20

4. Textile Production
The reason for attributing value to cotton through quality assessments
is to gain premiums (or discounts) from the market on the basis
of that cottons suitability for particular end-uses. In the production
of traditional textiles, conversion of fbre to textiles starts with the
spinner, for whom price and quality are key attributes of the product
they purchase. Price and quality are highly related; higher quality
means higher price. Higher quality fbre means higher quality
yarns and fabrics (fner, lighter, stronger, more even, cleaner) and
generally better productivity in the mill (better machine effciency,
less waste, fewer quality rejections). Here, we use the spun yarn
attributes that generate differences between the fabric that is made
into a pair of jeans and the fabric that is made into a light summer
shirt to illustrate.
Fabric Quality
Leaving aside the important issues of price, colour and fashion,
what are key characteristics we expect from these two different
garments? For jeans it is durability, strength and abrasion
resistance. As a result denim fabric for jeans is relatively thick and
heavy. By comparison, for summer shirts, comfort and breathability
are paramount and so the fabric is much lighter. These examples
illustrate the general point that within the textile industry fabric mass
is an important technical specifcation. Garment manufacturers will
specify to the fabric manufacturer what a fabric must weigh in terms
of mass per unit area. A typical value for a denim-weight fabric is
400 grams per square metre (gsm), with a light to heavy range from
340 to 500 gsm, whereas light summer shirting fabric has a range
between 70 to 140 gsm. In this example, the denim fabric is woven
using a thick, coarse yarn and the summer shirting fabric is woven
(or knitted) from a fner yarn.
Yarn Count
Actual yarn thickness is diffcult to measure accurately and so the
textile industry refers to yarn in terms of its mass per unit length,
which is called the yarn linear density or more commonly yarn
count. Yarn count is typically measured as the mass in grams
of one kilometre of yarn. The unit, grams per kilometre, is called
tex. An older system of measurement called English cotton count
(notated Ne) is used within the cotton spinning industry. This system
measures the number of yarn hanks, each of which is 840 yards
long, per pound of yarn. In this system a big number implies a fne
yarn and a small number implies a coarse yarn. This is the inverse
of the tex system. The systems can be inter-converted by dividing
590.5 by the other number. Both systems are used in trade and
commonly appear side-by-side in yarn descriptions.
Table 4.1 lists typical yarn counts used in a range of garments and
fabrics. In our example above, denim yarns range in count between
60 to 100 tex (grams per kilometre) or Ne 10 to 6 (10 to 6 x 840 yard
hanks per pound of yarn), whereas the shirting yarn will range in
count between 30 and 15 tex or Ne 20 to 40.
21
Table 4.1: Typical fabric mass and yarn requirements to manufacture specifc
garments (gsm is grams per square metre).
Garment Fabric Mass Yarn Linear Density or Count
(gsm) Tex Ne
Jeans (woven) 200 - 400 60 - 100 10 - 6
Business shirt (woven) < 100 5 - 15 120 - 40
T-shirts and hosiery (knit) 120 - 180 15 - 30 40 - 20
Bed sheets (woven) 150 - 250 20 - 35 30 - 17
Towels (woven) > 500 40 - 80 15 - 7
The most common yarns produced from Australian Upland type
cottons are 30 tex (Ne 20) to 12 tex (Ne 50) count yarns, produced
on the ringspun system of which at least 60% are combed (see the
next chapter on yarn production). These yarns are used to construct
a wide range of reasonably high-end woven and knitted fabrics. For
comparison, the most common yarns produced from extra long
staple (ELS see defnition in previous chapter on cotton history)
cottons are in the range of 12 tex (Ne 50) to 7.5 tex (Ne 80), which
are used for fne knit, woven apparel fabric, and woven fabric for
bed sheets and towels. These yarns can be spun using 100 % ELS
cotton or in blends with standard Upland cotton. In recent years
there has been a move to coarser Pima yarns, up to 20 tex (Ne 30)
and coarser yarns for fabrics such as denim.
Niche Textile Markets
Within traditional textile markets there are niches for organic and
environmentally sustainable cotton, coloured cotton, high quality
(long and fne) cotton and high-end cotton blends (with other natural
staple fbres). Organic cotton, however, should not be confused with
naturally coloured cotton, although coloured cotton can be grown
organically. Natural coloured cotton occurs in wild cotton plants
and breeders have been able to select through cross breeding to
improve these cottons. Currently coloured cotton is available in
various shades of brown and green and has created a niche market
for itself (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1: There are many natural colours in cotton lint. This photo shows the
various shades of green and red-brown compared with white (called acru). (Photo:
CSIRO).
White
Green Shade of brown
22
Whilst the volume of fbre in these niches is relatively small, it is
notable that strong growth is predicted in nearly all of them and
particularly for organic and high quality cotton. The production of
organic cotton has increased markedly from a small base in the
last fve years. In 2001/02 world production was some 10,000 t.
Production in 2008 is predicted to exceed 110,000 t. Likewise ELS
cotton consumption has increased signifcantly over the last 10 years
from 2,875,000 to 3,964,000 (500 lb, 227 kg) bales. For coloured
cotton, prices obtained for the lint, coupled with low yields, inferior
fbre quality, danger of contamination with conventional cotton, and
the stability of fabric colour has resulted in low production. In 2007
total production was 16 t, mainly brown, from China.
Recent market pushes by the Australian cotton industry into the ELS
premium cotton market follows these trends although work remains
to properly defne the premium that candidate varieties would bring
to these markets.
Whilst the bulk of world cotton is sold into traditional textile markets
for staple yarn there are a range of non-textile end-uses where
cotton fbres are used. These include dissolving fbres for pulp from
which cellulose intermediates and synthetic fbres and casings can
be made, the production of felts for cushions, pads, automotive
upholstery and furniture upholstery, the production of absorbent
medical grade cotton for cotton balls and swabs and fbre pulp for
specialised papers including fne writing paper, flter paper, currency,
sanitary products and battery separators. The markets for these
products are typically small in volume and under constant pressure
from man-made fbres (MMF) and their intermediates.
Further Reading
Organic Exchange Organic Cotton Market Report (2007).
Technopak Survey of Australian Cotton Markets for the CRDC, October
(2007).