Abstract

Sizing is a procedure where the film forming polymer is used to offer temporary protection to the warp yarns from abrasive and other types of stresses generated on the weaving machine in order to bring down the warp breakages. Moringa oleifera seed kernel contains starch with other ingredient such as oil, protein etc. In this paper we are concerned in sizing warp yarn by starch extracted from Moringa oleifera seed kernel and blended with maize to produce effective sizing chemical. Morninga seed starch is extracted and characterized and yarn is sized using the starch extracted. The performance properties tested after sizing are yarn strength and elongation test, end breakage test on loom, size removal test, size take percentage, abrasion resistance test and finally cost comparison was done. Yarn tensile strength and elongation test has been done using single and double end yarn strength tester machine. From the test result we found strength regain 35.91%, size take up 7.11% and loss of elongation 31.53% respectively. The loom efficiency was calculated after having end breakage test and it was found to be 95.8%. Size removal test was done using iodine drop test after desizing fabric using enzymatic desizing and the result shows brown color which means starches are completely removed from the fabric and abrasion resistance test revealed the total number of abrasive cycles to be around 1400 which is similar to result obtained using cassava and potato starch in previous studies . From cost comparison with sizing chemical that kombolcha textile Share Company® is using currently, we found that the company can save around 4, 914,561.6 birr per year if it uses starch extracted from Moringa oleifera seed kernel.

Keywords: Moringa oleifera; MLR; Loom efficiency; Tensile strength; Elongation; Abrasion resistance; Fabric; Yarn