Bast fibres ramie

Cotton and Other Cellulosic Fibres. The dominant natural cellulosic fibre is cotton, the other natural cellulosic fibres, or bast fibres, include flax, linen, jute and ramie. The so-called regenerated fibres, which include viscose, modal fibres and lyoceU (Tencel), are made by various chemical treatments of cellulosic substrates. The dyeing and printing of cellulosic fibres and materials is carried out using, in decreasing order of scale and importance, reactive, direct and vat dyes. ... 

Ramie. This includes the bast fibres obtained from certain Urti cacecs, cultivated mostly in the Far East owing to their whiteness, lustre and strength they are the best textile fibres furnished by the vegetable kingdom. 

Ramie (Boehmeria nivea) is one of the oldest fibre crops, principally used for fabric production, even mummy cloths, because of the non-fibrous material with antifungal and antibacterial properties. It is a bast fibre, and the part used is the bark (phloem) of the vegetative stalks. Unlike other bast crops, ramie requires chemical processing to de-gum the fibre (up to 25% mass loss). 

Natural fibres can be subdivided into plant, animal, and mineral fibres. All plant fibres (cotton, jute, flax, hemp, etc.) are made of cellulose animal fibres are made of protein (wool, silk, hair). Based upon their origin, plant fibres are subdivided into bast and hard fibres. Bast fibres are derived fix)m the stems or stalks of plants hemp, jute, ramie, and flax, for example, belong to this category. Hard fibres, on the other hand, are derived from leaves, leaf sheaths, or fruit sisal and coconut belong to this category ... 

Bast fibres are obtained from a few kinds of plants, for example, bamboo, hemp, flax, jute and ramie. The fibres are longer, stronger and stiffer than other vegetal fibres jute fibres, for example, may be 3.0 m in length. For reinforcement of brittle matrices the jute fibres are chopped for sections of 12-50 mm. Bamboo fibres have low Young s modulus and tend to be used in the form of woven meshes. 

Bast fibres (flax, hemp, jute, ramie,... 

Nature in its abundance offers us a lot of material that can be called fibrous fibres are found in plant leaves, fraits, seed covers and stalk. Fibres from these plants can be considered to be totally renewable and biodegradable. Bast fibres are soft, woody fibres obtained from stems of dicotyledonous plants (flowering plants with net-veined leaves). Such fibres, usually characterized by fineness and flexibility, are also known as soft fibres, distinguishing them from the coarser, less flexible fibres of the leaf, or hard , fibre group. This chapter will discuss bast fibres from flax, hemp, jute, ramie, kenaf and abaca. 

Ramie is a hardy perennial which under suitable conditions can be harvested up to six times a year. Also, the useful crop life ranges from 6 to 20 years. The bark contains gums and pectins which necessitate a chemical or enzymatic treatment to recover the bast fibres. 

Bast or stem fibres These fibres come from the inner bark of the stem of plants. Common examples are jute, flax, hemp, kenaf and ramie. 

Kozlowski R, Rawluk M, Barriga-Bedoya J. 2000. Ramie. In Franck RR (editor). Bast and other plant fibres. Cambridge, UK Woodhead Publishing Limited, pp. 207-227. 

The application of IR spectroscopy with respect to the characterisation of cellulosic (plant) fibres is demonstrated. The ability to characterise fibres is of importance to textile conservators, as this information aids in the determination of the age and origin of the artefact from which they are taken, and may influence the choice of treatment. The fibres under examination are taken largely from the bast group (flax, hemp, jute and ramie) in addition, sisal and cotton are compared. FT-IR microspectroscopy and ATR techniques are employed. To complement the conventional use of these methods, the inherent polarisation effects of the equipment are exploited to record polarised IR spectra. Jute, sisal and cotton are readily differentiated, but flax, hemp and ramie prove more difficult to distinguish. Peak ratio techniques are apphed in the latter case. 2 refs. 

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