Unveiling Cotton

A Journey Through History, Cultivation, and Fiber Excellence

History of Cotton

Cotton is the oldest and most important textile fiber in the world. Historians can hardly trace cotton to its origin. The best we know is that the English word “Cotton” is derived from the Arabic word katan (or qutn, kuteen). Each cotton fiber is a Unicellular hair collected from the seed of the cotton plant. Cotton plant belongs to the Order Malvales, the family Malvlaceac, the tribe Gosspieae, and the genus Gossypium. It grows in sub-tropical climates. Most of the cotton is cultivated in Asia, Africa, America, Egypt, India and other places.

Cotton is by far the backbone of the world’s textile trade. Cotton is grown in more than 80 countries worldwide. Its current market share is about more than 50% for all fibers used for apparel and home furnishings.

Cotton cultivation and Harvesting

The cultivation of cotton trees and the growing condition is not the same according to the climate and temperature of the cultivation land. For its cultivation, 6-7 months hot climate, sufficient sunlight and humidity are required. The different steps of cotton cultivation are given in a sequence below:

Seeds are sown in spring
They sprout after 2/3 weeks
After 2-3 months of sprouting, plant flowers bloom
The flowers fall off after a few days and leaving cotton balls
Seed hair start to grow inside the balls, one cotton ball has about 5-10 adzuki bean like cotton fruits
For 16-18 days, fiber length and other parameters are achieved
For the next 22-50 days, cellulose is deposited inside the fiber
When cellulose deposition is stopped, the balls become dry and burst naturally and the cotton appears as a soft wad of fine fiber
The balls are picked up manually or by machine, this picking period continue for 1-3 months
Finally, the balls are taken for ginning to collect the fibers

Classification of cotton on the basis of length

Commercial cotton may be classified broadly into following three classes with Reference of the staple length.

Short staple:

Length: 3/8 inch to 1 inch

Coarse and low-grade fibers which have often low strength and have little or no luster

Diameter: 13-22 micron

Example: India and Asiatic cotton

Medium staple:

Length: 0.5 inch to 1.25 inch

Medium strength, medium luster

Diameter: 12-17 micron

Example: American cotton

Long staple:

Length: 1 inch to 2.5 inch

Fine, luster and top quality cotton

Diameter: 10-12 micron

Example: Sea Island cotton, Egyptian, American pima

Chemical composition of cotton

Chemical composition of raw cotton and the quantity different constituents vary greatly with the place where the cotton is cultivated and the art of cotton plant. Due to this reason we can express the average value of different component of cotton.

Constituents	Percent
Cellulose	94.0
Protein	1.3
Pectin substances	1.2
Ash	1.2
Fat and wax	0.6
Organic acid, sugar And others	1.7