Rong Yin

The Purpose and Vision for the Engine is to develop a sustainable and regenerative textile circular economy rooted in diversity and equity, focused on training and workforce development and based on rapid translation to practice.

This project will understand the microbial communities associated with retting and investigate harvest timing of fiber hemp on end-use applications.

This project will establish a bast fiber processing facility for high-throughput quality analysis.

The objective of this proposal is to develop hemp fiber reinforced composites for motorcycle parts to substitute current glass fiber composites of similar construction and specifications.

The overarching goal of this project is to enable engineered manufacturing of sewn and embroidered e-textiles. It can be achieved by conducting sewability assessment of commercially available conductive yarns and providing optimal sewing parameters to ensure electrical performance and mechanical durability.

The proposed SCRIF project aims to create fundamental innovation in Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles) by designing, optimizing, and validating a new paradigm for embroidery-based Wearable Human-Machine Interaction Systems (WHMISs).

The global hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) products market is projected to grow from $4.5 billion in 2019 to $21 billion by 2028, increasing the supply of raw fiber that could be available for textiles as a sustainable raw material, but corresponding hemp fiber processes need to be established. Hemp plants are hardy, require minimal water or chemicals and diversify crops. However, efficient fiber separation is a current obstacle to producing textile-grade fibers. The US textile industry wants ���cottonized��� hemp, which requires converting long decorticated hemp strands to the right range of fiber bundle lengths, fineness and cleanliness to be processed on the short staple spinning equipment that dominates US textile manufacturing. Efficient and quantitative fiber grading measurements are also needed to bring the promise of textile hemp fiber to fruition. The goals of this project are to: (1) develop reproducible measurement standards for characterizing and grading hemp fibers for use in textiles, (2) develop hemp degumming processes that achieve optimal fiber separation for use in short staple spinning while overcoming sustainability and reproducibility issues with conventional approaches, and (3) correlate prototype yarn and fabric properties with the hemp grading standards and improved degumming processes. Project outcomes will include improved (bio-)chemical processes for hemp fiber extraction and standardizable grading methods that enable the reliable selection and conversion of raw industrial hemp fiber to high quality yarns and fabrics. Achieving these goals will support the textile community in immediate market and product development opportunities for apparel and other uses.

The objective of this project is to develop a high-performance hemp fabric with significant performance benefits so that military personnel������������������s mobility, maneuverability, survivability and performance in operations can be substantially improved. The major objective is to demonstrate the performance levels of hemp fabrics compared with the existing uniform fabrics. Hemp containing yarns and fabrics will be fabricated and tested.

The textile industry ranks amongst the top three industries for water use and generates one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution. The textile wet processing accounts for a huge proportion in water consumption. It is essential in almost every stage, from preparation, to sizing, desizing, scouring, bleaching, dyeing, printing, and functional finishing. Although the actual quantity of water used for the textile wet processing depends upon various factors, on average, about 200 L of water are used to produce 1 kg of textile material. Along with the huge water consumption is the usage of many chemicals, which generates a significant volume of contaminated effluent. Textile effluent contains various chemicals, many of them carcinogenic. Untreated or incompletely treated textile effluent is a cause of serious environmental degradation and human illnesses. In addition, wet processing of textiles consumes a high proportion of thermal energy for the evaporation of moisture from textiles and heating of process chemicals. Fuels are the major energy source for textile wet processing, which correspond to significant CO2 emission and global warming. The legislation and the growing public awareness have forced the textile industry to take actions to alleviate environmental impact and create a sustainable textile supply chain. In textile, weaving is one of the major sectors to produce fabric from yarns. Nearly 75% of the cotton yarns are woven into fabrics, while the remaining is fabricated into the knitted fabrics, sewing threads, nonwovens and others [1]. Cotton warp yarn has always been temporarily coated with sizing agents, along with several other lubricants and softeners, to achieve efficient weaving [2]. After the woven fabric has been made, the sizing agents are completely removed by a desizing process, which enables the dyeing and finishing to be conducted without problems [3]. Both the warp sizing and the fabric desizing consume a lot of expensive chemicals, energy, and water, and generate a large amount of waste water that must undergo an expensive treatment for its safe discharge, which makes the whole process very costly, energy intensive, and environmentally sensitive [4]. Woven fabrics normally contain 8-15% size and typical pollution loads from desizing cotton woven fabrics include biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of 45.5 kg, chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 91 kg per 1 ton of fabric processed with consumption of about 350 m3 of water per 1 ton of fabric processed [5]. The textile industry wants to reduce or eliminate warp sizing. This project aims at developing an advanced spinning technology to substantially improve the hairiness and abrasion resistance of a warp single yarn. Thus, the yarn produced can be woven directly without the need of sizing process. In order to first understand and then substantially enhance the yarn properties, a new spinning method will be proposed. Secondly, the extensive experimental investigations in this project should be able to build the relationship and interaction between different spinning parameters and desired yarn properties using established design of experiment (DOE) methods. Thirdly, the weaving process will be monitored by means of various weaving speed and different fabric structure. Finally, the size-free fabrics will be assessed and compared with the conventional fabrics. The size-free cotton singles yarn, once successful, may contribute to shortening the conventional production process of transforming cotton fibers into woven fabrics, reducing the cost of production, and improving the environmental protection. A shortened, cost-effective, and eco-friendly textile processing chain will make textiles more sustainable, and eventually could offer significant economic benefits to both manufacturers and end users.