Influence of Hemp Fiber Softening Treatment & Blend Ratio on Quality Characteristics of Hemp-Based Ternary Blended YARNS

Quality characteristics of blended yarns, which play an important role in textile quality, are continually assessed by softness, breaking strength, breaking elongation, hairiness, irregularity, etc. In this study, hemp was softened and blended with other cellulose fibers with better softness to produce yarns. The softness of hemp is obviously lower than that of the other two fibers. With the increase of hemp fiber percentage content, the yarn properties deteriorated. Therefore, the softening treatment of hemp fiber is very necessary. Moreover, the blending hemp, cotton, and viscose in the yarn structure provided synergies, improving the weak properties of ternary fibers. Results show that softening treatment and lower percentage content of the hemp fiber will result in better yarn quality, which is consistent with the derivation result of the bending theoretical model. When the percentage content of treated hemp is 40 wt%, the overall performance of blended yarn is the best. Compared with the untreated hemp-based ternary blended yarns, the hairiness of blended yarn is significantly less (3.65 ends/m, compared to 12.23 ends/m), and the irregularity of yarn is lower (27.33% and 27.70%, respectively), yarn quality improved considerably. In addition, the resulting hemp yarn showed antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.