STUDIES ON THE MATURITY OF COTTON FIBER FOR COTTON SPINNING

The raw cotton with much sugar content, it is said, causes various troubles on the cottonspinning process and also injure the appearance of yarn.In order to elucidate these causes, the relations of the reduced and total sugars to maturity (immaturity ratio by arealometer, maturity index by causticaire method) and to fineness (micronaire fineness. arealometer fineness, causticaire fineness) are made clear.The cotton variety used for this research was “Rikuchimen Kan-no No.I.” a sort of upland cotton.1. Reduced sugar contents of the extreamely immatured lint (micronaire fineness; below 1.2μg/in.) is above 30% (oven dry basis), but that of matured cottpn fiber (micronaire fineness; 5.8μg/in.) is 0.1% (oven dry basis) and the reduced sugar content of lint rapidly decreases at it matures.2. Reduced sugar contents of immatured lint dyed green by differential dyeing method (immatured lint below micronaire fineness 2.5μg/in. and maturity index 60) are about 7% in minimum and about 33% in maximum, and are extreamely high compared with matured lint. These reduced sugar in immatured lint consists of glucose, fructose and pentose.3. In addition, the cause of various troubles on the cotton-spinning process of immatured lint in raw cotton is discussed.