# data[].attributes.body
Converting wood into soft fibers to make fabric is a chemical process. The original ingredient is wood chips. Wood chips is usually from trees like spruce or pine and sometimes bamboo pith.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Credit: Janko Ferlic

As a material wood has many uses, but did you know that it can be used to make fibres for clothing and other textiles? Perhaps surprisingly, it is the raw material of some well known man-made fibres.

Regenerated fibres are man-made, or synthetic, fibres created from natural polymers. These polymers are broken down by chemical processes and then reformed into fibres that can be spun and woven to produce fabric.

These fibres are bio-based and fall into two categories, depending on their origin. Regenerated protein fibres originate from plant or animal proteins, such as corn, soy and milk, while regenerated cellulose fibres are made from cellulose extracted from wood.

Although you may not have heard of regenerated cellulose fibres, you have probably worn clothes made of them and will have heard of some of the product and trademark names. Regenerated cellulose fibres were first developed in France in the late 1800s. In the 1920s the textile industry started calling these fibres "rayon". Other forms of rayon in use today include lyocell, modal and viscose.

Cellulose is an important structural component of cell walls in green plants. It is a major component of many plant fibres that are used make clothes and textiles, such as cotton, hemp and flax. But wood isn't a soft fibre like cotton.

Turning wood into soft fibres that can be woven to make fabrics is a chemically intensive process. The starting point is wood chip - commonly used woods include spruce, pine and beech - or bamboo pith.

Chemicals are used to digest these raw materials and produce a cellulose pulp. The pulp is then further chemically processed, pressed, dried and shredded to produce a dry cellulose compound. This is dissolved to create a solution and then forced through a spinneret - a device that resembles a shower head - to produce strands. These strands are then drawn - stretched - to produce long straight fibres. After washing, these fibres are ready to be made into clothes and textiles.

Although they are bio-based, regenerated cellulose fibres are not necessarily environmentally friendly, because of the chemically intensive production process. In the past the industry has been accused of damaging the health of workers making the fibres and leaking toxic chemicals into the environment.

Some producers of regenerated cellulose fibres now run what is known as a "closed-loop" manufacturing process. This means that the vast majority of the chemicals are collected, recycled and reused. Through the use of such closed-loop processes, different chemicals, technological advances and more responsible disposing of chemicals that cannot be reused, manufacturers hope to reduce the environmental impact of regenerated cellulose fibre production and ensure its future.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a material wood has many uses, but did you know that it can be used to make fibres for clothing and other textiles? Perhaps surprisingly, it is the raw material of some well known man-made fibres. Regenerated fibres are man-made, or synthetic, fibres created from natural polymers.

# data[].attributes.body
Rayon's originally comes from wood.  The wood is from a couple types of trees. Such as eucalyptus, spruce, and pine trees. Though, it can also come from other things like cotton or bamboo.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rayon is a manufactured regenerated cellulosic fiber derived from wood pulp. Rayon is typically made of wood from eucalyptus, spruce, and pine trees, but can also be made from cotton or bamboo.

Typical rayon produced in the US is called rayon or viscose rayon. Some imported rayon is labeled as viscose. Rayon made using the cuprammonium process can be labeled cupra, cupro, or cupra rayon under the trade name Bemberg.

Rayon was the first manufactured fiber, developed in the late 19 th century and commercially produced in the US starting in 1910. It was originally marketed as artificial silk due to its softness, nice drape, and luster. It quickly rose in popularity because its price point was significantly lower than silk and cotton.

According to the European Man-Made Fibres Association (CIRFS), in 2016 manufactured cellulosic made up 6.6% of the global market, roughly 5.3 million metric tons. The Textile Exchange estimated that viscose made up 91% of cellulosic production, only 29% of which was sourced sustainably. (Followed by lyocell at 6% and modal at 3%.)

Rayon can have significant negative impacts on people, the environment, and biodiversity along its lifecycle. The wood pulp used to make rayon can be sustainably harvested, but often it isn't. According to Canopy Planet, roughly a third come from ancient and endangered forests.

There are multiple ways to produce rayon. The most common is the viscose process, which uses toxic chemicals to break down the wood pulp and turn it into a fiber. These chemicals are dangerous for workers. and often aren't recovered or recycled by production facilities, winding up in our air and waterways.

Rayon fabrics like Bamboo and Cupro (made from a bi-product of the cotton plant, cotton linters) are often incorrectly marketed as sustainable because the raw material is sustainably harvested (bamboo grows quickly without chemicals and a lot of water, and cotton linters are often called "waste" from cotton production despite having their own market). The production of fabric from these materials can be done in a more sustainable manner, but usually it still goes through the chemical-intensive and polluting viscose process- so be wary and really vet your sources. (Cuprammonium rayon is no longer made in the US because its producers could not meet air- and water-quality requirements.) See
Sustainability Considerations Rayon production contributes to the deforestation of ancient and endangered forests

The logging of these forests can have a negative impact on entire ecosystems. It can threaten endangered and protected species often found in these forests.

Deforestation is destroying people's livelihoods. Indigenous people and local communities are deprived of access to traditional land uses, with a diverse range of impacts from food security to communities' safety, conflicts or cultural disruptions. According to the World Bank, 25% of the global population - 1.6 billion people - depends on forests for their survival and livelihood.

Chemicals used for pest control, fertilization, and waste/emissions from preparing logs, debarking and transport can degrade soil and water quality.

According to CanopyPlanet :

More than 150 million trees are logged every year and turned into cellulosic fabric - if placed end to end those trees would circle the earth 7 times

Between 2013 and 2020, it is expected that the number of trees being logged every year and turned into fabric such as viscose will have doubled.

Dissolving-pulp (the base material for rayon/viscose) wastes approximately 70% of the tree and is a chemically intensive manufacturing process¹

Less than 20 percent of the world's ancient forests remain in intact tracts large enough to maintain biological diversity.

Forests in Indonesia, Canada's Boreal and temperate rainforests and the Amazon are being logged for next season's fashion and apparel.

Chemically intensive & polluting to air and water

Pulp production and the breaking down of pulp to turn it into a fiber often requires large quantities of acid and toxic chemicals that pollute air and water. Clothing made from rayon often uses large quantities of water, toxic dyes, and finishing chemicals.

Air emissions can include sulfur, nitrous oxides, carbon disulfide, and hydrogen sulfide. Chlorine compounds used during the bleaching process may be released to the atmosphere and VOCs are emitted to the atmosphere from wood chips stored outdoors.

Water emissions can include nitrates, phosphates, iron, zinc, oil, grease, and is often low in dissolved oxygen which endangers aquatic life. Effluent from the bleach plant, where bleaching chemicals containing chlorine are used, contains AOX and chlorate, which have toxic effects in the aquatic environment. Chlorine bleaching may also result in dioxins emissions, which are classified as persistent organic pollutants, highly toxic to humans and the environment.

Even if the process is "carbon neutral" (trees growing cycle absorbs as much CO2 as is lost when cut down), air and water pollution is still an issue.

The production of rayon uses and wastes copious amounts of water.
High energy consumption

Fiber production is an energy intensive process. Energy from non-renewable sources contributes to CO2 emissions and climate change.
Not yet closed-loop or circular

Currently, rayon is rarely recycled.
Doesn't always biodegrade

While rayon is biodegradable, it doesn't biodegrade in current landfills. It can biodegrade in the ground, but this would also release any toxins from rayon fiber production, fabric production, dyeing, processing, and washing into the ground and is not recommended.
High-impact cleaning and customer care

Rayon becomes delicate when wet and often requires dry cleaning. Dry cleaning often uses solvents that can have detrimental impact on the environment.
Rayon production is dangerous for workers

Workers can be seriously harmed by the chemicals used to make most rayon. Carbon disulfide in particular can cause reproductive harm and damage to the nervous system (carbon-disulfide-based viscose is no longer made within the U.S.). Sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, can cause corrosion and chemical burns to workers who handle it frequently and without protection.

Also, work accidents can occur from explosions or leakages in chemical storage areas.

According to Paul D. Blanc, who teaches occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and wrote Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon, throughout most of the 20th century, viscose rayon manufacturing was inextricably linked to widespread, severe and often lethal illness among those employed in making it. For workers in viscose rayon factories, poisoning caused insanity, nerve damage, Parkinson's disease, and increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

It is often impossible to know where raw plant material used to make rayon comes from or to measure the impact of harvesting it.
More Sustainable Options
If you are looking for more sustainable rayon, it is important to look for sustainably forested, low-chemical, closed-loop producers with certifications like FSC, EU Ecolabel, and OekoTex 100.

Better alternatives to conventional rayon include:
How It's Made
The Water Footprint Network has written a complete and thorough description of the production of viscose fibers and related sustainability issues in the 2017 report "Viscose fibres production: An assessment of sustainability issues."
Available Standards & Certifications
Forest Stewardship Council | FSC is a global, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of responsible forest management worldwide. FSC certification ensures that products come from responsibly managed forests that provide environmental, social and economic benefits. The FSC Principles and Criteria provide a foundation for all forest management standards globally, including the FSC US National Standard (v1.0) that guides forest management certification in the U.S. FSC has developed a set of 10 principles and 57 Criteria that apply to FSC-certified forests around the world. The 10 principles are:

1. The Organization shall comply with all applicable laws, regulations and nationally-ratified international treaties, conventions and agreements.

2. The Organization shall maintain or enhance the social and economic wellbeing of workers.

3. The Organization shall identify and uphold Indigenous Peoples' legal and customary rights of ownership, use and management of land, territories and resources affected by management activities.

4. The Organization shall contribute to maintaining or enhancing the social and economic wellbeing of local communities.

5. The Organization shall efficiently manage the range of multiple products and services of the Management Unit to maintain or enhance long term economic viability and the range of environmental and social benefits.

6. The Organization shall maintain, conserve and/or restore ecosystem services and environmental values of the Management Unit, and shall avoid, repair or mitigate negative environmental impacts.

7. The Organization shall have a management plan consistent with its policies and objectives and proportionate to scale, intensity and risks of its management activities. The management plan shall be implemented and kept up to date based on monitoring information in order to promote adaptive management. The associated planning and procedural documentation shall be sufficient to guide staff, inform affected stakeholders and interested stakeholders and to justify management decisions.

8. The Organization shall demonstrate that, progress towards achieving the management objectives, the impacts of management activities and the condition of the Management Unit, are monitored and evaluated proportionate to the scale, intensity and risk of management activities, in order to implement adaptive management. The Organization shall maintain and/or enhance the High Conservation Values in the Management Unit through applying the precautionary approach.

9. Management activities conducted by or for The Organization for the Management Unit shall be selected and implemented consistent with The Organization's economic, environmental and social policies and objectives and in compliance with the Principles and Criteria collectively.

Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) | PEFC is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting Sustainable Forest Management through independent third-party certification. It is an umbrella organization. National certification systems that have developed standards in line with PEFC requirements can apply for endorsement to gain access to global recognition and market access through PEFC International. PEFC is currently the world's largest forest certification system with more than 300 million hectares of certified forests. PEFC has standards for Sustainable Forest Management which cover all types of forests, group forest management certification schemes and chain of custody certification which is a mechanism for tracking certified material from the forest to the final product to ensure that the wood, wood fiber or non-wood forest produce contained in the product or product line can be traced back to certified forests. While PEFC is preferred by fiber producers, it is less respected than FSC certification by non-profits.

CanopyStyle Verification Audit | The CanopyStyle Audits are the first, third-party audits

of global viscose and rayon producers to assess the risk of whether they source from endangered forests and/or from socially controversial fiber. Conducted by The Rainforest Alliance, the CanopyStyle Audits were developed by Canopy and approved by the CanopyStyle Leaders for Forest Conservation. Audit findings help both fashion brands and viscose producers see the current level of risk of their materials originating from ancient and endangered forests, be it Indonesia's high-carbon peatland rainforests, the Amazon, or Canada's Boreal forests. This comprehensive verification process is a major step toward transforming the environ- mental footprint of the rayon-viscose supply chain.

EU Ecolabel | EU Ecolabel is a voluntary scheme for product certification including cellulose fibers (standard viscose, modal and lyocell) managed by the European Commission. Only products with a market in the European Economic Area can be certified (even if produced elsewhere in the world).

The EU Ecolabel criteria for textile products aim to promote textile products which are:

Sourced from more sustainable forms of agriculture and forestry;

Manufactured using resources and energy more efficiently;

Manufactured using cleaner, less polluting processes;

Manufactured using less hazardous substances and

Designed and specified to be of high quality and durable.

The EU Ecolabel includes all stages of viscose production and focuses on the aspects with the highest environmental impact at each stage of production. For cellulosic fibres, the criteria set minimum content levels of sustainable/legal wood (25% of FSC, PEFC or equivalent certification); maximum loads of the most relevant pollutants for emissions to air and water per unit of product in the industrial phases; does not allow the application of elemental chlorine in bleaching; and requires that a minimum of 50 % of the pulp used to manufacture fibres is purchased from dissolving pulp mills that recover value from their spent process liquors either by generating on-site electricity and steam or manufacturing chemical co-products.

Corporate social responsibility - according to International Labour Organisation (ILO) Core Labour Standards - is only required for cut/make/trim production sites.

Higg Materials sustainability Index (msi) | The Higg MSI is a scoring system for materials production based on Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) analysis and data inputs from producers who voluntarily provide data complemented, when possible, with available data from research. It is an initiative of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC). For viscose all phases of raw materials production are included. The data available is from Lenzing; Aditya Birla has also provided data which are currently being assessed for data quality. Users of the tool not only have access to the scoring; they also may access metadata.

The tool provides benchmarks for each type of material/fiber. The benchmark relates to how a given material compares to other materials. Currently, SAC members and other organizations with full access to the MSI can access LCIA results, or midpoints, for all production process. SAC has plans in place for such information to be publically available to any user. Scoring results can be communicated outside an organization under specific Terms of Use.

USDA Cerified BioPreferred® Products | As consumers consider purchasing options with sustainable attributes, USDA wants to make it easy for consumers to identify biobased products. The USDA Certified Biobased Product label, displayed on a product certified by USDA, is designed to provide useful information to consumers about the biobased content of the product. A business with a biobased product that meets USDA criteria may apply for certification, allowing them to display the USDA Certified Biobased Product label on the product. This label assures a consumer that the product contains a verified amount of renewable biological ingredients (referred to as biobased content). Consumers can trust the label to mean what it says because manufacturer's claims concerning the biobased content are third-party certified and strictly monitored by USDA.

OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 | A worldwide consistent, independent testing and certification system for raw, semi-finished, and finished textile products at all processing levels, as well as accessory materials used. The tests for harmful substances cover:

legally banned and controlled substances

chemicals known to be harmful to the health (but not yet legally controlled)

parameters for health protection

Taken in their entirety, the requirements go far beyond existing national legislation.
Organizations & Working Groups
Canopy Planet's CanopyStyle Prgram | Canopy is a non-profit environmental organization focused on the protection of the world's endangered forests with a specific focus on the pulp industry for viscose and paper production. Since 2012, Canopy has been working closely with viscose producers, designers and brands to ensure sustainable wood sourcing for viscose production under the CanopyStyle campaign. As of August 2018:

160 brands and designers had committed to eliminate endangered forests from their fabrics.

12 viscose producers have implemented endangered forest sourcing policies (representing 80% of the global market)

A large part of Canopy's work involves supporting brands to make the most informed and sustainable sourcing decisions possible. To that end they developed the four tools:

1. The Hot Button Issue Report: In this report, Canopy ranks producers across 24 sustainability criteria using color coding - 'green shirts' indicate top performers and those with the most room to improve are indicated by 'red shirt' rankings. It is used as a tool to motivate viscose producers to assess and improve their performance.

2. The CanopyStyle Audit: Read about it in Standards and Certifications above.

3. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of Man-made Cellulosic Fibers: Commissioned by Stella McCartney and conducted by LCA specialists SCS Global, this study assessed ten different global sourcing scenarios - including eucalyptus plantations, bamboo, cotton-linters, flax fiber and recycled clothing. It evaluated these scenarios across a broad range of environmental impacts, including those related to terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, global climate, chemical use, species stress and human health. In a sign of the heightened market interest in these innovative new fibers, a technical webinar to further contextualize the study's findings was attended by approximately 100 brands.

4. The CanopyStyle Guide: A book providing clarity and information on implementation requirements for brands, textile producers, and fiber manufacturers that have adopted CanopyStyle policies. Detailed within it is an environmental hierarchy of fibres, reinforcing procurement decisions consistent with the Life Cycle Analysis.

Suggested Reading
Common Objective's "Fiber Briefing: Viscose"

"Fashion Fibers: Designing for Sustainability" By Annie Gullingsrud.

"Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon" By Paul David Blanc

"Eucalyptus fiber by any other name" By O Ecotextiles
Reports & Studies Dirty Fashion: On Track For Transformation Report from Changing Markets Foundation, July 2018
"Viscose fibres production: An assessment of sustainability issues" Report from The Water Footprint Network, 2017

Life Cycle Assessment On Cotton And Viscose Fibres For Textile Production By Janka Dibdiakova, Volkmar Timmermann, Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute (NFLI) March 2014

Global Viscose Staple Fiber Market Report, History and Forecast 2013-2025, Breakdown Data by Manufacturers, Key Regions, Types and Application. QYR Chemical & Material Research Center
Other Resources
The Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibers | This Fiber Benchmark compares the environmental impact of the most commonly used fibers in the garment industry, supporting you to shift to more sustainable alternatives.
Bibliography

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rayon (Viscose) | Materials Index | CFDA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CFDA A-Z Materials Index This A-Z directory is designed as an informational tool, focused on fiber knowledge with descriptions. This index will be expanded upon and continuously updated. For more sustainable fashion resources, click here to visit CFDA Sustainability Resources.

# data[].attributes.headline
Science Synthetic Material Rayon Project                 What is Rayon From?  

# data[].attributes.subject
Science Synthetic Material Rayon Project                 What is Rayon From?  

# data[].attributes.body
-8th Grade
-Period 6
-Mrs. Bavaro
-Science Synthetic Material Rayon Project

# data[].attributes.body
Wood Pulp is created by wood chips and can vary in multiple processes. For example, in the mechanical process, the chips are first grinded. Then, they heated and are put into a machine with rotating metal discs. After, they are split into smaller chunks, eventually individual cellulose fibers. Lastly, they are blended up with water

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pulp is made from breaking down the fibrous part of plants, primarily trees, and refers to the main ingredient in the papermaking process. Pulp is used in consumer products like paper, paper cups, tissue and cardboard - and in specialty products as diverse as LCD screens, home décor, shoes and handbags, food casings and filters.

What is Pulp?

Pulp made from trees (wood fiber) is the most common source of fiber for papermaking. During the papermaking process, pulp is made from breaking down either wood chips or paper recovered for recycling. There are many different methods of producing wood pulp depending on type of paper and the characteristics needed in the final paper product. In general, there are two main methods of separating fibers from wood to produce pulp; one using chemicals and one using mechanical grinding.

Chemical Pulp:Pulp obtained by digestion or cooking of wood with solutions of various chemicals. The paper produced from this pulp results in strong products that are unlikely to discolor. The principal chemical processes used are the sulfate (kraft), sulfite, and soda processes. Chemical pulps are used to make shipping containers, paper bags, printing and writing papers, and other product categories that requiring strength. The kraft pulping process is the most common process used. The process creates a strong fiber where the active cooking agent is a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide. The term "kraft" is commonly used interchangeably with "sulfate" and is derived from a German word which means "strong." Kraft pulps are usually broken down into two types; hardwood kraft pulps (made from trees with leaves) and softwood kraft pulps (made from trees with needles).

Dissolving Pulp: A special grade of chemical pulp usually made from wood for use in the manufacture of regenerated or cellulose derivatives such as acetate, which is used in film, satiny fabrics, some eyeglass frames and from 1949 to 1963, Lego bricks.

Fluff Pulp: Pulp made during a chemical, mechanical or combination chemical/mechanical process, usually bleached, used as an absorbent medium in disposable diapers, bed pads and hygienic personal products. Also known as "fluffing" or "comminution" pulp.

Mechanical Pulp: Any wood pulp manufactured wholly or in part by a mechanical process, including stone-ground wood and chip mechanical pulp. Mechanical pulp has a greater yield than chemical pulping due to a high residual lignin or glue content left in the pulp following pulping. The downside is paper created from this pulping process is weaker and discolors easily when exposed to light. Uses include newsprint printing papers, specialty papers, tissue, toweling and paperboard.

Recovered Paper Pulp: Pulp created from paper that was recovered for recycling. Sources of recovered pulp include newspapers, magazines, catalogs, office papers, cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, cereal boxes. In its simplest form recovered pulp is made by combining the recovered paper with water in a pulper that acts as a blender to separate and mix the fibers into a slurry, much like the consistency of cottage cheese. Depending on the desired final product, the recovered paper may be further processed to remove inks, coatings, sizing adhesives or other impurities (a process called de-inking). Recovered paper pulp can be used to produce new products made entirely of recovered content or from a blend of recovered paper pulp and pulp from wood chips.

Different pulp-producing processes produce different types of paper products. However, in the paper production process, different pulps are often combined like a recipe to create products with specific properties. For instance, high quality printing and writing grade papers such as copy and magazine paper typically use a larger percentage of bleached Kraft pulp with some lesser percentage of mechanical and recovered paper pulp.
What Kinds of Products are Made from Pulp?

Pulp is the base to almost all paper products. The paper your grocery ad is printed on, the packaging your cereal or medicine comes in, and the paper towels you use in the kitchen all started as wood pulp.

Fluff pulp is used in absorbent and personal care items like diapers, feminine hygiene and adult incontinence products.Dissolving pulp can be dissolved in a solvent and spun into textile fibers like rayon or Lyocell; chemically reacted to be formed into fibers or films; or used as a thickener for other products.

How is Wood Pulp Made?

There several ways to process wood chips into pulp. In chemical pulping, wood chips (from trees) are cooked using a chemical process in essentially a pressure cooker known as a digester. The wood fiber is separated into cellulose fibers, lignin (the wood glue that holds the tree together) and other substances such as sugars. Cellulose is an essential building block in the cell walls of trees and plants, helping to make them strong. The pulp is then washed to clean it and separate it from other substances such as lignin. After the pulp is washed, it is screened for further cleaning. The end product is a slurry that will be washed and bleached to standard brightness depending on its final end-use.

Mechanical pulping differs from chemical pulping in that pulp is created through the grinding of wood chips instead of cooking them. Wood chips are heated and fed into a machine that consists of two metal discs that rotate. The chips are broken up into smaller chunks and then into individual fibers as they are ground by the discs. They are blended with water to make a slurry, similar to chemical pulp and then run through the same process to dry it out.

For mills using paper recovered for recycling as raw material, pulp is made by mixing the recycled materials with water in what resembles a large blender called a repulper. In the repulper, the pulp is separated to create individual fibers in a slurry. From there, the pulp is washed and screened for further cleaning.

The slurry is then run through a variety of presses and heaters to remove much of the water. The pulp will either be sold to different facility or processed into a product on site.

Wood pulp is naturally light brown in color. Depending on the type of paper the pulp with will be used to produce, it may go through a bleaching process. Pulps used to make white copy paper, for example will be bleached to achieve the desired brightness, while pulps used to make paper grocery bags are unbleached.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pulp is made from breaking down the fibrous part of plants, primarily trees, and refers to the main ingredient in the papermaking process. Pulp is used in consumer products like paper, paper cups, tissue and cardboard - and in specialty products as diverse as LCD screens, home décor, shoes and handbags, food casings and filters.

# data[].attributes.body
Purified cellulose fibers is created after chemical process, being squeezed and pushed and dipped in multiple chemicals, and more, which is the process into creating the purified cellulose fibers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was most recently revised and updated by

Rayon, artificial textile material composed of regenerated and purified cellulose derived from plant sources. Developed in the late 19th century as a substitute for silk, rayon was the first man-made fibre.

Rayon is described as a regenerated fibre because the cellulose, obtained from soft woods or from the short fibres (linters) that adhere to cottonseeds, is converted to a liquid compound, squeezed through tiny holes in a device called a spinnerette, and then converted back to cellulose in the form of fibre. The first practical steps toward producing such a fibre were represented by attempts to work with the highly flammable compound nitrocellulose, produced by treating cotton cellulose with nitric acid. In 1884 and 1885 in London, British chemist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan exhibited fibres made of nitrocellulose that had been treated with chemicals in order to change the material back to nonflammable cellulose. Swan did not follow up the demonstrations of his invention; thus, the development of rayon as a practical fibre really began in France, with the work of industrial chemist Hilaire Bernigaud, comte de Chardonnet, who is frequently called the father of the rayon industry. In 1889 Chardonnet exhibited fibres made by squeezing a nitrocellulose solution through spinnerettes, hardening the emerging jets in warm air, and then reconverting them to cellulose by chemical treatment. Manufacture of " Chardonnet silk," an early type of rayon and the first commercially produced man-made fibre, began in 1891 at a factory in Besançon.

Although Chardonnet's process was simple and involved a minimum of waste, it was slow, expensive, and potentially dangerous. In 1890 another French chemist, Louis-Henri Despeissis, patented a process for making fibres from cuprammonium rayon. This material was based on the Swiss chemist Matthias Eduard Schweizer's discovery in 1857 that cellulose could be dissolved in a solution of copper salts and ammonia and, after extrusion, be regenerated in a coagulating bath. In 1908 the German textile firm J.-P. Bemberg began to produce cuprammonium rayon as Bemberg silk.

A third type of cellulose-and the type most commonly made today-was produced in 1891 from a syrupy, yellow, sulfurous-smelling liquid that three British chemists-Charles F. Cross, Edward J. Bevan, and Clayton Beadle-discovered by dissolving cellulose xanthate in dilute sodium hydroxide. By 1905 the British silk firm Samuel Courtauld & Company was producing this fibre, which became known as viscose rayon (or simply viscose). In 1911 the American Viscose Corporation began production in the United States.

Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today

Modern manufacture of viscose rayon has not changed in its essentials. Purified cellulose is first treated with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). After the alkali cellulose has aged, carbon disulfide is added to form cellulose xanthate, which is dissolved in sodium hydroxide. This viscous solution (viscose) is forced through spinnerettes. Emerging from the holes, the jets enter a coagulating bath of acids and salts in which they are reconverted to cellulose and coagulated to form a solid filament. The filament may be manipulated and modified during the manufacturing process to control lustre, strength, elongation, filament size, and cross section as demanded.

Rayon has many properties similar to cotton and can also be made to resemble silk. Readily penetrated by water, the fibre swells and loses strength when wet. It can be washed in mild alkaline solutions but loses strength if subjected to harsh alkalies. Common dry-cleaning solvents are not harmful. In apparel, rayon is used alone or in blends with other fibres in applications where cotton is normally used. High-strength rayon, produced by drawing (stretching) the filaments during manufacture to induce crystallization of the cellulose polymers, is made into tire cord for use in automobile tires. Rayon is also blended with wood pulp in papermaking.

Rayon remains an important fibre, although production has declined in industrial countries because of environmental concerns connected with the release of carbon disulfide into the air and salt by-products into streams. Such concerns have led to the development of new types of rayon such as lyocell. Lyocell is produced by dissolving wood cellulose in a nontoxic amine oxide solvent, which is washed from the regenerated fibres and recovered for reuse.

William L. Hosch, Associate Editor.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

major industrial polymers: Rayon

Rayon is a generic term, coined in 1924, for artificial textile material composed of reconstituted, regenerated, and purified cellulose derived from plant sources. Developed in the late 19th century as a substitute for silk, this first semi-synthetic fibre is sometimes misnamed "artificial silk."...

history of technology: Synthetic fibres

...textiles had been made from rayon, a silklike material produced by extruding a solution of nitrocellulose in acetic acid into a coagulating bath of alcohol, and various other cellulosic materials were used in this way. But later research, exploiting the polymerization techniques being used in solid plastics, culminated in the...

For instance, rayon and acetate, two of the first man-made fibres ever to be produced, are made of the same cellulose polymers that make up cotton, hemp, flax, and the structural fibres of wood. In the case of rayon and acetate, however, the cellulose is acquired in...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rayon, artificial textile material composed of regenerated and purified cellulose derived from plant sources. Developed in the late 19th century as a substitute for silk, rayon was the first man-made fibre. Rayon is described as a regenerated fibre because the cellulose, obtained from soft woods or

# data[].attributes.body
My synthetic Material is Rayon. It is the first man-made fiber and is not 100% synthetic. It is derived from purified cellulose fibers. It is cheap and an alternative to silk.