TEXTILE MANUFACTURING

 PROTEIN FIBERS

  Animal hair consists of complex properties. The hair of sheep and goats is particularly important for textiles, wool is by fat, the major animal fiber in quantity, but cashmere and mohair are significant for their market value. This class of fibers also includes the fine double filament secreted by the silk worm. The entire range of protein fibers accounts for only about 6% of word fiber consumption, and the proportion is even less in many developed countries where synthetic fibers are readily available. Quality wool, fibers such as cashmere and particularly silk, however, denote luxury and are priced accordingly.

  Proteins are complex polyamides, also called polypeptides, produced by the biological poly condensation of a mixture of a specific type of amino acid with a variable side - group. The amino acid composition and the sequences of the amino acid units along the polymer chain, characterize the structure of protein molecule. Protein molecules, however can adopt a variety of elaborate lying side by side, or cord-like arrangements of individual helical molecules wound around each other. In globular proteins, such as enzymes, the protein molecules adopt even more complex, but characteristic, configurations. In living tissue, proteins are frequently associated with other types of bio molecules in complex cellular structures. It is only in fairly recent times that the detailed morphology of wool fibers, and the way in which influences the dyeing process, has become clearer.