Flax fibre and it types

1. Flax Fiber and it’s Processing
Submitted To-
Mr. Saumen Bhattacharya
Submitted By: Abhijeet
College ID: 19TT001
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2. FLAX PLANT
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3. INTRODUCTION
 Flax fiber comes from the stem of a Flax plant
 The fibers form bundle or strands that are
present in the fibrous layers lying beneath the
bark of the plant .
 In the inner bark of this plant there are
long, slender, thick-walled cells
of which the fiber strands are composed.
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• Flax Plant grows to a height of about 0.5-1.25 meter.
• Stem has diameter between 1.6 and 3.2 mm
• Seeds in the plants are contained in small
spherical balls, at the top of the stalks ; this is
called linseed, from which linseed oil is produced

5. HISTORY OF FLAX
FIBER
 Flax was probably the first bast fiber to be used by man for
making textiles.
 During the 17th century, linen manufacture became established as
a domestic industry in many countries of Western Europe.
 During the 18th century, with the rise of cotton, the linen industry
was forced into the background.
 Countries of production : Canada, Russia, India, China, UK
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6. CROSS-
SECTIONAL VIEW
OF FLAX PLANT
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7. MICROSCOPIC VIEW OF STEM OF FLAX PLANT
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8. PROCESSING OF FLAX FIBER
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Cultivation Harvesting Rippling
Retting
Breaking &
Scutching

9. CULTIVATION PROCESS
 Flax plant is sown in March or April
 Has very short growing period (100 days)
 They produces less branches and longer finer fiber
 When plants have flowered and seeds are ripened, crop is
pulled by root.
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10. HARVESTING PROCESS
 Harvesting can be done after 30 days of flax
plant blooming/growing
 Harvesting should be done on a warm, sunny day
 Pull (don't cut) the plants by grasping below the roots
 Brush off the dirt from the roots
 Stack the flax plant into bundles, and place the tied bundles in a
sunny location to dry
 Harvesting can be done both by manual and mechanical methods
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11. HARVESTING
PROCESS
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12. RIPPLING PROCESS
• Rippling is the process that removes the seeds and leaves from the
stem.
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13. RETTING PROCESS
Retting is the process that softens and separates the fibrous
core of the plant from the outer layer which is composed of
woody matter.
• Retting is carried out in the following four ways:
• 1. Dam Retting
• 2. Dew Retting
• 3. Water Retting
• 4. Chemical Retting
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14. DAM
RETTING
• The flax plants after pulling are tied up in sheaves or beats and
immersed for about ten days in water in special dam or ponds dug in
the ground. This method is commonly used in Ireland.
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15. DEW RETTING
• Stems are spread out in fields and are exposed to rain, sun and dew for several
weeks, until, the stalk begins to separate from the fiber. It takes around 15-30
days. Because of long exposure to the sun and other natural conditions, causes to
discoloration of the fiber.
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16. WATER RETTING
• It is also called tank retting in which straw is placed in a tank and covered with water.
• Each tank contain approximately 10 tones of stalk and built of concrete having
large water tight doors in the sides.
• Water enter the tank through pipes, pH and temperature checked and water is aerated to
facilitate the growth of germ culture for retting.
• When fermentation has reached the appropriate stage the fibres can be separated quite
easily. If fermentation is allowed to proceed beyond this point the fibres themselves may
become damaged, and to avoid this the progress of the retting must be observed
carefully at intervals.
• It requires less time than dew retting, from 10 to 15 days.
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17. CHEMICAL RETTING
• Soda ash and caustic soda in warm water or boiling in a dilute sulphuric
acid solutions are methods used in this process.
• It can result in shortening of retting process however the strength and
colour of flax fibres are largely affected.
• At present there is no chemical method which produces fibres of
comparable quality as that of water or dew retted flax.
• Bioretting in ponds or tanks are more economical and produce better
quality fibres. After retting the flax straw is allowed to dry and then taken
to breaking machine.
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18. BREAKING & SCUTCHING
• Breaking: It is a mechanical process which is either done manually (beating with
a hammer) or in a stamping mill in which driven rollers crush and break the flax.
The woody core is broken into random fragments without damaging the fibres
running along the stems.
• Scutching: The next process is called scutching which separates the unwanted
woody matter from the fibres. This is accomplished by beating the straw with
flat, blunt wooden or metal beaters or blades on the scutching machine. The
woody matter is then removed leaving the long strands of bundled fibres of flax.
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19. PROCESS FLOW
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Sorting
Hackling
Drawing
Roving
Bleaching
Spinning
RF Dryer
Winding

20. SORTING
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The bales are manually segregated into raw fibres according to quality and fineness then
the fibre are made in a bunch form each weight 100-110 gm

21. HACKLING
• Hackling separates the long line fibers from the shorter tow. A hackle is a bed
of pins. which are usually used to comb the fibers for drawing and aligning
purposes.
• Flax is pulled through hackling combs, which parts the locked fibres and makes
them straight, clean and ready to spin. Later the combed fibres come out of the
machine in the form of sliver.
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22. DRAWING
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Drawing, also called Drafting, in yarn manufacture, the process of
attenuating the loose assemblage of fibres is called sliver by passing it
through a series of rollers, thus straightening the individual fibres and
making them more parallel.
It removes thick and thin places; increases lustre, lessen volume;
remove remaining dust particles; and help in blending the fibres with
each other.
 Objectives of Drawing
 Drafting
 Combing
 Function of Drawing
 Increase the regidarity
 Individualisation of flax fibre
 • High split with good spin ability

23. ROVING
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It helps in rope formation. It provides protective twist which should inject
strength before bleaching. It eliminates the need of rewinding during boiling
and bleaching. A roving is a long and narrow bundle of fibre. After drawing,
the fibres lie roughly parallel in smooth bundles. These are drawn out, by hand
or machine, and slightly twisted to form lengths suitable for spinning. These
unspun strands of fibre are the roving.

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In bleaching the natural color of roving material is removed. Beforebleaching a pre-
treatment process is done to remove the dust. They have two machines for bleaching.
Boiling: Rove degumming is done by boiling with sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide.
removes most of the non cellulosic parts like grease and dust. It also softens roved
slivers(ropes) and make it more absorbable.
Bleaching It removes natural colors, stains from roving it produces white material and
makes it suitable for further process like hank dyeing and piece dyeing
BLEACHING

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Post bleaching process, the roves are directly placed into the creel of spinning frame. It
softens the yarn and enables the strands to draw out and align more perfectly as the
rove is elongated and twisted during spinning. It converts the roved slivers to yarns of
a definite count. It also make the yarn suitable for weaving process.
Ring spinning is a continuous process. In ring spinning the roving is first attenuated by
using drawing rollers, then spun and wound around a rotating spindle which in its turn
is contained within an independently rotating ring flyer.
In wet spinning both bleached and unbleached roves are spun, Wet spinning is
specially done for flax as flax is much stronger when wet. Wet spinning produces yarn
of outstanding quality and fineness. In the spinning process roves are converted into
count yarns. They make 5 Lea yarn count to 120 Lea count.
SPINNING

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After the wet spinning, the yarns are out of the ring frame and the bobbins are in still
wet condition. It cannot be wounded without drying .
A dryers have capability to accelerate the drying process and shorten production time.
RF drying offers High volume, high speed and High-quality drying which is what
exactly needed in textile industries in the carrying chamber, the radio waves vibrate
the contemned water molecules million times per second, vaporizing them Ventilator
fans are used to remove damp air from the Drying Chamber a drying has a levelling
effect that practically eliminates any problems of uneven shrinkage and over drying.
RF Dryer

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Dried spun yarns are wounded to cones. Purpose of this process is to
transfer yarn from small supply to larger packages. It also helps in
removing objectionable faults in original yarn.
Functions of Autoconer
 To remove yam faults.
 To improve the quality of yarn
 To wax the yarn during the winding process.
 To make a bigger package from ring bobbin in order to get continuous
length of yarn on cones for weaving/knitting processes
WINDING

28. PROPERTIES
• 1. Fiber Surface & Appearance: Soft, yellowish white in color and Lustrous appearance
• 2. Tensile Strength: Wet flax fiber is 20% stronger than dry
Tenacity = 2-7 gm/denier (18-63 GPT)
• 3. Elongation:
Elongation at break = 1.8% dry, and 2.2% wet
• 4. Elastic Properties: It will tend to return its original length when the tension is relaxed.
• 5. Specific Gravity: 1.54
• 6. Length: 30-38 cm
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29. CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF FLAX
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•Bleaching action - Flax (linen) is made more difficult to bleach than cotton, its
huge number of impurities, like pectin and gum. Effect of Acids: Flax not affected
by weak acids but is damaged by concentrated acids.
•Effect of organic solvents - High Resistant
•Effect of insects - Flax is not attacked by moth, grub or beetles.
•Effect of micro-organism - Attacked by fungi and bacteria, mild dew feed on
linen fabrics.
•Dye ability - Not good affinity to dyes. Direct and vat dyes are suitable for flax
fibre.

30. LIMITATIONS OF FLAX FABRIC
• Acid is known to disintegrate flax fibres.
• Easily ignitable and burn quickly due to the cellulose
content.
• Heat resistant, natural oils deteriorate when exposed to
steam
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31. CONCLUSION
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Flax fiber is among the strongest natural fibers and its household history is long and
rich, dating back 30 000 years. Classified as a bast fiber, it is a complex assembly of
different polymers such as cellulose, hemicelluloses and pectin, and the lignin.
However, what distinguishes flax from other fibers and ensures its biological activity.
With such a complex structure, it comes as no surprise that there are many factors
determining fiber properties and any alteration in one of those factors has an impact on
fiber quality and quantity, influencing its most valued properties: tensile strength,
absorptive and biological activity. In the last decades a decline in flax fiber popularity
has been detected.

32. REFERENCE
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Textile raw material by ajay jindal and rakesh jindal
https://www.textilesphere.com/2019/10/properties-of-flax-
fiber.html?m=1
https://www.slideshare.net/SAJIB14/flax-fiber-ppt

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