Introduction:


It is time to understand the terms conventional andnon-conventional textiles. Before non-conventional textiles are to beunderstood, it is better to probe into the term conventional textiles. Thetextile items that are commonly used by convention are obviously conventionaltextile. If we talk about conventional textile based on basic material one mayeasily pronounce cotton, silk, wool or synthetic in India, the last being oneof the latest addition. But they may also be region specific or time specific.Even a few centuries back Linen was conventional textile used in Europe and Egypt while cotton in India and silk in China. The scenario has been changed often gradually, laterdrastically. With scientific development rayon (both acetate and viscose) aswell as synthetics has been added in the list of conventional textile, manynatural fibres used in yesteryears and forgotten, many area specific items wereuniversalized and finally blending of more than one items brought in newcertain conventional products. In the process however, we ignored manywonderful natural products that were conventional during those times but becamenon-conventional later. These are also products which have potentiality tobecome useful textile but were never tried seriously. Considering textile fromnatural resources the consumption is increasing in such a galloping rate thateven renewable resources are becoming non- renewable. The method ofmanufacturing textile in the modern era causes pollution to considerable extent.Manufacture of synthetic fibres also causes pollution. For this reason, thereis a need to search for non-conventional renewable resource for textile to givean effective solution.


Leaf fibres:


The leaves of monocotyledenous plants are held in shape andstrengthened by fibres which run in hawser-like strands through the length ofthe leaf. These leaf fibres are of great commercial value, and are used inlarge quantities for making ropes and cordage, and for the production of textile fabrics.


Plant fibers have been used for making paper and clothingfor a long time and the need for use of natural fibres has increased greatly.Among natural fibres, 90 per cent are of vegetable origin and among them 80 percent is constituted by cotton and the remaining by other long vegetable fibreslike flax, jute, hemp, sisal, ramie, coir, abaca, banana and pineapple fibres.They are classified as minor fibres.


Among the minor fibres, leaf fibres (fibres extracted fromleaves) are one of the important unconventional fibres, which could be analysedand evaluated for their use in textile and paper industries. Their use is basedon the length and width of fibres besides their wall thickness and cell wallcomposition.

The inherent drawback of banana fibre is its poor qualityand higher irregularity, owing to the multi-cellular nature of the fibres. Theindividual cells are cemented with lignin and hemi-cellulose and thus form acomposite fibre. Banana fibre is classified as medium quality fibre andperforms very well in combination with other fibres for making fine articles like handicrafts, currency, etc.


Banana


The bananas or the plantains are essentially hot climateplants. Their original home is said to be the tropical forests of Asia. The two terms banana and plantain are used synonymously in this country. Strictlyspeaking the former should be used for table varieties and the latter should beused for cooking varieties. Banana has important place in our mythology. It issaid that Manu or Noah (according to Western mythology) or Hazrat Nuh(according to Muslims) when starting to implant new life on our planet afterthe great flood, sought help from God for a multipurpose plant that will giveus multivitamin fruit, vegetables for cooking, besides meeting most of our otherdemands. It is said that God gave him banana tree which meets most of ourwants, since besides fruit and vegetable, flowers and stems are cooked, theplant gives fibre for manufacturing textiles, its leaves are used as plates toserve food besides of course many medicinal virtues. The plant grows easily ofits own as it sets young shoots.


Botanically they are known as Musa Paradisiaca, MusaSapientum, Musa Cavendishii and Musa Chinensis.

All varieties of banana trees abound in fibres. In factalmost each and every part of this plant gives fibres of various strength,colour, beauty and staple length thus, can be used for various purposes. In theleaf sheaths, coarse and strong fibres are found on the outer ones, fine andsilky in the inner most ones and those of the middling quality in theintermediate ones. The core, from the roots to the point of its emergence fromthe covering of the false stem contains an extremely white fine fibre. Thefruit stems contain fibres of a rough variety, while the midribs of the leavesyield a fibre of exceptional strength and durability when properly processed.


 

The grower can get these fibres from the plants in addition to the bananas or the plantain as the case maybe, after they are harvested. The process of extraction is cheap and simple. He can attend to the work in the spare time to ensure additional income. Presently, the trunks are considered a waste after the fruits are harvested. In our country, millions of such trunks capable of yielding tons of valuable fibre are thrown away.


The banana trees continue to grow till the first flower emerges from within the cluster of sheaths. The growth of the leaves and petioles stop thereafter, the flowers bloom and grow into fruits. It follows that if the trees are cut before the flower emerges, the quantity of fibres produced is smaller and they may not possess their maximum strength.


The outer sheaths produce the coarsest fibre. Very often they are very brittle and break at the slightest jerk. The practice is to reject two or three of the outer sheaths. The innermost two or three of the sheaths are also rejected because of the percentage of pulpy matter they contain. Only the intermediate sheaths are exploited for the purpose of fibres.


Yield:


About 37 kg (average weight) of stem yields about 1 kg of good quality fibre. The yield is about 1-1.5% of dry fibre. The fibre obtained from the central core is of lower quality.


The fresh banana plant yields about 0.61.0% of fibre, depending on the variety and method of extraction used.


Manufacture:


Fibre is extracted from the leaf sheath or pseudostem of the banana plant by decortication of the sheath. The pseudostem is the aerial stem seen above the ground and is formed by closely packed leaf sheaths embedded in the growing tip. Each leaf has a basal leaf sheath forming a part of pseudostem, petiole and lamina.


It can be extracted by hand scraping, by retting, by using raspador machines; it can be extracted chemically, for example by boiling in NaOH solution. Extraction of the fibre for local use (in cordage) or for cottage industries in India has been through manual means. The manual process is adopted in the Phillipines and is called stripping. On the plantation site, the plant stems are desheathed, the sheaths flattened, a knife inserted between the outer and middle layer, and a 50-80mm wide strip is separated and pulled off along the length. The strip is called as a tuxy and the separation procedure is called tuxying. All the fibres are removed in tuxies from each sheath. The tuxies are then scraped by pulling them through/ between a wooden block and a serrated knife (400-2000 serrations/m or no serration) under considerable pressure. The manual effort, which is considerable, decreases with decreasing serration density.


Two methods of tuxying are employed in Philippines. In the first method- Bacnis method, the trunks are pullled apart and the sheath separated according to their position in stalk. They are then flattened and the fibre is stripped from the stem by cutting the pulpy portion and pulling away the tuxy. In second method (loenit), the tuxies are pulled off the stalk from one sheath at a time. In either of these methods tuxies are tied into bundles of 23 to 27 kg and brought to the stripping knife for cleaning. In this process tuxies are pulled under a knife blade, which is pressed tightly against the tuxy in order to scrape away the plant tissue between the fibres. The clean fibre is then air dried and made up into bundles for subsequent grading and bailing. In addition to hand stripping, machines are used where the trunks from which the dark outer sheaths have been removed, are cut into sections of 120 to 180 cm in length. The sections are then crushed between rolls and the pulpy tissues are scraped away, one half the length at a time, by two large revolving drums, the rim of which are fitted with scrapping blade which scrape the sheath while it is pressed against a bed plate, oven dried, graded and baled.


Though on a very small scale, scraping of these intermediate sheaths is carried out for the recovery of the fibres in tropical countries. However, this process is not employed in India. Dew retting and water retting are the methods most commonly adopted.


After the harvesting of the fruits, the tree is cut as near to the ground as possible. The foliage is removed by cutting away. Two or three outer sheaths are removed and rejected. Inserting a knife lengthwise strips of 7.5 cm or so in breath are prepared. These are scraped to yield strands either manually or using a motorized spindle. A Raspodos machine can also be used. The fibres contain acidic matter which is removed by hackling. The hackle consists of steel needles mounted on a small board. This reduces the strands into individual fibres. The fibres are then washed and rinsed in clean water and spread out in the shade to dry. The second process to remove the acids is to soak the strands in a well, tank or running water for a few hours. The third process is to soak the strands in dilute alkali or soap solution. The strands are then rinsed in cold water, wrung, rinsed and spread out to dry. When semidry they are hackled and the fibres are spread out to dry in the shade.


Application:


The stronger fibres are ideal for cordages while the weaker white inner fibres are best suited for value added fancy items. They are being produced and exported in India from Kerala. The fibre is suitable for manufacturing strings, ropes, cords, cables and ship building thread. It can also be used to make sacks and packing fabrics as well as mats and rugs. Due to high cellulose and low lignin content, its use in the paper industry (tissue, filters, speciality nonwoven, document, printing, surgical and hygienic applications, coffee bags, meat casings, etc.) have been reported.


Banana Fibre can be used as fibre to manufacture fabrics. It is being used for making bags, table mats, ropes and twines. It can be blended with cotton or viscose fibre to produce blended fabric. Since Banana fibre is fully plant origin natural product, it has very good compatibility with other natural fibres like cotton, Coir, Pineapple fibres and Jute in blending. Banana fibre can also be dyed easily like other natural fibres and cloth made from it can also be dyed and printed like cotton cloth. It has good strength and has silk like luster. It can partly replace cotton fibre and hence we can estimate potential for it on the line of estimating demand for cotton fibre. It may be noted that good quality Banana fibre is having strength and luster like silk and in the Philippines various garments are already manufactured from Banana fibres. Apart from it, Philippines is exporting huge quantity of ready-made garments like shirts, kimonos, gowns, nightwears etc.

The banana fibres were reported to be elegant and highly versatile. As they do not crumple easily, these fibres have been used in the manufacture of dress materials. The fineness of texture depends on the quality of the fibre used. The material has a beautiful sheen and is used for making wedding gowns and barongs.

Hand-extracted fibres have been used to produce handbags, wall hangings, table mats and other fancy articles. The fibre can be powdered and different colours of fibre obtained using natural dyes, which can be made into beautiful pictures. Portraits drawn and filled with colourful banana fibre chips have become popular in the handicraft industry in Mizoram, India, and have good potential in the export market.Thus, this fibre is having very good potential. It can be blended with other natural fibres or synthetic fibres without any problem to produce large varieties of garments from this fibre.


However, the inherent drawback of banana fibre is its poor quality and higher irregularity, owing to the multi-cellular nature of the fibres. The individual cells are cemented with lignin and hemi-cellulose and thus form a composite fibre. Banana fibre is classified as medium quality fibre and performs very well in combination with other fibres for making fine articles like handicrafts, currency, etc.


Summary:


The fibre has not been exploited much commercially hitherto, as it was considered inferior to abaca and other available hard fibres. Banana fibre is classified as medium quality fibre and performs very well in combination with other fibres for making fine articles like handicrafts, currency, etc.


Over the years, there has been considerable interest in exploiting it for a variety of household and industrial uses on a larger scale.


Reference:


  1. G.K.Ghosh, Non Conventional Textiles in India, APH Publishing Corporation, 2000, p 89 99.
  2. J.Gordon Cook, Handbook of Textile Fibres, Vol I Natural Fibres, Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2001, p 27.
  3. Fibre plants for making paper, A. Balasubramanian and Shyamala Kanakarajan, The Hindu.
  4. Menachem Lewin, Handbook of Fiber Chemistry, Marcel Dekker Inc., 2nd Edition, p 508 519.



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