Natural fiber

Natural fibers are all fibers derived from natural sources such as plants, animals or minerals and can be used directly without further chemical conversion reactions. They are to be defined so that man-made fibers, which are produced synthetically. No natural fibers are regenerated based on cellulose as a material from renewable raw materials (eg, viscose made ​​from wood or bamboo). The relatively short wood fibers are often considered separately. Natural fibers may be organic ( vegetable or animal), or inorganic origin ( mineral).

Plant fibers

Plant fibers can have different origins and have correspondingly diverse properties. So plant fibers occur as vascular bundles in the stem or stem or the pseudostem, the bark (about as bast fiber ) and as a seed appendages.

The following list shows the different plant fibers again ( the abbreviations in parentheses indicate the valid abbreviations according to DIN 60001-1 to ). The list shows the variety of natural plant fibers, even if only a part is used by them to a greater extent.

• Seed fibers Cotton (CO ) from the seed hairs of the fruit of the cotton plant
• Kapok (KP ) from within the capsule fruit of genuine kapok tree
• Pappelflaum
• Akon

• Bamboo fiber
• Nettle, see also fiber nettle
• Hemp fiber ( HA)
• Jute (JU )
• Kenaf
• Linen ( LI ) from the commons Lein
• Hops
• Ramie (RA )
• Sunn hemp

• Abaca (Manila hemp), hard fiber obtained from the leaves of a banana fiber
• Pineapple
• Caroa
• Curauá
• Henequen
• Macambira
• New Zealand Flax
• Sisal (SI) from agave leaves
• Coir (CC ) from the pericarp of coconut fruits

The leaf fiber and coconut fiber are appointed by the trade and the textile industry as an hard fibers. Both pineapple and curauá and caroa belong to the family Bromeliaceae. Their use for fiber production is less known and is today mostly as a by- product of growing for extraction of the fruit. Apart from the sisal agave, there are a number of other fiber -forming species of the family of agaves, which belong to the genus of Furcraea et al. These are also known as Mauritius hemp. Use of the names hemp and flax for fiber crops that are not really related to this, is common ( see examples above), and can easily lead to confusion.

In addition, various bins grasses, split bamboo and other plants are used as pulp. The long fibers of linden and oak were used as a material for making baskets, mats and cords.

Fibers of animal origin

In animals form the hair follicle fibers that are present in the form of a hair or a coat. Exceptions are silk fibers from the cocoon Chrysalis silkworm and other fibers formed from secretions such as spider silk or Byssusfasern. Fibers which can be used textil:

• Wool and fine animal hair Wool of sheep (WO ) is usually obtained by annual shearing and also referred to as virgin wool (WV).
• Alpaca, llama, vicuna, guanaco, the hairs are of the same species or llama sheep camels. The hair is fine, soft, shiny and slightly curled.
• Angora (WA ) ( hair from the Angora rabbit), rabbit (ordinary rabbit hair ) are very fine, smooth and very light. As they absorb water vapor good materials from Kanin are very warm keeping.
• Camel hair (WK ) is the vellus hair of camels, the animals throw it off a year. It is very fine, soft and slightly curled and beige brown.
• Kashmir (WS) is obtained by combing and sort of fluff or guard hairs of the cashmere goat. These hairs are so fine as the finest merino wool, cashmere and clothing is therefore fine, soft, light and shiny.
• Mohair (WM ) refers to the hair of the Angora or mohair goat. They are long, slightly curly and shiny. Her color is white and it felt barely.

• Coarse animal hair Cattle hair, especially the hair of yaks.
• Horse hair is very coarse and was formerly used as padding and stuffing of mattresses and is still woven into horsehair inserts for the Lord tailoring.
• Goat hair

• Silk Mulberry silk ( SE) (breeding silk) is obtained from the cocoon of the silkworm, the silkworm.
• Tussah silk (ST ) ( wild silk ) is prepared from the collected trees and shrubs cocoon of wild Tussahspinners. Here, since the butterfly is usually hatched, the fibers are shorter and not abhaspelbar. A breed of Tussahspinners has not yet succeeded.
• Byssus

Mineral natural fibers

In addition to plant and animal natural fibers, there are some mineral fibers, as they occur naturally, are also among the natural fibers.

• Asbestos
• Erionite
• Attapulgite
• Sepiolite
• Wollastonite

Analysis

The most common analysis of natural fibers consist of a visual and tactile evaluation, followed by an internal sample and a observation under a light microscope (or electron ). By elemental analysis, the elemental composition of the natural fibers can be determined. The respective biological origin of the animal and vegetable natural fibers can be detected by determining the DNA still present from the raw material by polymerase chain reaction, or the proteins by ELISA, Western blot or MALDI -TOF.

The determination of the Werkstoffeigenschaftenvon natural fibers occurs as the fibers in general. The different mechanical properties such as elasticity, train, compression, bending, buckling and shear strength can be determined with quantitative measurements in corresponding fixtures. The anisotropy of the properties of fibers due oriented molecular chains and the synergy of several twisted fibers can be determined.,

Use

Traditional natural fiber products are textiles ( clothing and household linen) and cables, ropes, nets and towels for shipping. Novel Applications of natural fibers are technical nonwovens and wovens for natural insulation, special papers or natural fiber reinforced plastics.

The use of natural fibers in composite materials is becoming increasingly important. Natural fiber reinforced plastics are used in particular in the automotive and furniture industry applications. In addition, there are innovative special applications such as household appliances, cosmetics, pens, bags, boxes or grinding wheels.

Market situation

Germany

The market for natural fibers in Germany is characterized mainly by imports of intermediate and finished products, while domestic production only accounts for a small proportion. A textile production chain exists only a very limited extent in Germany.

With the exception of hemp, flax and nettle fibers no fiber plants are grown in Germany. This makes hemp cultivation is between 800 and 2,000 hectares a year, and production 1200-3000 tonnes per year for the largest share. Flax is grown on about 50 ha, the production amount is about 50 tons and the cultivation of fiber nettle found on 265-300 ha instead, resulting in 100 to 200 t nettle fibers. Moreover sheep and other animal wool. In the extraction of the natural fibers are also shives, which is fed as the raw material both in material as in energy uses.

The largest part of the available in Germany of natural fibers is provided by the foreign trade are available, the total amount of plant fibers produced in Germany is a maximum of 3,000 t. The largest quantity of imported fibers is cotton represents a total of about 200,000 tonnes per year, added Juteimporte in the amount of 13,000 tonnes and imports of other exotic plant fibers such as abaca, kenaf, ramie, coir and sisal totaling about 12,000 t. Approximately 7,000 tons of flax and hemp fibers about 1,000 tonnes are also imported ( net). The total amount and an amount from about 20,000 to 40,000 tons of yarn waste and reprocessed cotton that drops in production processes, is fully used for the material use, energy use is maximum at the disposal of the final products instead.

The majority of natural fibers is processed in the textile industry. Here, the production method over yarns and fabrics made ​​at the finished textiles, there being at all levels large flows of goods in foreign trade. As to the fiber plane provides cotton in the area of ​​products for the largest share of imported goods, are annually about 35,000 tons of cotton yarn and a total of only about 2,000 tonnes of other yarns imported. As tissue around 8,000 tonnes are imported jute, which are used to a very large share in the production of linoleum as a carrier material ( total production of about 40 million m2 per year).

Also a large market is the so -called non -wovens (non- woven textiles), to which non-woven fleeces and felts are. Approximately 64,000 tonnes of natural fibers are used in this form every year in the automotive industry for interior door panels, headliners, seat cushions and other components. It is 12,200 tons of flat fibers, 5,000 tons of exotic fibers and 1,800 tons of hemp fibers, as well as 45,000 tonnes of cotton fibers (especially reclaimed cotton ), which are used in the interior of cars and especially in the composites of the cabs of trucks, addition, 27,000 tons of wood fibers so that a total of 90,000 t is. About 1 to 1.3 million m2 natural insulating materials are used per year, these are found to be approximately 48% to wood fiber, 32 % cellulose, 9% flax and hemp fiber, 4% wool and 7 % other insulating materials. One in Germany very special and successful niche application represent cress growing nonwovens are produced in approximately equal amounts by which each year about 125 to 160 t based on hemp and flax fibers.

A relatively large market represents specialty papers, in Germany per year, about 35,000 tons of so-called "other fibers " are used in addition to wood and pulp (VDP 2008) The amount of natural fibers is according to other sources with about 20,000 t specified. Among the special paper with natural fiber content are especially papers for food applications ( tea bags, coffee ), cigarette papers and technical filter. Only a very small part of the natural fiber use, the production of natural fiber-reinforced plastics in injection molding and extrusion dar. here less than 1,000 per year t are currently used.

World

The following table shows the world production of natural fibers according to the FAO.

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