Year: 2016 | Month: December | Volume 3 | Issue 2
Production of Quality Jute Fibre through Accelerated Retting
Deb Prasad Ray*
Subhas Chandra Saha
Amitava Sarkar and Rakesh Kumar Ghosh
DOI:10.5958/2454-9541.2016.00016.5
Abstract:
Among the lignocellulosic fibres jute has been conspired as the golden fibre for its inherent colour and lustre. Jute is one of the cheapest natural fibers and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses. Jute fibres are composed primarily of cellulose and lignin. The fibres are separated from the woody core of the stem by steeping the bundles of the harvested and the defoliated plants in water of various sources. The process employs the joint action of microbes and moisture to dissolve the cellular tissues and pectin surrounding the bast fibre bundle facilitating fibre separation from the stem. Water retting produces more uniform and high quality fibre, but it requires both labour and capital. Large volume of clean water is needed for this purpose. Due to unavailability of sufficient water, quality of fibre produced becomes inferior. To avoid scarcity of water, the barks of decorticated jute plants are separated prior to retting in green condition. This is called ribbon retting. The process of retting is further accelerated by the application of a chemical accelerator formulated by National Institute of Research on Jute and Allied Fibre Technology, Kolkata. In this process the defoliated jute bundles (50kg) are immersed in a tank or confined water bodies with ratio of plant to water is 1:2. The bundles are stacked in reverse direction and at a place around 30-40 bundles can be placed. The retting in this process takes little longer, i.e., 10-12 days. Fibre quality in this process was found to enhance around two grades. This may bring economic benefit to the farmers to the tune of ` 500-600 per quintal of jute fibre yield.
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