**1.2 Cotton wastes in spinning mill**

Klein classified cotton fibers used in short-staple spinning as virgin fiber (from ginning mill), clean waste, comber waste, recycled fibers from dirty waste, and fibers torn out of hard waste (roving, yarn, and twisted threads) [19]. Spinning wastes and their sources are given in **Figure 2**.

Broken ends of sliver, lap, web, and filter strippings from draw frame, roving frame, ring spinning frame, and rotor spinning frame are known as clean waste, having more than 95% of good fiber. Comber and roving wastes' good fiber ratio is around 95–97%. Wastes generated in blowroom machines, and cards are dirty wastes with 35–55% good fiber ratio. Besides, another dirty waste, flat and filter stripping waste, has a higher amount of good fiber (65–80%). As the waste fibers are processed in different number of machines and therefore stressed fibers, their good fiber content is less than virgin fibers. For this reason, spinners prefer to feed the waste fibers into normal spinning process, in a controlled manner, with a constant percentage in order to avoid quality variations. Generally, wastes arising in the mills can be returned to the same blend from which they arose; comber wastes are mostly used in rotor spinning. In carded ring-spun yarn and fine rotor-spun yarn production, waste fibers can be used, up to 5%, but for combed yarns, waste fiber ratio can be lower, up to 2.5%. Higher waste fiber amounts can be used for medium and coarser rotor yarns, about 10 and 20%, respectively.

**57**

*Utilization of Cotton Spinning Mill Wastes in Yarn Production*

secondary raw material that is still containing 6% trash.

up to 20%, without noticeable changes in yarn quality [21].

both yarn properties and cleaning effects [22].

According to Klein, waste generation in spinning mills of industrialized countries differs from machine to machine. The waste mostly occurs in comb machine, as one of its primary functions is to remove short fibers which are called comber wastes. Lowest waste creating machine in the spinning mill is draw frame. If the spinner is producing carded yarns, blowroom is responsible for the most waste generation. However, in blowroom machinery and card, shorter fibers have the highest ratio in the resultant waste despite ring spinning frame. In ring spinning frame and comber, waste consist of longer fibers (up to 1 1/2″) in comparison with card and

As the raw material costs constitute the majority of yarn production costs, spinners prefer to use waste fibers in the blends. In addition to saving raw material costs and the requirement for efficient use of limited raw material resources, the possibility of using higher degree of cleaning in the blowroom machines is the other advantage. On average, about 6–8% primary waste which is composed of 50% good fiber can be expected. About 90% of the good fiber elimination can be recovered as

Many researches focused on cotton spinning wastes. Wulfhorst concluded that these secondary raw materials can be blended with raw materials with a percentage

Duru and Babaarslan have determined an optimum opening roller speed for spinning different types of 60/40 polyester/waste blended rotor yarns. Waste fibers were obtained from cotton noil, recycled fibers, flat waste, etc. and were blended and processed on the traditional short-staple (carding) system. They have found that yarn strength, unevenness, and hairiness values decreased with the increase of the opening roller speed, and the optimum opening roller speed was 7000 rpm for

The effect of some rotor spinning parameters, such as rotor diameter, rotor speed, separator angle, navel type, opening roller speed, and yarn linear density on the level of yarn hairiness of the rotor-spun yarn produced from ginning wastes in different waste proportions, was investigated by Hasani et al. by the Taguchi method. They have found that, for 35/65 cotton waste-spun yarns, rotor diameter was the most effective factor, followed by yarn linear density, separator angle, opener speed, navel type, and rotor speed factors, respectively. Yarn linear density was the strongest effect for 50/50 cotton waste-spun yarns, and it was followed by rotor diameter, rotor speed, opener speed, navel type, and separator angle factors. Rotor speed and opener speed were found the least effective factors of all, for 65/35 cotton waste-spun yarns [23]. According to their following research, the rotor diameter, yarn linear density, and the navel type had the largest, and the opening roller speed had the lowest effect on yarn hairiness, for all waste ratios. Furthermore, they have found that yarns produced with higher waste proportions had higher hairiness values [24].

Khan and Rahman have focused on the effects of rotor spinning parameters too. They have studied the effects of rotor speed, combing-roll speed, and type of recycled waste on rotor yarn quality and end breakage, using response surface methodology. They have collected spinning wastes from different positions of ring spinning process (flat strips, noil, filter waste, and Pneumafil) and used after recycling, except Pneumafil. They have reported that yarn strength, elongation, imperfections, and end breakage rate can be improved by using Pneumafil waste, mostly in the range of 5–25%. The negative impacts of rotor speed on yarn imperfections and end breakage can be minimized also. In their study, rotor and combing-roll speed of 85,000 rpm gave better results in terms of yarn strength and elongation; on the other hand, the lowest end breakage rates were found at lower speeds [25]. Khan et al. have also focused on predicting the unevenness, imperfections, strength, and elongation properties of cotton/waste blended rotor yarn, using

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85127*

blowroom machinery [20].

**Figure 2.** *Spinning mill wastes in different sources.*

*Utilization of Cotton Spinning Mill Wastes in Yarn Production DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85127*

*Textile Industry and Environment*

**1.2 Cotton wastes in spinning mill**

**Figure 1.**

wastes and their sources are given in **Figure 2**.

*Opening and cleaning lines of combed ring spinning [17, 18].*

and coarser rotor yarns, about 10 and 20%, respectively.

Klein classified cotton fibers used in short-staple spinning as virgin fiber (from ginning mill), clean waste, comber waste, recycled fibers from dirty waste, and fibers torn out of hard waste (roving, yarn, and twisted threads) [19]. Spinning

Broken ends of sliver, lap, web, and filter strippings from draw frame, roving frame, ring spinning frame, and rotor spinning frame are known as clean waste, having more than 95% of good fiber. Comber and roving wastes' good fiber ratio is around 95–97%. Wastes generated in blowroom machines, and cards are dirty wastes with 35–55% good fiber ratio. Besides, another dirty waste, flat and filter stripping waste, has a higher amount of good fiber (65–80%). As the waste fibers are processed in different number of machines and therefore stressed fibers, their good fiber content is less than virgin fibers. For this reason, spinners prefer to feed the waste fibers into normal spinning process, in a controlled manner, with a constant percentage in order to avoid quality variations. Generally, wastes arising in the mills can be returned to the same blend from which they arose; comber wastes are mostly used in rotor spinning. In carded ring-spun yarn and fine rotor-spun yarn production, waste fibers can be used, up to 5%, but for combed yarns, waste fiber ratio can be lower, up to 2.5%. Higher waste fiber amounts can be used for medium

**56**

**Figure 2.**

*Spinning mill wastes in different sources.*

According to Klein, waste generation in spinning mills of industrialized countries differs from machine to machine. The waste mostly occurs in comb machine, as one of its primary functions is to remove short fibers which are called comber wastes. Lowest waste creating machine in the spinning mill is draw frame. If the spinner is producing carded yarns, blowroom is responsible for the most waste generation. However, in blowroom machinery and card, shorter fibers have the highest ratio in the resultant waste despite ring spinning frame. In ring spinning frame and comber, waste consist of longer fibers (up to 1 1/2″) in comparison with card and blowroom machinery [20].

As the raw material costs constitute the majority of yarn production costs, spinners prefer to use waste fibers in the blends. In addition to saving raw material costs and the requirement for efficient use of limited raw material resources, the possibility of using higher degree of cleaning in the blowroom machines is the other advantage. On average, about 6–8% primary waste which is composed of 50% good fiber can be expected. About 90% of the good fiber elimination can be recovered as secondary raw material that is still containing 6% trash.

Many researches focused on cotton spinning wastes. Wulfhorst concluded that these secondary raw materials can be blended with raw materials with a percentage up to 20%, without noticeable changes in yarn quality [21].

Duru and Babaarslan have determined an optimum opening roller speed for spinning different types of 60/40 polyester/waste blended rotor yarns. Waste fibers were obtained from cotton noil, recycled fibers, flat waste, etc. and were blended and processed on the traditional short-staple (carding) system. They have found that yarn strength, unevenness, and hairiness values decreased with the increase of the opening roller speed, and the optimum opening roller speed was 7000 rpm for both yarn properties and cleaning effects [22].

The effect of some rotor spinning parameters, such as rotor diameter, rotor speed, separator angle, navel type, opening roller speed, and yarn linear density on the level of yarn hairiness of the rotor-spun yarn produced from ginning wastes in different waste proportions, was investigated by Hasani et al. by the Taguchi method. They have found that, for 35/65 cotton waste-spun yarns, rotor diameter was the most effective factor, followed by yarn linear density, separator angle, opener speed, navel type, and rotor speed factors, respectively. Yarn linear density was the strongest effect for 50/50 cotton waste-spun yarns, and it was followed by rotor diameter, rotor speed, opener speed, navel type, and separator angle factors. Rotor speed and opener speed were found the least effective factors of all, for 65/35 cotton waste-spun yarns [23]. According to their following research, the rotor diameter, yarn linear density, and the navel type had the largest, and the opening roller speed had the lowest effect on yarn hairiness, for all waste ratios. Furthermore, they have found that yarns produced with higher waste proportions had higher hairiness values [24].

Khan and Rahman have focused on the effects of rotor spinning parameters too. They have studied the effects of rotor speed, combing-roll speed, and type of recycled waste on rotor yarn quality and end breakage, using response surface methodology. They have collected spinning wastes from different positions of ring spinning process (flat strips, noil, filter waste, and Pneumafil) and used after recycling, except Pneumafil. They have reported that yarn strength, elongation, imperfections, and end breakage rate can be improved by using Pneumafil waste, mostly in the range of 5–25%. The negative impacts of rotor speed on yarn imperfections and end breakage can be minimized also. In their study, rotor and combing-roll speed of 85,000 rpm gave better results in terms of yarn strength and elongation; on the other hand, the lowest end breakage rates were found at lower speeds [25].

Khan et al. have also focused on predicting the unevenness, imperfections, strength, and elongation properties of cotton/waste blended rotor yarn, using Taguchi OA experimental design. They have used blend ratios, blending technique, cylinder speed, and rotor speed as predictors. They have collected flat strips from carding machines and recycled them. Besides, comber noils, untwisted roving wastes, and Pneumafil wastes were directly used. They have produced virgin cotton/spinning waste blended yarns with two different levels of blend proportion (17/83 and 33/67) for both blowroom blending and draw frame blending. Their model showed that blend ratio and rotor speed are the most influencing factors for yarn quality. Reducing rotor speed improved the yarn evenness, imperfections, and strength. Yarn strength was found lower with draw frame blending, but on the other hand with this blending type, high portion waste containing yarns' evenness, imperfection, and elongation values are better than blowroom blending [26].

Halimi et al. investigated the effect of waste ratio (0, 12.5, 25, 37.5, 50, 62.5, 75, and 100%) and spinning parameters (rotor type, rotor speed, and opening roller speed) on the rotor yarn quality. Cotton wastes were collected from openingcleaning machines and cards processed to reduce impurities. Greek cotton was chosen due to the suitable fiber length for blending with recovered fibers. They have reported that yarn appearance, level of irregularity, and the yarn uniformity did not affect up to 25% waste ratio [17, 18].

Celep et al. investigated the thermal comfort properties of the single jersey fabrics produced from virgin/recycled cotton fiber-blended open-end rotor yarns (100/0, 50/50, and 0/100). Recycled cotton fibers were obtained from fabric scraps from garment industry. They have found that fabrics containing recycled cotton fibers show higher thermal resistance and lower thermal conductivity, thermal absorptivity, and air permeability and give a warmer feeling at first touch [27].

Recycled denim fabrics by using recycled cotton fibers (varying from 30 to 85% blend ratio), recycled PES fibers, Tencel fibers, and virgin cotton fibers were produced. They have found that recycled fiber-blended yarns have higher unevenness, IPI faults, and hairiness comparing to the standard yarns, resulting with noticeable nubs in fabric surface. This case did not affect fabrics' physical and mechanical properties significantly but provides better abrasion resistance contrary to expectations from recycled products [28].

Yılmaz et al. have focused on the effects of different waste cotton fiber types and the amount of waste in the blends (varying from 5 to 40%), on the quality of conventional ring and OE-rotor yarns. They have used preparation process wastes (blowroom and carding) and Pneumafil wastes (sucked on the draw frame, roving frame, and conventional ring spinning machines). They have found both for conventional ring-spun and OE-rotor yarns that the blends containing pneumafil wastes resulted with better yarn properties, while the blends with blowroom and flat wastes caused worse yarn qualities. In general, flat waste fiber blends have higher neps and hairiness values. They have concluded that when the waste percentage was increased from 5 to 40%, yarn irregularity values increased up to 37 and 16%, yarn hairiness increased by about 21–22%, yarn tenacity values decreased by 22, and 52%, breaking elongation decreased by 7 and 38%, for ring-spun and rotor yarns, respectively. As expected, with the usage of waste fiber, the most deteriorated yarn properties were yarn unevenness in conventional ring-spun yarns and tensile properties in rotor yarns. Their findings showed that the effect of waste fiber usage on knitted fabrics' pilling behavior was significant and Pneumafil fiber blends increased the pilling resistance, while for other waste fiber blends, on the contrary [29].

Béchir et al. evaluated the effect of recycled fiber ratio and number of recycling passages on the yarn quality and predicted the quality of the blend using a mathematical approach. They have concluded that recycling process of cotton waste with four passages gave an optimal global quality of fibers. Unevenness and IPI values of blended yarns increased with the increasing of recycled fiber ratio in the yarn [30].

**59**

Virgin cotton

**Table 1.**

*Fiber specifications.*

**Waste type Fiber** 

**content (%)**

*\*is corresponding to the test result given in brackets.*

**2,5% SL\* (HVI) (upper length) (mm)**

**50% SL (mm)**

**ML\* (AFIS) (LCT length) (mm)**

Blowroom 45.74 25.27 9.24 15.62 5.3 7.26 56.4 38.0 38.4 Card 82.44 21.69 6.71 7.79 1.2 2.81 78.0 76.6 33.0 Sliver 82.11 27.63 11.62 11.04 0.4 11.04 44.5 15.0 42.0 Fabric 80.89 22.64 8.46 13.36 8.4 6.07 57.2 47.6 39.6

**Fiber hooks (%)**

99.41 27.67 12.50 20.59 4.8 10.38 42.5 17.4 42.5

**SFL\* (mm)** **SFA\* (%)**

**SFC\* (AFIS short fiber amount) (%)**

**Staple gradient (HVI uniformity ratio)**

*Utilization of Cotton Spinning Mill Wastes in Yarn Production*

Demiroz Gun et al. studied the dimensional and physical properties of the socks made from the blend of reclaimed fiber and polyester fiber. As a result of the study, they reported that reclaimed fiber can be used for production of socks, when the blend of virgin polyester fiber and reclaimed fiber are used, and thus acceptable

Yuksekkaya et al. used "yarn quality index" value, which was defined by Yunus and Rahman (as Yarn Quality Index = (Strength × Elongation)/ Evenness), for evaluating yarn quality in their study [32, 33]. It can be said that the most important parameter in order to evaluate yarn spinnability is the yarn tensile strength. They reported that generally, yarns produced from recycled fibers displayed better properties in terms of unevenness, yarn imperfections, and yarn quality index value. On the other hand, they found that yarn tensile strength and fabric burst strength were

The main objective of this study is filling the gap in the literature via investigating the properties of the yarns produced with cotton wastes, generated in different sources. For this purpose, different waste types (card waste, blowroom waste, sliver waste, and recycled cotton fiber from ecru fabric waste) and waste ratios (10/90, 30/70, and 50/50) were used in rotor spinning. As a pre-treatment and recycling process, all waste types were processes in Micro Dust and Trash Analyzer (MDTA) in two passages. Simultaneously, trash and fiber content of these wastes were analyzed, and the fiber length specifications of wastes after recycling process were evaluated by length control tester (Textechno). Length control tester is a mobile device for use in the spinning mill, developed for the measurement of fiber length parameters on slivers or cotton in tuft form. The test results of length control tester give information about the mechanical stresses which the fibers undergo in the manufacturing process and optimum settings of card, draw frame, or combing machines [34]. Besides, fiber contents of the wastes were analyzed with MDTA, and test results are given in **Table 1**. Trash analysis of the virgin cotton was performed from sliver form, resulting with high ratio of fiber content. Subsequently, wastes were blended with virgin cotton fibers (in sliver form) with the same machine. Then, Ne 20/1 open-end yarns were spun by using these slivers on Rieter open-end machine (R40). Single jersey fabrics were knitted by using Mesdan Lab Knitter with the same tightness factors under constant machine settings.

lower for recycled yarns and fabrics when compared to virgin ones [32].

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85127*

quality can be obtained [31].

**2. Material and methods**

*Utilization of Cotton Spinning Mill Wastes in Yarn Production DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.85127*

Demiroz Gun et al. studied the dimensional and physical properties of the socks made from the blend of reclaimed fiber and polyester fiber. As a result of the study, they reported that reclaimed fiber can be used for production of socks, when the blend of virgin polyester fiber and reclaimed fiber are used, and thus acceptable quality can be obtained [31].

Yuksekkaya et al. used "yarn quality index" value, which was defined by Yunus and Rahman (as Yarn Quality Index = (Strength × Elongation)/ Evenness), for evaluating yarn quality in their study [32, 33]. It can be said that the most important parameter in order to evaluate yarn spinnability is the yarn tensile strength. They reported that generally, yarns produced from recycled fibers displayed better properties in terms of unevenness, yarn imperfections, and yarn quality index value. On the other hand, they found that yarn tensile strength and fabric burst strength were lower for recycled yarns and fabrics when compared to virgin ones [32].
