Extraction and Characterization of Bast Fiber from Xanthium Oriental plant

Abstract The textile fiber market is dominated by synthetic fibers and costly natural fibers. The dual perspective with regards to finding substitutes for costly natural fibers and disadvantages due to environmental burden cum health problems by synthetic fibers need to be addressed as both entail sustainable improvement of the textile industry. The potential route for tackling such problems is utilizing unlimited plant resources in developing countries like Ethiopia. The objective of this study is to extract, characterize, and chemically treated xanthium oriental bast fiber extracted from the plant using the conventional water retting method. In the invitation, the experimental design was based on Central Composite Design (CCD) method, and treatment parameters were selected, specifically NaOH concentration, and treatment temperature. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the significance of the results. The chemical composition analysis revealed 72% cellulose, 18% hemicellulose, and 10% lignin. Xanthium oriental fiber has a diameter of 26.85 μm, a fineness of 1.76tex, and a length of 110–145 cm with reduced values for fiber treated at different alkali concentrations. The moisture content of the extracted fiber was 12.74%. The raw fiber sample showed lower crimp (1.04%) as compared with those treated at different caustic soda concentrations. Moreover, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to analyze the changes in surface, weight loss, and composition of xanthium oriental bast fiber treated with alkali under optimum conditions compared with untreated to obtain a deeper insight into the influential mechanisms of alkali treatment.