Abstract:

At the Institute of Natural Fibres, Poznań, we developed a new method for cottonising short bast fibres with the use of enzymes in the cottonising process. The final product of this cottonising process is a fibre with a mean length of 60 to 80 mm, characterised by irregular staple length, so about 20% of the fibres are longer than average. However, the open-end cotton system of spinning requires the use of cotton-type flax in respect of its mean fibre length (of the order of 30 to 40 mm, evened-up staple length). That is why a research project was undertaken in 2004 aimed at further improving the enzymatic modification of technical flax fibres (flax hackling noil) and producing modified cottonised flax. This paper is a presentation of the results of the research work in 2004.