Abstract
Ramie (Boehmeria nivea), commonly known as China grass, is the strongest and finest plant fibre which is considered one of the valuable textile entities. Despite its unique characteristics, ramie has received reasonably less importance specially in the Indian subcontinent due to unavailability of appropriate postharvesting and processing technologies. With increase in global environmental awareness, the alternative (to cotton) cellulosic natural fibre “ramie” is gaining importance in the international textile domain. Sustainable methods and technologies which could trigger the utilization of ramie fibre are in demand worldwide. This paper will describe the developments carried out in the areas of postharvesting and spinning process of ramie. An ecofriendly degumming technology of ramie fibre has been elaborated along with suitable fibre processing route of ramie-jute blends that will bring new avenue for manufacturing jute diversified market acceptable products.
Highlights
The raw ramie fibre is extracted by decortication of long fibre strands or ribbons, where gummy matter is encrusted around the ultimate fibre
Before performing fibre degumming process, the activities of component enzymes in the formulation have been evaluated to ascertain the conjugal strength of the developed degumming formulation. It is observed (Table 1) that activity of pectinase is considerably high, and hemicellulase activity level is found to be within the desired mark
New sustainable approach for postharvesting processing and spinning of ramie fibre has been developed in this R&D study
Summary
The raw ramie fibre is extracted by decortication of long fibre strands or ribbons, where gummy matter is encrusted around the ultimate fibre. Decorticated ramie fibre contains 25–30% of noncellulosic gummy matter (pectic colloidal substances, i.e., gum) [1] consisting of pectins, waxes, lignin, and hemicellulose. Postharvesting technology “degumming” is the most crucial aspect for successful processing of ramie fibre due to presence of gum which needs to be removed to the highest possible extent (degumming) without compromising fibre properties and performance [2]. A cocktail of enzymes has been judiciously formulated with market available varieties, namely, hemicellulase, pectinase and pectate lyase, and so forth, and applied on freshly decorticated ramie to get a fibre that could be transformed into valuable blended textiles
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