Colombia is a tropical South American country well known for its wide biodiversity. It is rich in renewable natural fibers as Fique and besides, is the only high scale Fique producer around the world. Fique is normally used for ropes and sacks production for agroindustrial product exportation due to its excellent properties as high tensile strength and aspect ratio. However, because of its coarse and rough touch there has not been any development around the fiber for other uses or applications in higher value-added textile products. The main reason is its high content of lignin, pectin and hemicelluloses, which make it unable to spin in yarns for garment fabric production. In this work fique “cottonization” process by a chemical treatment was evaluated to isolate its constituted fibers to obtain cotton-like properties. The cottonized fibers were mixed with cotton and polyester in a traditional spinning process. Then, the yarn was woven and knitted to produce fabrics that were subjected to different laundry processes and sample garments were constructed. In consecuence, these results and the technological evolution around the fiber would positively impact the almost 80,000 poor farmer families that get their incomes from Fique and can contribute sustainably to the development of the natural fiber industry.

Development of novelty Fique textile fabrics for clothing applications

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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