Textile Fiber Microscopy

1Natural Cellulosic Fibers

Cellulosic fibers are derived from one of three parts of a plant (i.e. the flower or seed, stem, or leaf) and differ based on their origins. Seed fibers are fibers that come from the flower or seed of a plant; bast fibers come from the stem of the plant. While bast fibers from different types of plants (e.g., flax or hemp) more often reveal their commonalities under a microscope, there are certain differentiable morphological characteristics that can be identified. For example, the longitudinal characteristics of linen appear as having nodes or kinks, which are similar to that of hemp's longitudinal characteristics; however, their cross‐sectional view differ as hemp has a wider lumen than linen.

Fiber morphology is the study of the structure and form of fibers and requires the utilization of microscopes to see the true characteristics of the fiber. When we view the fibers under a microscope, we see either longitudinal or cross‐sectional fiber characteristics (which will both be discussed in this book).

1.1 Seed Fibers

1.1.1 Cotton

Cotton comes from the flower of cotton plant, which is of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. There are few types of the plant. Cotton is an ancient fiber as it has been used for clothing articles for thousands of years. Archeological evidence suggests that cotton was used in Pakistan more than 5000 years ago and in Mexico 3000 years ago, which makes sense because the cotton plant grows in warm climates.

Today, ...