Author
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Anthony, William |
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Submitted to: National Cotton Council Beltwide Cotton Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 1/31/1999 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Sticky spots on cotton fiber create processing problems at the textile mill and reduce the desirability of cotton to make fabric. Methods to eliminate stickiness in the cotton production system are under development. Current methods to measure stickiness delineate between levels such as 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 but they are slow and do not meet industry needs. A new, rapid method was recently developed at Stoneville, MS, and patented. However, additional research is required to fully describe accuracy and precision before full implementation of the new measurement method. Samples from three sources across the United States were evaluated with the new method to determine its accuracy. About 80% of the samples were correctly classified as sticky or not sticky. Accuracy increased as stickiness levels increased. Success of this evaluation lends further credence to the new method and provides a means to identify stickiness and apply mitigation techniques at the cotton gin and textile mill. Use of cotton by the textile industry will be enhanced by this new method to rapidly identify stickiness. Technical Abstract: Measurement of the stickiness of cotton is typically accomplished with the Thermodetector method which is time-consuming, somewhat objective, and destructive. A new device to rapidly estimate the stickiness of both seed cotton and lint cotton was patented in 1997. This study further evaluated the new device using samples from several sources. Samples were classified into level of stickiness from 0 to 4 based on the Thermodetector as the reference method. The new device differed in accuracy for each study and was generally more effective as stickiness level increased. Across the 219 samples evaluated, 78% of the samples were correctly identified as either sticky or non-sticky. |
