The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of textiles: yarn, cloth and clothing.
Industry process
Cotton manufacturing
Cotton is the world's most important natural fibre. In the year 2007, the global yield was 25 million tons from 35 million hectares cultivated in more than 50 countries. There are five stages of cotton manufacturing:
Cultivating and harvesting Preparatory processes Spinning – giving yarn Fabric construction Finishing – giving textiles In the textile industry, textile engineering is an area of engineering that involves the design, production, and distribution of textile products through processes including cultivation, harvesting, spinning, weaving, and finishing of raw materials, encompassing both natural and synthetic fibres.
Synthetic fibres Artificial fibres can be made by extruding a polymer, through a spinneret (polymers) into a medium where it hardens. Wet spinning (rayon) uses a coagulating medium. In dry spinning (acetate and triacetate), the polymer is contained in a solvent that evaporates in the heated exit chamber. In melt spinning (nylons and polyesters) the extruded polymer is cooled in gas or air and then sets. Some examples of synthetic fibres are polyester, rayon, acrylic fibres and microfibres. All these fibres will be of great length, often kilometres long. Synthetic fibres are more durable than most natural fibres and will readily pick-up different dyes. Artificial fibres can be processed as long fibres or batched and cut so they can be processed like natural fibre.
Natural fibres Sheep, goats, rabbits, silkworms, and other animals, as well as minerals like asbestos, are sources of natural fibres (cotton, flax, sisal). These vegetable fibres can originate from the seed (cotton), the stem (bast fibres: flax, hemp, jute), or the leaf (sisal). All of these sources require a number of steps, each of which has a distinct name, before a clean, even staple is produced. All of these fibres, with the exception of silk, are short, only a few centimetres long, and have a rough surface that allows them to adhere to other like staple fibres.
History
Cottage stage There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Palaeolithic. An indistinct textile impression has been found at Pavlov, Moravia. Neolithic textiles were found in pile dwellings excavations in Switzerland and at El Fayum, Egypt at a site which dates to about 5000 BC. In Roman times, wool, linen and leather clothed the European population, and silk, imported along the Silk Road from China, was an extravagant luxury. The use of flax fibre in the manufacturing of cloth in Northern Europe dates back to Neolithic times. During the late medieval period, cotton began to be imported into Northern Europe. Without any knowledge of what it came from, other than that it was a plant, noting its similarities to wool, people in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the now-preposterous belief: "There grew in India a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the edges of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungry." This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many European languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as "tree wool". By the end of the 16th century, cotton was cultivated throughout the warmer regions of Asia and the Americas. The main steps in the production of cloth are producing the fibre, preparing it, converting it to yarn, converting yarn to cloth, and then finishing the cloth. The cloth is then taken to the manufacturer of garments. The preparation of the fibres differs the most, depending on the fibre used. Flax requires retting and dressing, while wool requires carding and washing. The spinning and weaving processes are very similar between fibres, however. Spinning evolved from twisting the fibres by hand, to using a drop spindle, to using a spinning wheel. Spindles or parts of them have been found in archaeological sites and may represent one of the first pieces of technology available. The spinning wheel was most likely invented in the Islamic world by the 11th century.
Industrial Revolution
The woven fabric portion of the textile industry grew out of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century as mass production of yarn and cloth became a mainstream industry.
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