Jute

From Free net encyclopedia

The word Jute is also used in reference to the Germanic people, the Jutes.

Image:Tossa-n-white.gif Jute is a long, soft, shiny plant fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants in the genus Corchorus, which see for botanical information and other uses. Jute is one of the cheapest natural fibres, and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses. Jute fibres are composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose and lignin. It falls into the Bast fibre category (fibre collected from bast or skin of the plant) along with Kenaf, Industrial Hemp, and Ramie. The industrial term for Jute fiber is Raw Jute.

Jute fibre is often called Hessian Fibre, jute fabrics are also called Hessian Cloth, and jute sacks are called Gunny Bags in some European countries. The fabric made from Jute is popularly known as Burlap in North America.Image:Jute plant.gif

The fibres are procured by a method that is called retting. This process is done by microbial (or water), steam, and mechanical process. For jute, the century old and most popular retting process is the microbial or water retting. The water retting process releases the lignin bond between the parenchyma and the sclerenchyma, which makes it easy to procure the skin from the core. However, the retting process is further continued with washing and drying to release the pectin bond that makes the hard skin into fine thread-like fibres.

After the procurement of jute fibre, jute is graded (rated) according to its colour, strength, and fibre length. The fibres are off-white to brown, and 1-4 m long. Jute is pressed into bales for shipment to manufacturers.

1 Cultivation
2 Uses
3 History
4 Some Features of Jute
5 External links
- 5.1 Articles & Resources Related to Jute
- 5.2 Institutes related to Jute

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Cultivation

Jute is a rainy season crop, growing best in warm, humid climates. Almost 85% of the world's jute cultivation is concentrated in The Ganges delta. This fertile geographic region is shared by both Bangladesh and India (West Bengal). China also has a dominating place in jute cultivation. In small scale, Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, and Bhutan also cultivates jute.

Uses

Image:Jute matting.jpg Jute is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton; not only for wide cultivation, but also for uses. Jute is used chiefly to make cloth for wrapping bales of raw cotton, and to make sacks and coarse cloth. The fibres are also woven into curtains, chair coverings, carpets, hessian cloth, and backing for linoleum. However, jute is being replaced by synthetic materials for many these uses, though the importance of biodegradation in some situations where artificial fibres are unsuitable leaves some uses open to jute. Examples of such uses include containers for planting young trees which can be planted directly with the container without disturbing the roots, and land restoration where jute cloth prevents erosion occurring while natural vegetation becomes established.

The fibres are used alone or blended with other types of fibres to make twine and rope. Jute butts, the coarse ends of the plants, are used to make inexpensive cloth. Conversely, very fine threads of jute can be separated out and made into imitation silk. Jute fibres can also be used to make paper, and with increasing concern over forest destruction for the wood pulp used to make most paper, the importance of jute for this purpose may increase. Jute has a long history of use in the sackings, carpets, wrapping fabrics (cotton bale), construction fabric manufacturing idustry.

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History

For centuries, Jute has been an integral part of Bengali culture, which is shared by Both Bangladesh and West Bengal of India. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, much of the raw jute fibre was exported to the United Kingdom, where it was then processed in mills concentrated in Dundee ("Jute Weaver" was a recognised trade occupation in the 1901 UK census), but this trade had largely ceased by about 1970 due to the entrance of synthetic fibres.

Magaret Donnelly I, was a jute mill landowner in Dundee in the 1800's. She set up the first jute mills in India. In the 50's and 60's when nylon and polythene were rarely used; The United Pakistan (then the world leader in Jute products) was earning money through Jute of East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. It was called The Golden Fibre of Bangladesh, when it used to bring major portion of the foreign currency reserve for Bangladesh. But, as the use of polythene and other synthetic materials as a substitute for jute started to capture the market; most economist said that jute industry is experiencing a sunset. Thus the industry of this Golden Fibre turned into a sunset industry. For several years, farmers in Bangladesh burnt their crops as they did not get an adequate price. Many exporters that were dealing with jute, found other commodities to deal with. The jute related organisations and government bodies also experienced closures, change, and fund cutting. The long hybernation of demand, forced the largest jute mill in the world (Adamjee Jute Mills) to close. But, the farmers of Bangladesh surprisingly did not stop growing jute; mainly due to demand in the internal market.

During 1941, Henry Ford tested the strength of a car trunk made from soybean fibre (one of the best fibres). The trunk was made of soy-protein plastic reinforced with glass, which was stronger, lighter, and more flexible than conventional car panels. This experiment revolutionised the use of natural fibres in the Automobile Industry and made cars lighter to burn less gasoline. The previously used glass fibre proved to be very heavy and emitted poisonous gas when burnt. Therefore, most people died of poisonous gas inhalation, not by wounds during car accidents. This fact has driven the European Union to ban the use of Glass fibre in automobiles. When Henry Ford's experiment gained huge response, the automobile companies started to search for other bast fibres, as soyabean fibre had problems in moulding. They found that, flax was the best bast fibre for the automobile interior production. But, jute was recognised as the next to the best at a quite late time. In some cases, jute has become the better option than flax in producing car interiors. Moreover, jute proved to be the most cost effective fibre in this sector, as jute is the cheapest vegetable fibre with very high tensile strength.

Not only the automobile industry used jute. Jute has entered various diversified sectors, where natural fibres are gradually becoming better substitution. Among these industries are paper, celluloid products (films), nonwoven composite (pseudo-wood), nonwoven textiles (for car interiors and other uses), and geotextiles.

Geotextile is another fact that made this agricultural commodity more popular in the agricultural sector. It is a lightly woven fabric made from natural fibres that is used for soil erossion control, seed protection, weed control, and many other agricultural and landscaping uses. The geotextiles can be used more than a year and the bio-degradable jute geotextile left to rot on the ground keeps the ground cool and is able to make the land more fertile. This brings new hope in turning the deserts into Oasis. Methods such as this could be used to transfer the fertility of the Ganges Delta to the deserts of Sahara or Australia.

Moreover, jute can be grown in 4-6 months with a huge amount of cellulose being produced from the Jute hurd (Inner woody core or parenchyma of the Jute stem) that can meet most of the wood needs of the world. Jute is the major crop among others that is able to protect deforestation by industrialisation.

Thus, jute is the most environment-friendly fibre starting from the seed to expired fibre, as the expired fibres can be recycled more than once.

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Some Features of Jute

Image:Cutting jute.gif

Jute fiber is 100% bio-degradable & recyclable and thus environment friendly.
It is a natural fibre with golden & silky shine
It is the cheapest vegetable fibre procured from the bast or skin of the plant's stem
It is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton, in terms of usage, global consumption, production, and availability
It has high tensile strength, low extensibility, and ensures better breathability of fabrics. Therefore, jute is very suitable in agricultural commodity bulk packaging
It helps to make best quality industrial yarn, fabric, net, and sacks. It is one of the most versatile natural fibres that has been used in raw materials for packaging, textiles, non-textile, construction, and agricultural sectors
Jute plant is derived from a relative of the Hemp (Cannabis) plant. However, Jute is totally free from narcotic elements and odor
The varieties of Jute are: Tossa Jute - Corchorus olitorius (Golden shine) & White Jute - Corchorus capsularis (Silvery Shine)
Allied fiber of jute are: Mesta/Roselle (Hibiscus sabdarifa) and Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus)
The best source of Jute in the world is the Bengal Delta Plane in the Ganges Delta, most of which is occupied by Bangladesh.