U.S. patent application number 10/510877 was filed with the patent office on 2007-11-22 for bamboo fibre and its manufacture.
Invention is credited to Zigun Zhao.
Application Number | 20070267159 10/510877 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 4741530 |
Filed Date | 2007-11-22 |
United States Patent
Application |
20070267159 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Zhao; Zigun |
November 22, 2007 |
Bamboo fibre and its manufacture
Abstract
The present invention is related to a bamboo fiber, which uses
bamboo as raw material, providing a kind of raw materials for
making face fabric instead of cotton, chemical fiber, hemp and
silk, and the production method of this kind of fiber includes the
procedures of bamboo pretreatment, bamboo separation, bamboo fiber
forming and its after treatment, in which it adopts a degumming
softening agent made up according to a wild plant formula, and its
neutral in acidity-alkalinity ensures no environmental pollution.
The face fabric made of bamboo fiber is good in flexibility,
permeability and is UV-resistant or ultraviolet resistant, low cost
and high comfort in summer.
Inventors: |
Zhao; Zigun; (Zhejiang
Province, CN) |
Correspondence
Address: |
RAYMOND Y. CHAN
108 N. YNEZ AVE., SUITE 128
MONTEREY PARK
CA
91754
US
|
Family ID: |
4741530 |
Appl. No.: |
10/510877 |
Filed: |
April 3, 2003 |
PCT Filed: |
April 3, 2003 |
PCT NO: |
PCT/CN03/00234 |
371 Date: |
December 8, 2006 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
162/150 ;
162/25 |
Current CPC
Class: |
D01B 1/50 20130101; D21B
1/00 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
162/150 ;
162/025 |
International
Class: |
D01C 1/02 20060101
D01C001/02 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Apr 10, 2002 |
CN |
02111380.7 |
Claims
1. A clothing fiber comprising at least a bamboo fiber, which is
made of natural bamboo, having an average fineness of 1000-3000
metric counts and a length of a natural bamboo segment cut from
said natural bamboo with no chemical testing agent added.
2. A manufacturing process of a bamboo fiber for a clothing fabric
material comprising the steps of raw material pretreatment, bamboo
fiber decomposition, bamboo fiber formation and a bamboo fiber
post-treatment, wherein said raw material pretreatment comprises
the steps of material organization, bamboo stripping and soaking,
wherein said bamboo fiber decomposition comprises at least three
cycling steps of boiling, rinsing and fiber separation, wherein
said bamboo fiber formation comprises the steps of boiling, fiber
separation, fiber restore, fiber dehydration and fiber softening,
wherein said bamboo fiber post treatment comprises the steps of
drying, fiber sorting, selection and inspection.
3. The manufacturing process, as recited in claim 2, wherein said
bamboo fiber decomposition of said bamboo fiber comprises the steps
of: (a) soaking a bamboo strip into a soaking solution with a
specific degumming softener for 4 hours, wherein said degumming
softening agent is a natural botanical prescription without
acidity-alkalinity agent and the concentration ratio of said
degumming softener to water is 30%; (b) boiling said bamboo strip
in said soaking solution at a temperature between 80-150.degree. C.
and a pressures between 3-5 kg/cm.sup.2 for 3-5 hours for
aglycoside, degreasing and disinfecting; (c) separating bamboo
fiber from said bamboo strip by compressing said bamboo strip
wherein said bamboo fiber is flushed with water for degumming; (d)
soaking said bamboo fibers into said soaking solution with proper
added agent therein to enhance a strength of said bamboo fiber; and
(e) applying a softener to said bamboo fibers to soften said bamboo
fibers.
4. The manufacturing process, as recited in claim 3, wherein said
softener is a natural botanical prescription with a neutral
acidity-alkalinity.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a bamboo product, and more
particularly to the bamboo fiber and the manufacture thereof which
provides an eco-friendly process to obtain the quality
fabrication.
[0003] 2. Description of Related Arts
[0004] In the current clothing or garment industry, due to the
advantages of unyielding surface and low cost, it is likely taking
over the trend role of cotton and hemp or flax-spun traditional
materials by the chemical fiber or synthetic fiber. But, it is
conflicted with the current world trends of back-to-nature and
health-care-searching. Therefore, if a fiber product can be created
from the natural botanical plants, which having both the
cotton-spun products characteristics of comfort with well
permeability and strong absorption, and the chemical fiber plus
material advantages of softness, unyieldingness, coolness,
airiness, slip and low cost, will cause a revolution in the
manufacturing of the clothing fabric materials. One among the
current existing technologies was reported that the raw bamboo
softening technology was already applied in the bamboo fiber
manufacturing to produce mainly the plate materials and replace the
wooden materials and its products. Because the softening agent
contains alkali, it will pollute the environments during the
manufacturing. In addition, the bamboo fiber which is manufactured
by the existing method is too soft and easy to broken to
manufacture the clothing shell fabric materials.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
[0005] A main object of the present invention is to provide a pure
natural bamboo fiber product and the manufacturing method thereof,
wherein the bamboo fiber, having good strength and containing any
acidity-alkalinity chemical agents, is considered as a substitution
of cotton and chemical fiber.
[0006] Another object of the present invention is to provide a
manufacturing process of bamboo fiber which has a length with
respect to a length of the raw bamboo and an average fineness of
1000.about.3000 metric counts, wherein the manufacturing process
comprises the steps of raw material pretreatment, bamboo fiber
decomposition, bamboo fiber formation and a bamboo fiber
post-treatment. The raw material pretreatment comprises the steps
of material organization, bamboo stripping and soaking. The bamboo
fiber decomposition comprises at least three cycling steps of
boiling, rinsing and fiber decomposition. The bamboo fiber
formation comprises the steps of boiling, fiber separating, fiber
restore, fiber dehydration and fiber softening. The bamboo fiber
post treatment comprises the steps of drying, fiber sorting,
selection and inspection.
[0007] Another object of the present invention is to provide a
bamboo fabric, wherein a natural botanical softener agent is added
into the bamboo fiber for softening treatment on the bamboo fiber
and enhancing the tensile strength thereof. The threading
configuration of the bamboo fiber is over 120,000 counts. The
bamboo fiber is adapted to completely replace the traditional
chemical fiber, cotton and garmenture. In addition, the clothing
(or garment) made from the above process has the characteristics of
good air ventilation and softness with strong anti-bacteria such
that the bamboo fiber is good for making breezy outfit for summer
time. Furthermore, it is good for skin care due to the strong
function in anti-UV (ultra-violet) with 0.06% opacity which is much
less than the fabric materials of cotton, hemp and silk. Moreover,
the manufactured fabric materials maintain the natural
characteristics of the raw bamboo, good permeability, convenient
rinsing and easy drying. Therefore, the bamboo fibers of the
present invention without containing any chemical
acidity-alkalinity preparations can prevent the environment from
pollution during the manufacturing process.
[0008] Accordingly, in order to accomplish the above objects, the
present invention provides a clothing fiber comprising at least a
bamboo fiber, which is made of natural bamboo, having an average
fineness of 1000.about.3000 metric counts and a length of a natural
bamboo segment cut from said natural bamboo with no chemical
testing agent added.
[0009] These and other objectives, features, and advantages of the
present invention will become apparent from the following detailed
description, the accompanying drawings, and the appended
claims.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0010] FIG. 1 is a manufacturing flow diagram of a preferred
embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0011] Referring to FIG. 1 drawing, a bamboo fiber and its
manufacture according to a preferred embodiment of the present
invention is illustrated, wherein the manufacturing process of the
bamboo fiber comprises the following steps.
[0012] (1) Material organization: cutting a bamboo as a raw
material by removing branches, throwing sharp-pollard and sawing
into a fixed length of bamboo segment.
[0013] (2) Bamboo stripping: cutting the bamboo segment to form at
least a bamboo strip having a width approximately 2 mm by a bamboo
colliding machine or manually.
[0014] (3) Bamboo soaking: disposing the bamboo strips into a
solution with a specific degumming softening agent for 4 hours,
wherein the degumming softening agent is a natural botanical
prescription without acidity-alkalinity chemical agent and the
concentration ratio of the degumming softening agent to water is
30%.
[0015] (4) First time boiling: boiling the bamboo strip in the
soaking solution by a steam boiler at the temperature of
150.degree. C. and pressure of 5 kg/cm.sup.2 for 3 hours for
aglycoside (de-sweetening process), degreasing and
disinfecting.
[0016] (5) First time rinsing: rinsing the bamboo strip until the
solution is removed from the surface of the bamboo strip.
[0017] (6) First time fiber separation: compressing the bamboo
strip by a pressing machine, wherein coarse fibers are separated
from the bamboo strip and flushed with water flushing for degum (or
deglue).
[0018] (7) Second time boiling: boiling the coarse fibers in a
cooking pot filled with the soaking solution at the temperature of
120.degree. C. and pressure of 4 kg/cm.sup.2 for 4 hours.
[0019] (8) Second time rinsing: repeating the above step (5).
[0020] (9) Second time fiber separation: decomposing the coarse
fibers into finely fibers while the finely fibers are flushed by
water for degum.
[0021] (10) Third time boiling: boiling the finely fibers in the
cooking pot filled with the soaking solution at the temperature of
100.degree. C. and pressure of 3 kg/cm.sup.2 for 5 hours.
[0022] (11) Third time rinsing: repeating the above step (5).
[0023] (12) Third time fiber separation: repeating the above step
(9).
[0024] (13) Fourth time boiling: adding a bleach powder into the
soaking solution and repeating the above step (10).
[0025] (14) Fourth time fiber separation: separating the finely
fibers by manual until the fineness thereof is approximately 1,687
metric counts while the length of the finely fibers is maintained
as the length of the bamboo segment.
[0026] (15) Fiber restore: soaking the finely fibers into the
soaking solution with proper added agent therein to enhance the
strength of the finely fiber.
[0027] (16) Fiber dehydration: removing water contents of the
finely fibers by a centrifugal vacuum pump (or called as "general
dehydrating method").
[0028] (17) Fiber softening: applying softener to the finely fibers
to soften the finely fibers having the softness level of hemp
botanical plant.
[0029] (18) Fiber desiccation: drying the finely fibers by a
specific drier at the temperature between 80.degree. C. and
120.degree. C. for 30 minutes to keep the water content rate below
10%.
[0030] (19) Fiber sorting: combing the finely fibers by a carding
machine and sorting the bamboo fibers.
[0031] (20) Quality Check: selecting and sifting dried bamboo
fibers that the shorter bamboo fiber and bamboo powder are
discarded so as to keep the bamboo fiber above 95% by weight, and
packaging as the bamboo fibers as the industrial fabric materials
after passing the examinations.
[0032] Based on the examinations approved by GB/T6100-1985 and
GB/T13783-1992, the test results of the bamboo fiber of the present
invention versus high-grade cotton are: (A) yarn density: 544 mtex
of bamboo fiber versus 167 mtex of cotton fiber; (B) fiber breakage
ratio strength: 37.4 cN/tex of bamboo fiber versus 20.2 cN/tex of
cotton fiber; (C) extension at break: 4.1% of bamboo fiber versus
8.1% of cotton fiber, wherein the bamboo fiber is one of the
cellulose fibers.
[0033] The manufacturing process of the bamboo fiber according to
the second embodiment of the present invention has the steps same
as the above manufacturing steps of the first embodiment, except
the step (4) of boiling the bamboo strip in the soaking solution at
the temperature of 80.degree. C. and the pressure of 3 kg/cm.sup.2
for 5 hours.
[0034] The bamboo fiber of the present invention is adapted for
silk spinning (or schppe spinning, schppe-spun), hemp-spinning and
cotton spinning, and also for blending by mixing the above fibers,
the pure bamboo fiber with the least fineness is adapted for 48 Ne
British counts of yarns, and the blending is for 80 Ne British
counts of yarns. Therefore, the bamboo fiber with softness and
strength and comfort is not worse than any other face fabric
materials; furthermore, the bamboo fiber with the natural
characteristics of bamboo materials, such as the functions of
airiness, summer sunshine protection, permeability and anti-UV,
which is much better than the common face fabric materials,
especially in its low cost, convenient sourcing, easy rinsing and
fast drying.
[0035] One skilled in the art will understand that the embodiment
of the present invention as shown in the drawings and described
above is exemplary only and not intended to be limiting.
[0036] It will thus be seen that the objects of the present
invention have been fully and effectively accomplished. It
embodiments have been shown and described for the purposes of
illustrating the functional and structural principles of the
present invention and is subject to change without departure from
such principles. Therefore, this invention includes all
modifications encompassed within the spirit and scope of the
following claims.
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