Identification of Wool and Cashmere Fibers by Preparation of Hollow-like Carbon Tubes after Carbonization

ABSTRACT

Identification of wool and cashmere has attracted considerable attention in various research fields due to the outstanding properties of fibers. Herein, the hollow-like carbon tubes were facilely prepared by carbonization using the waste wool fibers, which were further characterized by elemental analysis and scanning electron microscope (SEM). After carbonization, hollow-like structures were observed in wool, while cashmere still presented in solid shapes at cross-sectional morphologies. Furthermore, the medulla existed in wool can be pyrolyzed after the carbonization process, which may be an effective way to distinguish the cashmere from wool by their obvious differences in fiber shapes, fiber sizes and residual weights. The effects of temperature on the properties of wool and cashmere were also analyzed. The proportions of hollow wool tubes increased with the rise of temperature, reaching more than 90% at 500°C. Apart from that, the mean diameter of treated wool (16.022 μm) was larger than treated cashmere (8.399 μm), which both shrunk nearly 50% than pristine fibers, and the residual weight of cashmere (68.95%) was higher than wool (62.98%). This method could be extended for identifying specialty fibers like fine yak fiber and yak hair, paving the way for distinguishing protein fibers in multiple areas.

抽象的

摘要:由于羊毛和羊绒纤维性能优异, 它们之间的鉴别在各个研究领域引起了广泛的关注。本文中, 利用废弃羊毛纤维并通过碳化制备了中空碳管, 通过元素分析和扫描电子显微镜 (SEM) 对其进行了进一步表征。碳化后, 羊毛中观察到空心管状结构, 而羊绒在横截面形态上仍然呈现实心形状。此外, 羊毛中存在的髓质经过碳化处理后可以热解, 这可能是一种有效的方法来区分羊绒和羊毛, 因为它们在纤维形状, 纤维大小和残余重量方面存在明显差异。本文进一步分析了温度对羊毛和羊绒性能的影响。中空羊毛管的比例随着温度的升高而增加, 在500°C时达到90%以上。此外, 经处理的羊毛 (16.022 μm) 的平均直径比经处理的羊绒 (8.399 μm) 大, 两者均比原始纤维收缩近50%, 羊绒的剩余重量 (68.95%) 比羊毛 (62.98%) 高。该方法可推广应用于牦牛绒, 牦牛毛等特种纤维的鉴别, 为蛋白质纤维的鉴别在多领域的应用奠定了基础。

KEYWORDS:

• Wool
• cashmere
• hollow-like carbon tubes
• microstructure
• identification
• animal fibers

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773158); Local Science and Technology Development Projects Guided by the Central Government (2020ZYYD038).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773158); Local Science and Technology Development Projects Guided by the Central Government (2020ZYYD038).