Formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, ASTM International has been working on a standard test, for cotton research laboratories, cotton merchants and other regulatory bodies.
Headquartered in Pennsylvania, ASTM develops and publishes technical standards for different industries, aiming towards enhanced performance and safety over a wide range of products, materials, systems and services.
The specific test method – WK75782 – focuses on cotton fibres from a loose and chemically untreated sample, taken before harvest, during ginning, during mill processing or unravelled from raw yarn or fabric.
The standard can also be applied in the forensic examination of textiles for quality assurance and identification purposes, since it is applicable to unravelled fibre or yarn in a textile, as well.
Stuart Gordon, team leader at CSIRO Agriculture and Food, commented, “The cross-sectional properties of cotton fibres are important across the cotton supply chain from breeding through to textile production and fabric appearance.”
He also added, “A standard such as this that provides direct and quick assessment of a cotton fibre sample’s properties has been a long-held ambition of the international cotton industry.”
As per the standards organisation, which develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standard for a wide range of materials, products, systems and services, the introduction of this standard is in direct relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #12, i.e., responsible consumption and production.
