Status of research on the measurement of stickiness in cotton fibers

This paper summarises the major results obtained by the International Textile Center (ITC) on the measurement of stickiness in cotton fibres. This research has been carried out in partnership with Cotton Inc., and the Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpment and with support from the Arizona Cotton research and Protection Council. The research used two products to determine stickiness the Fibre Contamination Test (FCT) and the High Speed Stickiness Detector. Both devices require painstaking maintenance of the systems in order to achieve short or long term stability of measurement results. The paper also emphasises that it is a long journey from using in-house stickiness measurements to reach the capability of providing the marketplace with brief, reliable data that can be used directly in pruchasing and utilization of cotton. Before this can even be contemplated, calibration procedures and calibration cottons must be institutionalised.