hi tec case study tarannum

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  • 8/8/2019 Hi Tec Case Study Tarannum

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    Bamboo puts others in the shadeGeoff Maslen

    October 19, 2010

    Source: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/bamboo-puts-others-in-the-shade-

    20101018-16qog.html

    The deadliest skin cancer, melanoma, kills 1200 Australians every year. But now clothing

    made of bamboo fibre could offer protection from the sun's harmful UV rays.

    Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing and most versatile grasses in the world. With a

    growth rate of up to a metre a day, it can be eaten, made into bridges, beds and boats,

    used to make shelters, floors and entire buildings and even worn.

    Research at Deakin University could result in bamboo fibres soon being turned into UV-

    blocking clothing. Researcher Tarannum Afrin, of Deakin's Centre for Materials and

    Fibre Innovation, has discovered the property that gives bamboo its UV-protective

    characteristics.

    A former textile engineer in Britain and a PhD student at the university's Institute of

    Technology and Resource Innovation, Ms Afrin is developing a method of processing

    bamboo she hopes will be environmentally friendly and allow the fibres to retain their

    moisture-controlling and antibacterial properties.

    She says bamboo is an emerging fibre for the textile and medical industries. It resembles

    cotton in its unspun form, a puffball of light, airy threads. Although manufacturers have

    claimed that bamboo products have an excellent appearance and feel and are UV-

    shielding and moisture-absorbing, many of the claims have not been proved until now.

    "We know bamboo is 60 per cent better than cotton at blocking the sun's UV rays and my

    research has identified the component in bamboo which gives it these qualities," Ms

    Afrin says. "But when you make textile fibre out of bamboo the challenge is to retain the

    structure that gives it its moisture wicking properties."

    After obtaining a degree in textile technology from Dhaka University in Bangladesh, Ms

    Afrin undertook a master's degree at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain. She

    later worked as a quality control officer in a Sydney garment manufacturer before starting

    her PhD at Deakin last year.

    "I developed my interest in bamboo during my childhood because there were many

    bamboo gardens around my home," she says. "I heard a lot about bamboo's role as a

    medicine and became fascinated by the plant's incredible nature."

    Bamboo needs very little or no pesticide and irrigation to grow, Ms Afrin says. In many

    Asian countries, high-rise buildings are erected using bamboo scaffoldings. Bamboo

    shoots are also widely eaten in eastern countries for their succulent taste and food value.

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    "During 2008, when I was working in Sydney, I noticed bamboo material had started

    appearing in the textile sector with some tempting labels attached such as 'green,

    antimicrobial, outstanding wicking' [meaning moisture absorbing properties] and so on.

    "But looking at the fibre structures in the bamboo textiles, I realised they were nothing

    but conventional viscose or rayon. The manufacturers had only replaced wood with

    bamboo as a raw material in the manufacturing process." Although raw bamboo has

    unique properties, Ms Afrin says she doubted whether viscose material could retain those

    properties. Also, the viscose processes use a considerable amount of harmful chemicals,

    raising questions about the term "green".

    After doing literature searches, she found most of the information and claims about the

    properties of bamboo clothing were from people working in the textile industry with little

    scientific evidence.

    So she enrolled in a PhD at Deakin to conduct what she describes as "unbiased research

    in a scientific manner to investigate those 'green' claims associated with bamboo textiles".

    The research involves Australian-grown bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens) collected in

    Queensland. Ms Afrin says she discovered Australia even has a bamboo society and it

    was fascinating to see how the Australian species that originated from Asia behaved in

    the Australian climate.

    "Raw bamboo has numerous micro gaps or grooves like capillaries in its structure which

    have been revealed by scanning electron microscopy and confocal microscopy," she says.

    "It is because of this highly porous structure that bamboo can rapidly soak moisture. We

    are trying to develop a new fibre-manufacturing technique that allows this unique

    structure to be retained in the fibre which will offer improved wicking properties in

    clothes such as sportswear."

    Ms Afrin says manufacturers dissolve bamboo fibres in different solvents such as sodium

    hydroxide solution and carbon disulfide and then regenerate it as cellulosic fibre. But this

    is the same conventional procedure to make rayon and the only difference is that bamboo

    replaces wood pulp as the raw material.

    "Realising this, the US Federal Trade Commission has banned labelling bamboo-based

    clothing as 'bamboo'."

    As a result of her research, Ms Afrin identified the component in bamboo that gives it its

    UV-protecting qualities. Using optical measurements, she compared raw bamboo with

    common fibres such as cotton, 100 per cent cellulose and commercially available bamboo

    yarns. She found that bamboo had the best UV-blocking ability among all the samples

    and was at least 60 per cent better than cotton.

    "We are now working to develop an eco-friendly manufacturing model to process

    bamboo plants into fibre without losing their unique properties," she says. "We are using

    bio-enzymes and mechanical force to disintegrate the lignin and hemicellulose from the

    cellulose, which is a big challenge because our bamboo species is nearly 30 per cent

    lignin, a cement-like gummy material."

    Ms Afrin says that, unlike cotton, bamboo needs little water or irrigation to survive. It can

    also be grown in poor soil. If planted in Victoria's barren lands, it would contribute

    substantially to carbon reduction.

    She says a hectare of bamboo can absorb up to 100 tonnes of CO2 and could contribute

    to a green and sustainable Australia.