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Recorded Presentations
A.P.S. Sawhney1, D.V. Parikh1, B. Condon1, and Kumar V. Singh2. (1) USDA-ARS-SRRC, 1100 Robert E. Lee Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70124, (2) Miami University, 056 L EGB, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering Department, Oxford, OH 45056
Since the advent of manufactured fibers, such as rayon, nylon, polyester, etc., just a few decades ago, the market share of cotton fiber has been steadily declining globally, while the worldwide production (tonnage) and consumption of the fiber has been continually rising. This is mainly due to the fact that the world’s growing, well-to-do population continues to admire the excellent attributes offered by cotton clothing and household fabrics. The methods of converting cotton fibers into these fabrics still continue to be the weaving and knitting. However, global competition has led to a decline in the U.S. domestic textile manufacturing industry. It appears likely that this trend will continue. Current statistics of the U.S. domestic cotton production and utilization (by user mills) clearly indicate that in 2006, the U.S. cotton growers produced 21 million bales of cotton and the U.S. indigenous mills merely utilized about 6 million bales. Thanks to China, which purchased most of the surplus cotton crop and sold the cotton goods back to the U.S. A.. Obviously, this temporary relief from a short-term boom in cotton exports is not a permanent solution of a rather very serious problem that the U. S. cotton industry today faces. Therefore, the U.S. must explore alternatives to profitably sustain the cotton industry, which certainly has a considerable impact on the national economy and well-being.
The reporters of this paper envision a window of opportunity that may perhaps partly assist the U.S. domestic cotton industry. And that is to explore possibilities of deploying existing or modified technologies of nonwovens to develop new and novel cotton fabric structures, especially for certain mass markets and applications. The technologies of nonwovens are relatively highly productive, less labor intensive, and more Earth friendly. However, since the advent of nonwovens about 60 years ago, virgin cotton fiber really has not been much used, certainly for valid economic, technical and product-performance reasons, in any high-volume production of nonwoven fabrics. This is especially true for textile clothing/apparel for which cotton undoubtedly is ideally suited. Cotton clothing provides the ultimate in hand softness, breathability, unsurpassed comfort, and biodegradability. Indeed, there are some really complex problems, as well, in the mass-scale commercialization of cotton nonwovens. But, as they say, there are no problems that cannot be successfully resolved, if proper efforts are focused to identify/analyze the problems and appropriate resources are devoted to resolve them. And that is the underlying theme or objective of the USDA-ARS-supported research on cotton nonwovens. We want to fully explore possibilities of value-added, high-volume utilization of baled virgin cotton by using the nonwovens technologies. This talk/paper briefly covers the “story” of using cotton in nonwovens and the challenges and opportunities that may exist on the way!
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Presentation