7 - Regenerated protein fibres: a preliminary review

Abstract

This chapter describes the structure and characteristics of regenerated protein fibres, sometimes called azlons, a group of fibres which were first developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, actually produced in the mid-twentieth century but then rapidly forgotten and only returned to the market in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These are man-made fibres produced from either animal or vegetable non-fibrous proteins which have been reconfigured to take up a fibrous form to emulate the natural protein fibres wool or silk. Production methods are described and the available evidence for their structure and behavioural characteristics is reviewed.