Abstract:

Physical characteristics of khimp (Leptadenia pyrotechnica) fibre have been studied and compared with those of the other natural fibres, such as cotton, jute, sun hemp and pineapple. The khimp fibre is lignocellulosic having high α-cellulose (75.26%), and low lignin (4.93%) and pentosan (5.15%) contents similar to sunnhemp, flax and pineapple leaf fibres. The degree of crystallinity (60.0%) of the fibre measured by X-ray diffractometry technique is lower than that of cotton but higher than that of lignocellulosic fibres like jute or sunnhemp. SEM study of the fibre shows that the fibrils are arranged longitudinally. Cross-sectional features studied by SEM reveal that the fibre is multicellular in nature, consisting of 5-6 cells in a fibre. The infrared spectra of khimp fibre show peaks in the regions as observed for lingocellulosic fibre like jute.