A study of the quality of Kenyan cotton rotor spun yarn

Abstract

The textile industry has been identified as one of the key industries which could spur industrial growth in Kenya. Efforts are being made by the Kenyan government and other institutions to revive the textile industry. One area which could contribute towards the revival of the Kenyan Textile industry could be the optimization of the cotton processing in Kenya. Cotton processing includes ginning, spinning, weaving and wet processing. In cotton spinning, the Kenyan industry uses ring and rotor spinning technologies. While ring spinning is the traditional spinning process, rotor spinning has established itself as a great competitor especially when dealing with course counts. This paper looks at the quality of cotton rotor spun yarns, in comparison with the uster standards. While the Kenyan cotton lint reported good quality characteristics when compared to Uster standards, the quality of the rotor spun yarn was poor especially for yarn evenness and hairiness. It is therefore recommended that the rotor spinning process adapted to spin the Kenyan yarn should be carefully evaluated so as to unearth the sources of the shortfall in yarn quality