Investigation using three different lint cleaners with roller-ginning upland cotton in Mississippi

Authors: Byler, Richard; Delhom, Christopher

Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/23/2017
Publication Date: 5/15/2017
Citation: Byler, R.K., Delhom, C.D. 2017. Investigation using three different lint cleaners with roller-ginning upland cotton in Mississippi. National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference. p. 406-419.

Interpretive Summary: Roller ginning is a different process using a different gin stand than saw ginning. Saw ginning has been very productive and used with the majority of upland cotton ginned. However, more recently the roller gin stand has been improved so that it can potentially be used profitable with upland cotton and produced fiber which is of higher quality, especially with respect to fiber length. This fiber is of greater financial value and will allow spinners to produce yarn which is stronger and finer which can be used to make higher quality cotton fabric. These improvements have the potential of returning somewhat more money to the producer while resulting in better fabric for the consumer. If ginners who currently have equipment for saw-ginning were to remodel their gins for roller gin use they would prefer to replace a little of the equipment as possible. One of the biggest issues would be whether they need to replace the saw-type lint cleaners which they already own with expensive lint cleaners of a different design. In this study three different designs of lint cleaner were used after the roller gin stand to clean the lint and also a traditional saw-gin stand was used followed by the saw lint cleaner for four cultivars of cotton. The fiber properties were measured at several steps as the fiber was spun into yarn. And the yarn was then tested for quality. Differences in fiber quality were measurable as the fiber left the gin but as the fiber was processed in the mill the differences became smaller. There were few statistically significant differences in the resulting yarn, but there were differences of importance to the mill which occurred during the preparation for spinning.

Technical Abstract: Roller ginning of upland cotton has been shown to produce fiber with better length properties compared to saw ginning. But if a traditional gin plant from the eastern US wished to install roller gin stands they may also want to use existing saw-type lint cleaners. Data has not been available to show if this combination would compromise the fiber quality. To address this question four cotton cultivars were each ginned at the Cotton Ginning Research Unit in Stoneville, MS with four ginning treatments and the process repeated twice for a total of 32 lots. About 57 kg of lint were packaged from each lot and sent to the Cotton Structure and Quality Research Unit in New Orleans, LA for further processing and spinning. These data showed that the roller gin stand produced fiber about 1 mm, about one staple length, longer than the saw gin stand, at least 0.5 percentage points less short fiber content, and about 20% fewer fiber neps. The roller ginned cotton was cleaned with three different lint cleaners: an Aldrich type cleaner which included a spiked cleaner and an air-jet cleaner, an experimental cleaner including cylinder cleaning and saw cleaning without normal feed works, and a saw lint cleaner normally used with saw ginning. Overall the Aldrich type cleaner following the roller gin stand produced the fiber with the best properties, except for the removal of non-lint. However, the experimental lint cleaner performed as well as the Aldrich type in many respects and cleaned the lint better. The fiber was processed with mill-type equipment and half was carded and the other half was carded and combed. All fiber was ring spun into Ne 30 yarn. Measurements were made of the sliver at various points of the processing and the yarns were tested. Generally, differences were observed related to cultivar but in this report least squares means were reported related to the ginning processes and means related to cultivar were not reported. Significant differences in HVI and AFIS values were observed related to the ginning process before carding. However, after carding nearly all of the differences of measurements of the sliver were no longer statistically significant. Some difference in card turnout were observed with saw lint cleaning resulting in lower turnout. Lint which had been roller ginned but saw cleaned had a greater percentage of comber noils. Ends down did not vary with ginning treatment. Yarn properties showed small differences in hairiness of carded yarn related to ginning procedures. For yarn neps and thick places for carded fiber the saw ginned lint with saw lint cleaning was the best. Most differences in the combed yarn were not statistically significant. Only for nep count in the yarn from saw cleaned roller ginned cotton was the level different, higher than with the other gin processing methods. The yarn tenacity and breaking force did not vary significantly related to ginning treatment.