Quantitative Fiber Mixture Analysis by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Abstract

Test Method 58 was established by the International Wool Textile Organization in 2000 to analyze textile products made from specialty fibers, sheep's wool. and their blends using the scanning electron microscope. This part of the series critically examines the design of the analytical approach for quantitative analysis of binary blends specified in IWTO-58. The 95% confidence range is established as a suitable measure for the precision and accuracy of the method. The most critical, legal, and technical issue of quantitative analyses of binary wool/specialty fiber blends is the requirement of 3 weight-% accuracy. This accuracy is not consistently reached with the current analytical protocol. that is. for 50:50 blends, though the course of the analysis already operates at its feasible technical and economical limits. Extended analysis protocols are investigated showing the require ments for meeting this pre-set accuracy. The results show that a substantially higher number of diameter measurements for the fiber components and a substantial increase in the number of identified fibers are required for routine analysis, which is beyond the reach of the current operator-based and thus rather tedious methodology.