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ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Quality and Innovation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #428958
Research Project: New Characteristics for Enhancing Cotton Fiber Performance and Marketability

Location: Cotton Quality and Innovation Research

Title: Impact of use of surfactants and a pulse sonicator on length and fiber count determinations for natural and synthetic microfibers using the OpTest Fiber Quality Analyzer

Author
item Fortier, Chanel
item Santiago Cintron, Michael

Submitted to: FIBERS
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/22/2026
Publication Date: 5/12/2026
Citation: Fortier, C.A., Santiago Cintron, M. 2026. Impact of use of surfactants and a pulse sonicator on length and fiber count determinations for natural and synthetic microfibers using the OpTest Fiber Quality Analyzer. FIBERS. 14(58). https://doi.org/10.3390/fib14050058.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/fib14050058

Interpretive Summary: Due to the negative impact on the environment, the study of microfibers is increasing. This study employed the Fiber Quality analyzer to investigate textile water suspensions of synthetic and natural microfibers. This study used two surfactants, Teric 169 and Surfonic LF-17 to examine the microfibers. It has been demonstrated that the addition of surfactants to synthetic microfibers water suspensions can be used to improve their fiber count detectability. However, the fiber counts of natural microfibers were observed to be independent of surfactant addition. Moreover, the length of microfibers for man-made fibers like polyester and nylon increased substantially compared to acrylic microfibers which only changed by a small amount. This FQA technique which is easy and quick to use makes it an ideal choice when studying microfibers that are natural and man-made.

Technical Abstract: There is growing concern about the ubiquitous presence of microfibers in waterways, at-mosphere, and soil. Thus, the study of microfibers is of interest. Presently, there is no standard method for quantifying microfibers, so the objective of the current study was to employ a Fiber Quality Analyzer 360 (FQA) to examine microfibers with image analysis. In this study, 2 surfactants, Teric 169 and Surfonic LF-17, have been independently added to synthetic and natural microfiber suspensions to investigate their impact on arithmetic length and fiber count measurements. It has been observed herein that surfactants with pulsed sonication have been shown to positively impact the synthetic microfibers suspensions, yielding statistically different higher fiber counts compared to the controls. However, the natural microfibers were found to produce fiber counts independent of the surfactant addition when compared to controls. In addition, the arithmetic lengths for polyester and nylon increased compared to a previous study, whereas the acrylic microfibers only changed marginally. Clearly, these results indicated that with the pulsed sonication and surfactant addition pretreatment to water suspensions of microfibers, the FQA can be used to quickly and easily examine synthetic and natural microfibers in a single research study.