Bamboo textile

A bamboo textile is cloth, yarn, or clothing that is made from bamboo fibres. While historically used only for structural elements, such as bustles and the ribs of corsets, in recent years, different technologies have been developed that allow bamboo fibre to be used for a wide range of textile and fashion applications. Bamboo yarn can also be blended with other textile fibres such as hemp or spandex. Bamboo is an alternative to plastic, but is renewable and can be replenished at a fast rate. A bamboo textile is cloth, yarn, or clothing that is made from bamboo fibres. While historically used only for structural elements, such as bustles and the ribs of corsets, in recent years, different technologies have been developed that allow bamboo fibre to be used for a wide range of textile and fashion applications. Bamboo yarn can also be blended with other textile fibres such as hemp or spandex. Bamboo is an alternative to plastic, but is renewable and can be replenished at a fast rate. Modern clothing labeled as being made from bamboo is usually viscose rayon, which is a fiber made by dissolving the cellulose in the bamboo and then recreating the fiber. This process destroys some of the natural characteristics of bamboo fiber. Furthermore, rayon from all cellulose sources is effectively identical. Bamboo fibres are all cellulose fibre extracted or fabricated from natural bamboo, but they vary widely. Textiles labelled as being made from bamboo are usually not made by mechanical crushing and retting. They are generally synthetic rayon made from cellulose extracted from bamboo. Bamboo is used whole and in strips; these strips may be considered stiff fibers. Bamboo can be cut into thin strips and used for basketry. In China and Japan, thin strips of bamboo were woven together into hats and shoes. One particular design of bamboo hats was associated with rural life, being worn almost universally by farmers and fishermen in order to protect their heads from the sun. In the West, bamboo, alongside other components such as whalebone and steel wire, was sometimes used as a structural component in corsets, bustles and other types of structural elements used in fashionable women's dresses. Rayon is a semi-synthetic fiber made by chemically reshaping cellulose. Cellulose extracted from bamboo is suitable for processing into viscose rayon (rayon is also made from cellulose from other sources). Bamboo leaves and the soft, inner pith from the hard bamboo trunk are extracted using a steaming process and then mechanically crushed to extract the cellulose. The viscose rayon process then treats the fibers with lye, and adds carbon disulfide to form sodium cellulose xanthate. After time, temperature, and various inorganic and organic additives (including the amount of air contact) determining the final degree of polymerization, the xanthate is acidified to regenerate the cellulose and release dithiocarbonic acid that later decomposes back to carbon disulfide and water.