Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design, Department of
Date of this Version
2-15-2011
Citation
United States Patent Patent No.: US 7.887,672 B2
Abstract
A method for extracting such natural cellulosic fiber bundles from natural cellulose sources selected from the group con sisting of cornhusk, cornstalk, Switchgrass leaves, Switch grass stems, rice Straw, Sorghum leaves, Sorghum stems, soy bean Straw, wheat Straw, cotton stems, barley Straw, and combinations thereof, the method comprising performing an alkali treatment to partially delignify the cellulose source material and an enzyme treatment to depolymerize hemicel lulose, break covalent links between lignin and carbohy drates, and decompose cellulose chains in the natural cellu losic source material, or a combination thereof thereby yielding extracted natural cellulosic fiber bundles having a length that is greater than that of individual cells and a fineness of at least about 1 denier and no greater than about 300 denier.