• Fiber and the cotton seed.
– Cotton seeds Objects of Ginning:
• Sold to cotton oil mills for
To remove the fiber from the seed.
conversion into a number of
important and valuable To remove neps and wastes to some
products,
– Animals feeds
extents.
– Saved for planting purpose. To collect seeds & seedless cotton
• Ginning machine fiber separately.
– Separates cotton fibers from To separate cotton fiber from the
seed bolls and dust particles. root position of the seeds.
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 Ginning machineries
Machines
• Moisture sensor and
camera
• Dryer
• Cylinder Cleaner
• Stick machine
• Dryer
• Cylinder cleaner
• Gin stand
• Lint cleaners
• Moisture sensor and
camera
• Bale press
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 Cylinder Cleaner

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 Selection criteria of seed cotton
• Seed cotton from farm are graded for moisture and trash contents
to decide the level of drying and cleaning required

1. Leaf grade: Refers to leaf or trash content in cotton. Graded on

scale 1 to 8, leaf grade is determined by human classers
2. Fiber length: Primarily determined by cotton variety, but
growing conditions and fertility can affect length as well.
3. Length uniformity: Ratio between mean length of fiber and
upper half mean length expressed as a percentage..
4. Strength: Measured by clamping and breaking the beard of
fibers with a 1/8-inch gage spacing between the clamp jaws.

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 5. Micronaire: Measure of cotton fiber
fineness. Determined more by
environmental conditions than variety.
6. Trash: Measurement of trash present in
the lint. Measured by HVI video trash
meter which measures percentage area &
particle count of trash on sample surface.
7. Color: Measure of greyness and
yellowness of the lint. Reported as a two-
digit code as measured by the HVI, color
usually is not affected by variety.
Different fiber colors

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 8. Moisture:
– Roller Gins can take up to 10-11% moisture but above that,
drying process should be adopted before feeding the seed cotton
to the ginning machines
– Moisture contents should be brought down to below 10%
before ginning.
– Moisture levels in cotton are very important for successful
ginning,
• If moisture is too high while ginning it forms small lumpy
balls called neps.
• If it is too dry, the fiber breaks or can cause static
electricity.
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 THE GINNING PROCESS
• Seed cotton arrives at the gin in round bales or modules.
1st step:-
– Cotton is dried to a moisture level below 10 %.
– Dried out if it is too wet or water is added if it is too dry
2nd step:-
– Cotton goes through several stages of cleaning equipment to remove leaf
trash, sticks, dirt and other foreign matter.
3rd step :-
– Cotton is then ready for separation in the gin stand.
– The gin stand removes the seed from the lint.
4th step:-
– Squashed into bales under very high pressure weighing 227kg.
– Samples taken from each bale for classing
– Bales are wrapped in stretchy white cotton fabric to protect the lint.
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 Ginning Technologies widely used in the World
1. Saw Ginning
• Consists of a series of circular saws.
• All the saws are mounted closely on
an axle and are made to revolve at
high speed in order to tear the lint
away from a roll of seed cotton.
• Saw projects slightly between bars
or ribs, which are so, spaced that
they prevent seed from going
forward.
• Fibers are thus torn away from the
seeds with high speed.
• The seed falls through a grid into a
collecting box or seed conveyor.
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 • Lint is whipped off teeth of the saws by
high-speed brushes or an air blast
• Saw Ginning Technology is normally used
for short and medium staple cotton; up to
28 mm
• Designs developed is keeping in view
machine picked cotton with higher trash
contents and cleaning equipments and
feeders designed to handle high trash cotton
• Fiber parameters get deteriorated in terms
of:-
– Neps, length and Spinnability parameters
– Especially when any long or extra long fiber is
ginned on Saw Gin.
Saw Gin blades
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 2. Roller Gins:
• The roller gins are classified as
oscillatory knife gin and
rotary knife gin depending
upon the type of motion of
moving knife.
• Oscillatory type gins are
further classified as single
roller (SR) and Double roller
(DR) depending on the
number of rollers used per
machine.

A rotary-knife roller gin stand.

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 a) Single Roller Gin - McCarthy Gin
• It lies in picking and then moving the cotton
fibers between the roller and fixed knife
preventing seeds to pass through.
• While the machine is working, at each
elevation of the moving knife the grids lift the
cotton to the level of the stationary knife-edge
and of the exposed surface of the rollers.
• The free ends of the fibers are gripped, in the
grooves of the rotating roller, and dragged
forward till the seeds reach the edge of
stationary knife.
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 • Edge where fiber is caught is the ginning point. By the downward
motion of the moving knife, the seeds are detached from the cotton
at ginning point and are thrown out through slots of the grid.
• Important for grooves of the rollers should be kept well open and
when leather roller becomes smooth, rough file should be applied
occasionally to surface to keep the same grip and pull on the fibre.
• Single Roller McCarthy Gin technology is suitable for hand picked,
low trash cottons of medium, long & extra long staple length.
• This technology retains maximum natural fibre parameters of the
cotton during the ginning hence treated best.

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 b) Double Roller Gin
• Improved version of McCarthy Single Roller Gins.
• Two spirally grooved leather rollers, pressed
against two stationary knives with the help of
adjustable dead loads, are made to rotate in
opposite directions at a definite speed.
• The three beater arms are inserted in the beater
shaft and two knives (moving knives) are then
fixed to the beater arms with proper alignment.
• This assembly is known as beater assembly, which
oscillates by means of a crank or eccentric shaft,
close to the leather roller.
• The Fibers adhere to the rough surface of the
roller and are carried in between the fixed knife
and the roller such that the fibers are partially
gripped between them.
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 • The oscillating knives (moving knives) beat the seeds from top and
separate the fibers, which are gripped from the seed end.
• Process repeated till all spin-able fibers are separated from seeds, then
carried forward on roller and doffed out of machine.
• Seeds drop down through slots provided on seed grid, which is part
and parcel of beater assembly, which also oscillates.
• Retains maximum natural fiber parameters of cotton similar to
McCarthy Single Roller Gin but produces double or more quantity of
fiber at same electrical power and processing cost hence most cost
effective.
– Used for hand picked cotton where trash contents are lower in the seed
cotton.
– Can gin all types of cotton of world by simple setting adjustments

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 3. Rotobar Gin:
• It has a rotating instead of oscillating beater
bar, and is expected to give higher amount of
lint per hour.
• Rotary knife vibrates less due to rotary motion
and is more efficient than the reciprocating
knife, which wasted time during backstroke.
• Main components include:-
– stationary knife, rotary knife & ginning roller.
• Rotary-knife roller gin stands separate fibre
from seed by frictional forces between a
moving (roller) and fixed (stationary knife)
surface.

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 Principle of its operation
• Three frictional forces exist while roller ginning cotton:
(i) Roller-to- stationary knife
(ii) Roller-to-fibre and
(iii) Stationary knife- to-fibre.
• During normal ginning, the roller-to-fibre force is greater than the
stationary knife- to-fibre force; therefore, the fibre sticks to the roller surface
and slips to the stationary knife surface.
• Also, greater the force between the stationary knife and ginning roller, the
greater the frictional pulling force between the fibre and ginning roller.
• Cotton is ginned at the rate the cotton fibres (adhered to the roller surface)
slip under the stationary knife.
• Overfeeding or feeding in bunches causes fibre and seed to entangle with
each other and ginning performance gets adversely affected.
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 The Selection Criteria For Ginning Technologies

Which gin to use??

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 Ginning operation
• The economics of ginning operation
– Is greatly affected by the damage in the quality of the
constituents
• Cotton fibre and cotton seed
– Depends upon the proper selection of ginning technology
suitable for various characteristics of the seed cotton to
optimize the quality parameters and operational costs, thus the
selection of suitable ginning technology is of paramount
importance.

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 Selection criteria for Ginning Technologies
1. Length of the fibre to be ginned.
• If length of fibre is above 28 mm don’t select Saw Gin as some
damage in fibre length is certainly going to take place, hence
Double Roller or McCarthy Single Roller Gins should be
necessarily used to obtain optimum results if fuzzy seed cotton is
to be ginned.
• Double Roller Gin being cost effective the same are preferred
over McCarthy Single Roller Gins.
• However for black seed cotton, Double Roller or McCarthy
Single Roller will give equally good results but Rotobar can also
be used.

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 2. Trash contents in the Seed Cotton:
• If the trash contents are on higher side either additional cleaning
equipments should be used or only Saw Ginning should be used.
• In other technologies trash will choke the seed clearance grid in
McCarthy Single Roller Gin or Double Roller Gin.

3. Moisture Contents in Seed Cotton:

• Moisture contents over 8%, Saw Gin should not be used coz of
damage
• Roller Gins can take up to 10-11% moisture but above that drying
process should be adopted before feeding seed cotton to ginning
machines and moisture contents should be brought down to below 10%
before ginning.
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 4. Harvesting Practices:
• Machine picked cotton is bound to have higher initial trash contents which
should either be removed before feeding to gins or saw gins used for short
& medium staple cotton or rotobar used for long & extra long cotton
having in built cleaner
• However, remove higher trash then use the Double Roller or McCarthy
Single Roller if used would give better fibre parameters.
• Hand picked cotton where trash contents are lower, double Roller or
McCarthy Single Roller Gin will give best fiber parameters
5. Electrical Power Cost:
• Double Roller Ginning Technology is most power effective i.e. for per unit
of production lowest power consumption is required in case of Double Roller
therefore the consideration for power cost per unit is also very important.
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 Selection of gins
• Saw gins
– Suitable for short medium staple length up to 28 mm, higher trash content,
and machined picked cotton.
– Have adverse effects on fiber characteristics
• Single roller gin
– Suitable for medium, long and extra long staple length, low trash content and
hand picked cotton having fuzzy seeds.
– But it requires additional cleaning equipments.
– because of its tendencies to maintain fibre length
• Double roller gins
– Suitable for all types of cotton, handpicked with low trash content and having
black seeds.
• Roto-bar gins
– Used in overall world mainly for pima cotton in USA, black seed cotton, having
long and extra long staple length
– Suitable for machined picked cotton but not good for fuzzy seed cotton.
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PRODUCTS
FROM
GINNING

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 Baling

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 Faults of Ginning:
• Fiber are broken at the middle position so that it becomes
shorter in length.
• Crush seed remain with the cotton.
• Neps are formed in cotton.
• Remaining excessive trash in the cotton.
• Remaining fibres with seed.

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 Classing cotton
• After cotton is ginned, a sample is taken from each bale and sent
away to classing rooms to have it graded for its quality.
• The higher the class, the better the quality of the cotton fiber, and
the higher the price that will be paid.

TRADITIONAL CLASSING METHOD

Involves specially trained ‘classers’ who manually examine fibers.
Involves classer taking a sample from each bale and assessing it by:
i. Colour (bright or dull, white or grey)
ii. Trash content (the amount of stalk, leaf or dirt)
iii. Character (whether sample has smooth or lumpy appearance)
iv. Staple (length of fiber)
v. Strength of the fibers
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 Modern Classing Methods
• Can use :-
– HVI, AFIS And CCS
• After classing process each bale carries a classing
description.
• This grade will decide whether the cotton is sold for a
higher or lower price, known as premium or discount.

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 1. HVI TESTING
• High Volume Instrument (HVI) testing is a machine
based method that can quickly and accurately check the
quality and exact value of cotton fibers.
• An HVI test print-out includes the following
information:-
i. Colour grade -(relating to any visible impurities and
degree of whiteness)
ii. Length (cotton price proportional to staple length.).
iii. Micronaire (fineness affects how quickly it can be spun)
iv. Trash and dust (number of trash and dust present)
v. Strength (stronger cotton used in smaller quantities)
vi. Length (fiber length)

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2. Advanced Fiber Information System "AFIS Pro"
• Measures:-
– Length, fineness maturity, circularity, ect. of each fiber fed,
– Provides average length of individual fibers in a sliver fed to the
system, as also the length distribution both by number and weight
after measuring the individual fiber length for a selected number of
fibers.
• This number can be varied between 1000 and 10000.
• Other parameters, the instrument can measure are:-
– short fiber content,
– Immature fiber content, nep/g and
– Percentage of dust and trash.

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 3. CCS – Cotton Classifying System
• The system provides:-
– Micronaire values (including maturity MA, MA%, and linear density),
– Fiber length properties (including UI, UR, 2,5% SL, 25% SL, 50% SL,
UHML, ML, UQL, SFC, SFI),
– Fiber strength properties (strength and elongation),
– whiteness degree Rd and yellowness degree +b,
– Neps- and trash content.
• The modular CCS system determines the quality of the incoming raw
cotton fibers and cotton slivers in order to optimize the spinning
process.
• Additionally, the CCS test data can be used to verify the cotton quality
according to recommendations by USDA or similar organizations.
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 End

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