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Title: Exploring NIR technique in rapid prediction of cotton trash components

Author
item Liu, Yongliang
item Thibodeaux, Devron
item Gamble, Gary

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/8/2012
Publication Date: 4/16/2012
Citation: Liu, Y., Thibodeaux, D.P., Gamble, G.R. 2012. Exploring NIR technique in rapid prediction of cotton trash components. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. p. 1204-1209.

Interpretive Summary: Presence of non-lint materials (trashes) in commercial cotton bales at various amounts degrades the market values and further influences the end-use qualities. In order to ensure a fair trading, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has introduced the high volume instrument (HVI) measurement as a universal standard index. Among the indices, trash content is generated by one of three HVI modules and represents the trash portion only detectable on the surface of a sample. In addition to HVI’s geometric method, gravimetric-based Shirley analyzer (SA) and advanced fiber information system (AFIS) have also been utilized to determine the trash contents. Notably, HVI, SA, and AFIS only yield the amount of trash in general terms, instead of the content for individual trash component. In large part, this difficulty originates from the complexity of co-existence of various trashes, such as leaves (leaf and bract), seed coats, hulls, and stems, in completely unpredicted manner within the lint cottons. This study examined the feasibility of NIR technique in the determination of individual trash components among the subjectively prepared mixtures of known trash components with cut lint fibers. The outcome provides cotton fiber / textile engineers, researchers and regulators a new sight in applying NIR spectroscopy for rapid and routine determination of cotton trash.

Technical Abstract: Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, a useful technique due to the speed, ease of use, and adaptability to on-line or off-line implementation, has been applied to perform the qualitative classification and quantitative prediction on a number of cotton quality indices, including cotton trash from HVI, SA, and AFIS measurement. It is well-known that these current-in-use trash measuring devices only produce the trash values in some aspects, instead of the content for individual trash component. This difficulty comes from the complexity of co-existence of various trash types, for example, leaves (leaf and bract), seed coats, hulls, and stems. Regarding to this, mixtures of known trash components (e.g., leaves, seed coats, hulls, stems, and sand/soil) with cut lint fibers were prepared physically and then their NIR spectra were correlated with the respective trash contents. The results suggested the feasibility of NIR technique in the precise and quantitative determination of total trash, leaf trash and non-leaf trash components.