“History, Invention and Development of Cotton Gin” Presented by Rajeev Rajbhandari Plant and Soil Sciences Department Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute Texas Tech University

Introduction Cotton was used for textile products several centuries before recorded in history. Depending on the species, the cotton boll has hairy fibers of two kinds: long fibers called lint and short fibers strongly attached to seed coat called fuzz. During production, the fibers of the boll are separated from the seeds and spun into yarn. Then yarn gets woven or knit into fabric.

Fig 1: Fiber attached with seed Fig 2: Lint Fig 3: Fuzz

Introduction This cotton fiber was pulled off the seed either by hand or by using churkha gin. Hand ginning Churkha gin

History Churkha gin is a small hand powered machine with two hardwood pinch rollers that gripped the fiber and pulled it away from the seed. The English settled at Jamestown in the early 1600’s to determine if the crop would grow in the colony. England had technology to weave cotton wool blends but needed a supply of cotton.

History The colonist grew cotton and started to export to England but not allowed to make cotton goods. But during Revolutionary War textile imports was suddenly stopped. Cotton acreage expanded rapidly to meet the domestic needs.

Problems The upland cottons that grew best in the South would not gin satisfactorily on the Churkha gin because the fiber was attached to the seed strongly. Hence, it was picked from the seed by hand; this process, however was so slow. Only 1lb of lint was harvested in a day.

Invention Eli Whitney who observed the slow and hard process invented cotton gin. On March 14, 1794 he received a patent on a ginning machine. His gin used either saws or metal spikes driven into a wooden cylinder in concentric rows. The spikes or saws passed through narrow slots to remove cotton fiber from the seed one batch at a time.

Invention Fig: Whitney cotton gin

Invention Fig: Whitney cotton gin

Operation To operate the gin, the ginner placed a few handfuls of seed cotton in the machine and then turned the cylinder by hand. The gin then removed the fibers from the seed and brushed them into a pile behind the machine. The gin was then stopped, the seeds were removed, and the process was repeated.

Improvement Whitney gin was improved by Henry Ogden Holmes. In May 12, 1796, he received a patent on improved gin. Fig: Holmes gin

Improvement The Holmes gin used metal saws positioned on a shaft to replace Whitney’s concentric rows of spikes or saws. More importantly, the slots or “ribs” in the Holmes gin allowed the cleaned seeds to fall out the bottom, making ginning a continuous-flow process rather than a batch process

Advantage and rate of adoption The development of the saw-type cotton gin resulted in an immediate, dramatic increase in cotton production in the United States. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the Cotton Belt States were producing about 4 million bales annually more than half the world supply of cotton.

Problem Expanding acreage, however, brought a new problem. Workers could not pick the cotton from the stalks as carefully as before and picked more trash with the cotton.

The trash made the fiber less desirable to mills because it increased waste and the fiber did not spin as well. For a while, the trash was picked from the cotton by hand, then attempts were made to mechanically clean the cotton.

Development and need Holmes continuous-flow gin created an obvious need for continuous-flow mechanical feeders. The first successful gin feeder was developed by Alex Jones in In 1884, systems to handle bulk seed cotton came on the market and made it possible to feed several gin stands simultaneously.

Development process The first system conveyed seed cotton by pneumatic suction from wagons to a screen box that acted as a separator and fed a distributor. The conveying system and the mechanical feeder took much of the hand labor from ginning, and gins were soon powered primarily by mules or water wheels.

Development process In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, refinements in the gin stand and in equipment for cleaning, conveying, and packaging met the needs of plantation owners and allowed production to expand. As the cost of gins continued to increase because of the additional cleaning equipment needed for trashier cotton, commercial installations began to replace plantation gins.

Establishment of Research Program Because of these problems, the USDA established a cotton ginning research program in Engineers soon developed a seed cotton dryer that was rapidly put into use throughout the Cotton Belt.

Development process Following World War II, machines rapidly replaced hand harvesting. Mechanically harvested seed cotton contained even more foreign matter. Seed cotton cleaners and lint cleaners were developed to remove this foreign material. Because cotton cleans much easier when it is dry, gins quickly installed additional drying equipment in late 1950’s.

Development process Manufacturers greatly increased the capacity of individual gin stands in the 1950’s, and other components were assembled to produce high- volume ginning systems Typical modern gins are capable of drying, cleaning, ginning, and baling 30­60 bales/hour, but some gins can produce over 100 bales/hour. Modern gins also include the equipment to handle and temporarily store seed cotton and to collect and dispose of waste materials.

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