In 2015 the global fibre consumption was 96.7 million tonnes, which is an increase of 3.1% from the year before. Our high textile consumption has led to an increasing demand of raw materials and generation of textile waste. Only in Europe, a total amount of 4.3 million tonnes of apparel waste each year is sent to either incineration or landfills. Approximately 50% of the clothes we discard and donate are composed of cotton. In the future, the cotton production is predicted to stagnate since the world population is increasing and arable land to greater extent will be needed for food production. Thereby, it is important that we utilize the cotton waste generated. One of the most commonly used processes for recycling textile waste is the shredding process. In this method, textile waste is shredded back into their constituent fibres. The drawback with the shredding process is that the fibre length is reduced. The fibre length is an important property since it has a high influence on textile processing such as yarn production and final product quality. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how post-consumer cotton garments with different degree of wear affects the fibre length obtained in the shredding process. This was performed by analysing the input fibre length as well as the output fibre length. Additionally, several parameters were investigated: fabric construction and yarn structure. Degree of wear was categorized into two levels: low and high degree of wear. The fabric constructions used in this study were single-jersey and denim. The yarn structure were analysed in terms of yarn count, yarn twist and manufacturing process.  The result showed that the fibre length before shredding was statistically significant longer for the materials with low degree of wear compared to high degree of wear. After shredding, it was shown that the fibre length reduction was lower for the materials with high degree of wear. This indicates that longer fibres give higher fibre length reduction. In addition, it was found that finer yarn gives higher fibre length reduction. The result also showed that the yarn manufacturing process has a great influence on the ease of shredding and the fibre length obtained in the end.  Based on the result in this thesis it can be concluded that the shredding process needs to be improved in order to preserve the fibre length. The area of post-consumer textile waste is complex and the result showed that there is many underlying parameters that need to be taken into account to further develop the shredding process.

In today’s World, sustainability is not just a buzz word but should be the new quality. In order to live in a pollution free environment, there is an urgent need to move towards a circular economy. The rapidly increasing demand of textiles results in high amount of textile waste leading to pollution. Textile to textile recycling is the most feasible solution to minimize textile waste while meeting the fashion demand. Mechanical recycling by shredding is one way of recycling textiles where, fabrics are broken down into their constituent fibres. The problem with this method is that, after shredding, there is huge reduction in fibre length due to the harsh process. This makes it difficult to use a high percentage of these reclaimed fibres in formation of new textile garments. The main focus of this thesis was to reduce the fibre length drop that occurs during shredding through lubricant pretreatment. It was anticipated that, inter-fibre friction would be the reason for the huge fibre length drop during shredding. Therefore, a method was developed to measure the inter-fibre friction of cotton and polyester staple fibres using a tensile tester. The effect of blending on inter-fibre friction was investigated. Different types of lubricants were used to alter the inter fibre friction. The lubricants were sprayed on the fibres and dried prior to carding. Two lubricants were chosen for pretreatment of fibres for yarn formation. The effect of the lubricant on the inter-fibre friction of carded fibre webs as well as yarn strength and spinnability were investigated. The results showed that, the method developed can be used to measure inter-fibre friction of staple fibres. It was also found that, inter-fibre friction in carded webs depends on the crimp and mechanical interlocking in the web. Inter-fibre friction in blended fibres depends on the percentage amount of each fibre in the blend. Addition of a small amount of lubricant significantly lowers the inter-fibre friction. The effect depends on the type of lubricant and type of fibre. Lubricant amount above 1.43% on weight of fibre lead to poor carding of fibres. Lubricant amounts between 0.29 % and 1% on weight of fibre lead to good carding of cotton and polyester fibres but the cotton fibre webs may not be spun. PEG4000 lubricant was found to significantly lower the inter-fibre friction compared to other lubricants. It was also found that, lubricants significantly affect the tensile strength of the yarn as well as their spinnability. Basing on the results, it was concluded that, lubricant pretreatment of fabrics prior to shredding will most likely provide a more gentle process. This was based on the fact that, the lubricants reduce the inter-fibre friction. This enables easier slippage of fibres within the yarns which facilitates easier deformation of the yarns during the shredding process. Thus reduce the fibre length drop. PEG 4000 is more likely to provide better results when used in amounts ranging from 0.1 to 0.71% on weight of fabric. Besides that, PEG is safe for the environment.

<p>The motivating forestry background for this thesis is the need for fast, non-destructive, and cost-efficient methods to estimate fibre length distributions in standing trees in order to evaluate the effect of silvicultural methods and breeding programs on fibre length. The usage of increment cores is a commonly used non-destructive sampling method in forestry. An increment core is a cylindrical wood sample taken with a special borer, and the methods proposed in this thesis are especially developed for data from increment cores. Nevertheless the methods can be used for data from other sampling frames as well, for example for sticks with the shape of an elongated rectangular box.</p><p>This thesis proposes methods to estimate fibre length distributions based on censored mixture data from wood samples. Due to sampling procedures, wood samples contain cut (censored) and uncut observations. Moreover the samples consist not only of the fibres of interest but of other cells (fines) as well. When the cell lengths are determined by an automatic optical fibre-analyser, there is no practical possibility to distinguish between cut and uncut cells or between fines and fibres. Thus the resulting data come from a censored version of a mixture of the fine and fibre length distributions in the tree. The methods proposed in this thesis can handle this lack of information.</p><p>Two parametric methods are proposed to estimate the fine and fibre length distributions in a tree. The first method is based on grouped data. The probabilities that the length of a cell from the sample falls into different length classes are derived, the censoring caused by the sampling frame taken into account. These probabilities are functions of the unknown parameters, and ML estimates are found from the corresponding multinomial model.</p><p>The second method is a stochastic version of the EM algorithm based on the individual length measurements. The method is developed for the case where the distributions of the true lengths of the cells at least partially appearing in the sample belong to exponential families. The cell length distribution in the sample and the conditional distribution of the true length of a cell at least partially appearing in the sample given the length in the sample are derived. Both these distributions are necessary in order to use the stochastic EM algorithm. Consistency and asymptotic normality of the stochastic EM estimates is proved.</p><p>The methods are applied to real data from increment cores taken from Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris L.) in Northern Sweden and further evaluated through simulation studies. Both methods work well for sample sizes commonly obtained in practice.</p>

The motivating forestry background for this thesis is the need for fast, non-destructive, and cost-efficient methods to estimate fibre length distributions in standing trees in order to evaluate the effect of silvicultural methods and breeding programs on fibre length. The usage of increment cores is a commonly used non-destructive sampling method in forestry. An increment core is a cylindrical wood sample taken with a special borer, and the methods proposed in this thesis are especially developed for data from increment cores. Nevertheless the methods can be used for data from other sampling frames as well, for example for sticks with the shape of an elongated rectangular box. This thesis proposes methods to estimate fibre length distributions based on censored mixture data from wood samples. Due to sampling procedures, wood samples contain cut (censored) and uncut observations. Moreover the samples consist not only of the fibres of interest but of other cells (fines) as well. When the cell lengths are determined by an automatic optical fibre-analyser, there is no practical possibility to distinguish between cut and uncut cells or between fines and fibres. Thus the resulting data come from a censored version of a mixture of the fine and fibre length distributions in the tree. The methods proposed in this thesis can handle this lack of information. Two parametric methods are proposed to estimate the fine and fibre length distributions in a tree. The first method is based on grouped data. The probabilities that the length of a cell from the sample falls into different length classes are derived, the censoring caused by the sampling frame taken into account. These probabilities are functions of the unknown parameters, and ML estimates are found from the corresponding multinomial model. The second method is a stochastic version of the EM algorithm based on the individual length measurements. The method is developed for the case where the distributions of the true lengths of the cells at least partially appearing in the sample belong to exponential families. The cell length distribution in the sample and the conditional distribution of the true length of a cell at least partially appearing in the sample given the length in the sample are derived. Both these distributions are necessary in order to use the stochastic EM algorithm. Consistency and asymptotic normality of the stochastic EM estimates is proved. The methods are applied to real data from increment cores taken from Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris L.) in Northern Sweden and further evaluated through simulation studies. Both methods work well for sample sizes commonly obtained in practice.

There is a growing need for fibres with increasing population. One way to solve this is to recycle the fibres from textile waste. In mechanical recycling by shredding the textiles are shredded back to fibrous form. The biggest problem with shredding is that it is a harsh process that reduces the fibre length and damages the fibre.   To make the shredding process more gentle and preserve more of the fibre length, pre-treatment that lowers the friction between the fibres have been investigated. Polyethene glycol 4000 (PEG 4000) is an environmentally friendly chemical that could be used to lower the friction of cotton and polyester, the two most used textile fibres. Another treatment evaluated is glycerol. The treatment should not affect further processing of the fibres. For evaluating the treatment, a test of the interfibre friction was performed on carded webs and fabrics that were untreated and treated. Prior to shredding four samples were made of fabrics of cotton, polyester and polycotton. From each fabric, one was left untreated, and one was treated with a low concentration of PEG 4000. The concentration of PEG 4000 was chosen from the test on fibres. Also from each fabric, two treatments that were not prepared by the author; one with a high concentration of PEG 4000 and the other with glycerol. All 12 samples were shredded back to fibres. The shredded material was analysed, and the fibre length was measured. The reclaimed fibres from the shredded material were also tried to be processed into yarns.   The main result was that it was possible to rotor spin yarn of 100% reclaimed fibres from cotton and polyester treated with PEG 4000, which means that the treatment did not interfere with the spinnability of the reclaimed fibres. Untreated cotton was also spinnable, but untreated polyester was not possible to card. The cotton and polyester treated with glycerol were possible to carded and made into a sliver but not spinnable. The reclaimed fibres from the polycotton fabric were not possible to card or process further. This result correlates with the analyses of the shredded material and the fibre length measurement. The best results were for polyester treated with 0.71 w% PEG 4000 that had 121% longer mean fibre length than untreated polyester. The best result for cotton was treated with 0.29 w% PEG 4000.

Zur Untersuchung der Faser-Matrix-Haftung in Faser-Kunststoff-Verbunden werden neben makromechanischen Methoden wie dem Querzug und der Drei-Punkt-Biegung mikromechanische Methoden an Einzelfaser-Modellverbunden eingesetzt. Zu letzteren Methoden zählen bspw. der Tropfenabscherversuch, der Einzelfaserauszugversuch (engl. single-fibre pull-out test, SFPO) und der Einzelfaserfragmentierungsversuch (engl. single fibre fragmentation test, SFFT). Bei ihrem Einsatz ist zu beachten, dass sich unterschiedliche Einflussgrößen auf ihre Ergebnisse auswirken können. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine ausführliche Literaturübersicht mit einem detaillierten Überblick zu einer größeren Anzahl verschiedener Einflussgrößen durchgeführt. Daraus werden die Einflussgrößen Härtungsdauer, Feuchtigkeit, freie Faserlänge und Abzugsgeschwindigkeit als Untersuchungsgegenstände dieser Arbeit erarbeitet. Wesentliche aus dieser Arbeit resultierende Ergebnisse und Schlussfolgerungen sind nachstehend zusammengefasst. Härtungsdauer: Bei SFFT-Untersuchungen an Keramikfaser/Epoxidharz-Prüfkörpern wird ein degressiver Anstieg der Faser-Matrix-Haftung über der Härtungsdauer beobachtet. Die Ergebnisse geben Hinweise darauf, dass sich die Härtungsdauer beim SFFT und SFPO prinzipbedingt unterschiedlich auswirkt (aufgrund destruktiver bzw. konstruktiver Überlagerungen von Eigenspannungen und Prüfkraft-induzierten Spannungen). Feuchtigkeit: SFPO-Untersuchungen an Kohlenstoffaser/Epoxidharz-Prüfkörpern nach einmonatiger Konditionierung in feuchtem (50 %rF, 23 °C) bzw. trockenem Klima (0 %rF, 23 °C) belegen eine feuchtebedingt verringerte Haftung. Daraus wird geschlussfolgert, dass eine schwankende Luftfeuchtigkeit auch in diesem eingegrenzten klimatischen Spektrum (bspw. in teilklimatisierten Laboren) als wichtiger potentieller Störfaktor zu beachten ist. Prüfparameter: Auf Basis des Hooke’schen Gesetzes kann für den SFPO gezeigt werden, dass die freie Faserlänge die Maximalkraft beeinflusst und die Einflüsse der freien Faserlänge und der Abzugsgeschwindigkeit auf die Maximalkraft in Zusammenhang stehen. Beides wird anhand von SFPO-Untersuchungen an Glasfaser/Epoxidharz-Prüfkörpern bestätigt. Ferner wird aus den Untersuchungen geschlussfolgert, dass eine Geschwindigkeitserhöhung von 0,01 µm/s auf 0,1 µm/s zur Reduzierung der Versuchsdauer – im vorliegenden Fall von 30 45 min auf 6 8 min – vertretbar ist. Darüber hinaus werden anhand von Fehlerverstärkungsfaktoren differenzierte Aussagen zum Einfluss fehlerhaft bestimmter Eingangsdaten auf die Berechnung der lokalen Grenzflächenscherfestigkeit generiert. / For investigating fibre-matrix adhesion in fibre-polymer composites, macromechanical methods such as transverse tensile and three-point bending tests can be applied as well as micromechanical methods for which single-fibre model composites are used. The latter category of methods includes microbond, single-fibre pull-out (SFPO) and single-fibre fragmentation tests (SFFT). When applying these methods, it needs to be considered that their results can be affected by different influencing factors. In the present thesis, an extensive literature survey with a detailed overview of a larger number of influencing factors is conducted. Based on this overview, the factors curing time, moisture, free fibre length and test speed are acquired as objects of investigation of this thesis. Main results and conclusions of this work are summarised below. Curing time: Results from SFFT investigations on ceramic fibre/epoxy-specimens exhibit a degressive increase of fibre-matrix adhesion with curing time. This indicates that curing time affects SFFT and SFPO results differently due to different underlying principles (based on destructive and, respectively, constructive superposition of internal stresses and load-induced stresses). Moisture: SFPO specimens (carbon fibre/epoxy) are conditioned in humid (50 %rH, 23 °C) and dry climate (0 %rH, 23 °C) for one month prior to testing. The results show lower adhesion due to moisture. It is concluded that uncontrolled humidity, even in this limited climatic spectrum, needs to be considered as an important potential factor of influence (e.g. in partially climatised laboratories). Test parameters: Based on Hooke’s law, it is demonstrated for the SFPO that a) the free fibre length affects the maximum force and b) the effects of the free fibre length and the test speed on the maximum force are interrelated. Both is confirmed with results from SFPO investigations on glass fibre/epoxy-specimens. Furthermore, it is deduced from the above investigations that an increase in test speed from 0.01 µm/s to 0.1 µm/s is legitimate for reducing test duration – in the present case from 30 45 min to 6 8 min. In addition, the effect of erroneously determined input data on the calculation of the local interfacial shear strength is studied using conditions numbers (a measure for the propagation of error). With this, differentiated statements are generated.