Regenerated Protein Fibres
Introduction
• A group of fibres which were first developed in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, actually produced in the mid-twentieth century
but then rapidly forgotten and only returned to the market in the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
• Regenerated protein fibres, sometimes called azlons, are man-made fibres
produced from either animal or vegetable nonfibrous proteins which have
been reconfigured to take up a fibrous form to emulate the natural protein
fibres wool or silk.
• They are defined in the USA Textile Fiber Products Identification Act (1958)
as manufactured fibres ‘in which the fiber-forming substance is composed
of any regenerated, naturally occurring proteins’
Three generations of these regenerated
protein fibres
• The first were developed at the turn of the nineteenth and in the
early twentieth centuries, the second in the mid-twentieth century
and the third in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
• Each generation was developed in response to contemporaneous
economic and social factors and also depending on the available
technology
First and Second Generation
• Protein sources explored included milk casein, gelatine, blood, egg
albumen and vegetable albumen.
• Interest in these fibres seemed to have died away until the mid-
1930s when the opposing forces of surplus (such as excess milk by-
products) and actual or perceived lack of natural fibre (in the form of
threatened wool imports and increased military demand)
• Military requirements forced to search for alternative including
blood, castor oil seeds, collagen, egg white, chicken feathers, fsh albumen,
gelatine, hair, hemp seed, hooves, horn, milk casein, soya beans, sunflower
seeds, peanuts, corn (maize) zein as well as silk and wool waste to blend
with.
5 Main Production stages
• Separation of the protein
• Solubilisation
• Extrusion
• Insolubilisation
• Washing, cutting and further production processes
Third Generation fibre
• Interest revived due to innovations in biotechnology, the existence
of compatible synthetics and the demand for fibres to have a reduced
ecological footprint.
• Regenerated protein fibres with different structures and different
properties are being developed, often with a stress on imitating silk
rather than wool
• Interest is focusing primarily on milk and soya beans as protein sources
• Bio-engineering and a wet spinning process are being used to produce
the new generation of milk fibres.
Reference
• M.M. Brooks, 7 - Regenerated protein fibres: a preliminary review,
Editor(s): S.J. Eichhorn, J.W.S. Hearle, M. Jaffe, T. Kikutani, in
Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles, Handbook of Textile Fibre
Structure, Woodhead Publishing, Volume 2, 2009, Pages 234-265,
ISBN 9781845697303
