Lesson 10 Natural Fibers

Fiber，the primary material from which most textile products are made，can be defined as units of hairlike dimensions，with a length at least one hundred times greater than the width. The textile fibers may be divided into two major groups according to their origins: （1） natural fibers，（2） chemical fibers.

Those that are found in nature are known as natural fibers，which are taken from either animal，vegetable or mineral resources. The classification of natural fibers is shown in Table 10-1. Vegetable fibers could be further divided according to the part of the plant that produces the fiber: the leaf，a hair produced from a seedpod or the stem. The latter is called bast fibers. Animal fibers could be further divided into those fibers from the hair of an animal such as wool and those from an extruded web such as silk. Chemically，the classification might be cellulosic for vegetable fibers，protein for animal fibers，and name of the specific minerals （such as asbestos） for mineral fibers. Using this scheme，cotton is a plant seedpod，or cellulosic fiber and wool is an animal，hair，or protein fiber. They vary considerably as regards their properties and their productions.

Table 10-1 Classification of Natural Fibers