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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Cotton Ginning Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #109372
Title: FEASIBILITY OF APPLYING SEED-COTTON CLEANING PRINCIPLES TO LINT CLEANING

Author
item MANGIALARDI JR, GINO - RETIRED ARS AG ENGINEER
item Anthony, William

Submitted to: Journal of Cotton Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/1/2000
Publication Date: 5/1/2000
Citation: Mangialardi Jr, G.J., Anthony, W.S. 2000. Feasibility of applying seed-cotton cleaning principles to lint cleaning. Journal of Cotton Science. Vol. 4:183-192

Interpretive Summary: Saw-type lint cleaners are used at gins to clean upland cotton varieties. They improve the grade classification and market value of the bale but reduce some quality factors that are desired at the spinning mill, mainly long fibers with few neps. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the feasibility of cleaning lint by applying principles and systems normally used to extract foreign matter from seed cotton. It was hoped that the less aggressive seed-cotton type cleaner would cause less fiber damage. The seed-cotton type cleaners used as lint cleaners in the study were effective in removing 9 to 16 percent of the trash from lint, and the cleaned fibers tended to have longer fibers than cotton that is subjected to a stage of saw lint cleaning. Thus, the experiments showed that it might be feasible to modify and use a stage of seed-cotton type lint cleaner to supplement lint cleaning with one saw-cylinder cleaner in place of adding a second stage of saw-type lint cleaning.

Technical Abstract: An investigation was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of cleaning ginned lint by applying the principles and systems normally used to extract foreign matter from seed cotton. The cleanliness and quality of lint cotton cleaned on these systems were compared to that processed on a standard saw-cylinder lint cleaner. The objective was to reduce the number of imperfections in ginned lint and its short fiber content by using less aggressive lint cleaning machinery at gins. Using both hairy- leaf and smooth-leaf cottons, two replications of 10 lint cleaning treatments were processed. The ten lint cleaning treatments included combinations of 6-cylinder cleaners, a stick machine, an impact cleaner, an extractor feeder, and saw-cylinder lint cleaners. The cleaning efficiency of one saw-type lint cleaner averaged 54 percent compared to 9- 16 percent for the individual seed-cotton type lint cleaners. Fiber length tended to be shorter after cleaning with the saw-type lint cleaner. Experiments in search of new lint cleaning systems for gins will continue to increase the data base.