Cellulosic fibres at the beginning of the twentyfirst century

Abstract

The paper fives an overview of the current state in the field of various cellulosic fibres, such as cotton, flax, hemp, juta, viscosa and lyocell, as well as future prospects of these fibres. World production and consumption of atural and chemical cellulosic fibres were stabilized at certain level with small oscillation in the last few years. Cotton production reaches average level at 19 mil.ton, fax production at 0.4 mil.ton and hemp production at 0.07 mil.ton. While there is a strong expansion of the synthetic fibres industry, chemical cellulosic fibres have the same level of production at 2.4 mil.ton during the long period. Cellulosic fibres will again play a major role in the future due to growing market of hydrophylic fibres and tendency to develop production of natural, light, renewable and biodegradable fibres. It is expected that cellulosic fibres only for clothing, will be in demand up to 38 mil.ton/year in the year 2050.